Ram’s official song is written in poetic form by Professor Pratip (อาจารย์ประทิป) and is based around our official tree which was designated by the crown princess (สมเด็จพระเทพฯ) in 1999 (๒๕๔๒). If you’re paying attention, you might wonder why the school received an official tree 11 years ago, but was founded 39 years ago … not sure what the exact answer is to that, but yes there was a period of 20-odd years where the school didn’t have an official tree.

สุพรรณิการ์
งามล้ำเลอค่าสง่าสม
พรรณไม้พระราชทานแสนชื่นชม
รามฯ นิยมคงอยู่คู่ขวัญรามฯ
สีเหลืองทองวาววามในความสว่าง
ให้ชาวรามฯ เอ่ยอ้างน่าเกรงขาม
สุพรรณิการ์สวยสดแสนงดงาม
ดุจชาวรามฯ คงความรู้คู่ความดี
จากแดนไทยใต้เหนือทุกที่ถิ่น
จบแล้วเจ้าโบยบินทุกถิ่นที่
ทนแห้งแล้วแรงราชั่วตาปี
ฝ้ายคำมีน้ำอดน้ำทนจริง
มุ่งสร้างสรรค์ชาติรังสรรค์สังคมสมชื่อรามฯ
ไม่เกรงขามแท้ท้อต่อทุกสิ่ง
ให้เลื่องลือชื่อรามฯ ความเป็นจริง
ไม่ละทิ้ง ไม่ระย่อต่อสิ่งใด
สุพรรณิการ์
งามล้ำเลอค่าสง่าใส
ซึ้งพระมหากรุณาอ่าอำไพ
สุพรรณิการ์สถิตในหัวใจรามฯ

So the official tree is สุพรรณิการ์ or ฝ้ายคำ as it is called in the North, which according to my dictionary is

[n.] (suphannikā) EN: Silk cotton tree ; Yellow cotton tree

or whatever else you might refer to this as

OK … so here’s the song again, with my notes after some lines. Many of the lines are just different ways to talk about how pretty the tree is using poetic language, I’ll leave those lines for you to figure out. The lines that I pulled out are the meat of the poem in that they compare the tree to the student body. If he ends up putting this poem on the exam, these are the lines that I will highlight.

สุพรรณิการ์
งามล้ำเลอค่าสง่าสม

Here’s he’s saying that the tree is very pretty

พรรณไม้พระราชทานแสนชื่นชม
รามฯ นิยมคงอยู่คู่ขวัญรามฯ

Basically this says that the tree is a gift of royal origin (พระราชทาน is Thai royal language for ให้) and it is much admired

สีเหลืองทองวาววามในความสว่าง
ให้ชาวรามฯ เอ่ยอ้างน่าเกรงขาม

One of the reasons that the tree was picked is that it flowers in yellow which is Ram’s official color. In these two lines he first references the color of the tree (I guess he assumes that we know it is Ram’s official color) and then says that the student body is in awe of it.

สุพรรณิการ์สวยสดแสนงดงาม
ดุจชาวรามฯ คงความรู้คู่ความดี
จากแดนไทยใต้เหนือทุกที่ถิ่น
จบแล้วเจ้าโบยบินทุกถิ่นที่

These two lines are quite important. First he says that the tree grows in in every part of the country (rare as the climates are varied), but what he means is that Ram draws students from all of the country (also rare for a Thai university). The next line is more direct in that he talks about the students being able to go to any part of the country and work upon graduating (being direct in this second line makes it even clearer that the first line was about students in addition to the tree).

ทนแห้งแล้วแรงราชั่วตาปี
ฝ้ายคำมีน้ำอดน้ำทนจริง

These two lines are also important, he’s saying that the tree is really durable and can handle any type of weather. He is talking directly about the tree, but comparing it to Ram’s student body who have a reputation for being able to stand up well in the workplace. In the second line, he refers to the tree by it’s northern name (ฝ้ายคำ) which in addition to being poetic, again makes reference to the student body coming from all over the country.

มุ่งสร้างสรรค์ชาติรังสรรค์สังคมสมชื่อรามฯ
ไม่เกรงขามแท้ท้อต่อทุกสิ่ง
ให้เลื่องลือชื่อรามฯ ความเป็นจริง
ไม่ละทิ้ง ไม่ระย่อต่อสิ่งใด
สุพรรณิการ์
งามล้ำเลอค่าสง่าใส
ซึ้งพระมหากรุณาอ่าอำไพ
สุพรรณิการ์สถิตในหัวใจรามฯ

• 12:00-14:00: Hanging out in *bucks reviewing old flashcards (lessons 1-18)
• 20:00-21:00: Home working on lessons 18, 19

So today I decided to stop bitching about the lack of grammar notes in L-Lingo and start looking things up in my books (Burmese for Beginners Book and CDs Combo by Gene Mesher which is excellent and also my school textbooks). L-Lingo is great in that it’s this interactive computer program which uses progressively difficult grammar to test you and that you can click on an word or phrase over-and-over until you are hearing it properly … but without the grammar notes it’s not complete (from what I understand Thai and Mandarin grammar notes are either out now or out soon).

I love how languages are like puzzles, one day a sentence baffles me and then the next day when I have all the pieces down the sentence finally makes sense. These ahh-ha! moments are one of the things that makes language learning so much fun, conversations which used to be gibberish slowly unfold to reveal themselves to us once we grok a certain percentage of the vocabulary and grammar. The reason that I wrote “certain percentage” and not “all” is that I don’t think that it’s necessary to understand every word that a person says in order to understand him. Just today I read an article in the New Yorker and encountered two English words that I didn’t know, but I still understood what was being said. The same thing happens to me with Thai when I’m in a situation where some sort of industry-specific vocabulary is being used.

• 14:00-14:45: New material from chapters 14, 15 (Burmese->English with the computer)
• 16:30-17:15: New material from chapters 14,15 (English->Burmese with paper flashcards), plus some older flashcards

Tuesday August 18th

Busy studying for exams today, only managed to put in

• 14:00-15:00: Review of paper flashcards

Wednesday August 19th

• 14:30- 15:20: Review of lesson 12, starting in on lessons 16, 17
• 16:55-:17:55: Review of lessons 16, 17, starting in on lessons 18, 19

The reason that I write down the time of day that I do my studying is to show that I’m breaking up the sessions as much as possible. Everything that I have read about memory says that the brain starts to slow down after about 45 minutes and that we are more effective if we do a quick burst of studying (45-60 min), then get up and stretch, do something physical, walk around, etc … and come back to it. Since I am also studying for some exams at Ram this weekend, I have been breaking up my Burmese study sessions with studying for my government and culture exams as they (probably?) tax the brain differently.

It’s becoming more obvious how grammar notes would help me out (they are working on it). I’m memorizing lots of sentences which I could readily use, however if I didn’t have a year of Burmese classes from my university, I would have no idea what was going on. Burmese (like Japanese) marks the subject, object and verb of the sentence with particles. While not really possible to translate into English (or Thai), they are essential when building sentences. The example sentences that they give just throw these particles out there, but don’t explain them. Additionally, while giving sentences which use negation (“The boss is not standing”), they don’t explain that “ma …. bhuu” needs to be wrapped around a verb in order to negate it.

One last final complaint is that they have started using the Burmese words for he, she, they, I, you and everyone without actually telling us what they were. Again, I was able to look them up in my textbooks, but have a feeling that people who are new at language study might be hung-up.

Thursday and Friday were holidays, which should have meant that I had more time than normal to work on this project, but I ended up teaching strange hours and running around doing stuff. It’s unfortunate that I don’t have an Android phone with which to test out the mobile version of L-Lingo, but I was able to get a lot of use out of their paper flash cards and MP3s. I probably only put in two hours on each day, but still feel like I made progress.

At the end of week one, I can comfortably recall the 60 words in lessons 1-10 (Burmese->English and English->Burmese) and have a good grasp on the 18 words in lessons 11, 12, 13 (all lessons have exactly 6 new words). Today I’ll start back in with new words, and also review old words. I’m starting to realized how important the audio recordings are for learning these words, and am starting to think that I’m going to have to get my teacher to record part of my textbook for me. Has anyone done much voice recording with the iPhone? Or should I buy a dedicated voice recorder?

• 12:45-13:45: Review of old material using paper flashcards
• 14:15-15:00: Review of old material using paper flashcards
• 15:30-16:00: Review of old material using paper flashcards
• 16:00-17:00: Three new sections (11, 12, 13)

OK, so I changed my approach a bit today and decided to focus on using the paper flashcards to work on getting the English -> Burmese down better.

Each section (chapter?) of the L-Lingo software introduces six new words, first individually and then in sentences which combine words from previous chapters. The words at taught via a series of online tools and also through the offline flashcards, textbook and mp3 files.

There are no grammar notes (BUT they are planning to roll them out very soon), but through the sentences you can guess at how Burmese grammar works. There is an upside to this in that it forces us to look at the sentences and figure out what is happening, however I have a feeling that people with no previous Burmese experience might be confused. Not so confused that they would be unable to memorize the sentences, but sufficiently confused that they wouldn’t be able to mix and match words to create their own. This probably is not a problem with the Thai version as Thai grammar is MUCH simpler and more plug-and-play.

After today, I feel much more confident with the 60 words from chapters 1-10 and ok with the 18 new words. I have a feeling that this will get easier as I get more comfortable with Burmese phonetics and am better able to come up with memory tools, however at present it’s still sinking in. As I’ve said before, one major feature that this program is missing is a tool which drills English->Burmese, however they are working on adding it in soon and the paper flashcards are a great way to deal in the meantime. Ohh, I found a way to copy and paste text too, so I might start using my electronic flashcard system too … I still haven’t gotten around to learning to type Burmese (yes, I know I should learn the keyboard at the same time I learn to write the letters, but I’m being lazy on this one).

• 12:30-13:30: Review of Ram textbooks
• 14:00-14:50: New material in L-Lingo
• 15:00-16:00: Review of old material in L-Lingo

OK, so it seems that i’m not hitting my goal of 4 hours per day … coming it at around 3 for the first two days. I feel like I hit a wall eventually and need to rest my brain. That being said, I have more free time these next few days so I should be able to crank it up a notch. I have worked my way through the first 10 lessons and recognize most of the words when I hear them in Burmese, but not so much the other way around. One of the things that I really dig about this software is that it uses vocabulary to slowly build sentences. So that by lesson four, when they introduce the word for “train station” they package it in a sentence like “the boy and the girl are at the train station”.

Each of the L-Lingo lessons has a short (5-7 min) mp3 file which can be downloaded and studied as a supplement to the lesson. Starting today, I have been downloading each of the lessons and sticking them on my iPod. Ideally you are supposed to listen and then repeat, however I’m only doing that when I am alone … people already think that I’m strange enough, I don’t want to start mumbling in Burmese when I’m on public transport and give them more reasons. The mp3 files are a really nice addition as it gives yet another way for me to absorb these new Burmese sounds, active learning is a big part but there is something to be said for passive learning too.

• 13:20-14:10: Review of L-Lingo 1-5 (the material I covered when I was trying out the software)
• 14:20-15:20: L-Lingo 6, 7
• 17:10-18:10: Ram textbook review
• 19:00-19:30: L-Lingo 8

As you can see, I’m try to study for about an hour and then get up and take a break. Usually, I’ll stretch some, eat some, anything to rest my brain … I don’t want to write too much about L-Lingo just yet, as I am only 8 units into the application and am not sure how well I will retain the information. I will say that I am impressed with what I have seen so far, the content is well-organized, well-presented, easy-to-study, etc … I have this slight fear that I may end up really good at recognizing Burmese words when I hear them, but have trouble coming up with them otherwise … that could be a function of how I am using the software though.

Project Description:
To chart my progress with the Burmese language over a period of ten 4-hour session during a two week period at my blog http://goldenland.luke.org/ and to publish a summary of the results on http://womenlearnthai.com/. I plan to use my school textbooks (written in Thai) along with the L-Lingo software from L-Ceps. This software is also available for Mandarin, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Tagalog, Thai and Vietnamese.

Personal Background:
I moved to Bangkok from the USA approximately five years ago and immediately started studying the Thai language. I am currently finishing up my third year of studies at Ramkhamhaeng University where I am doing a Bachelor’s degree majoring in Thai with a Japanese minor.

Relevant Language Background:
American English is my mother tongue, I speak Thai (a tonal language) relatively fluently (enough to attend a Thai-language university), have studied Sanskrit (many Burmese words come from Sanskrit) on-and-off for years and have about two years of experience with Japanese (similar grammar to Burmese). Ramkhamhaeng requires that all humanities students study at least two years of a foreign language, which most students fulfill with English. As I already speak English (or American), I opted to use Burmese to fulfill the requirement.

At present, I have studied 1.5 terms of the language, am familiar with most of the orthography (some of the more complicated diphthongs I haven’t studied yet), can recognize many written words, but can not speak the language at all. I feel that I am hampered by a lack of familiarity with the language, as I have only had about 15-20 2-hour classes in the past year and have spent no time in Burma.

Also, I spent about three hours last week working with the L-Lingo software in anticipation of this project, as I wanted to make sure that everything worked ok.

Vowels / Consonants / Numbers

1. Consonants. Many of them are similar to what we are using at present, some you’ll have to use a little imagination. 
2. Vowels, here you will notice similarities to modern Thai and modern Laos. This could have been been because the stone carver was from Laos, but without ample evidence it’s hard to tell for sure. That being said, the fact that the inscription used the Lao / Issan word for name (พ่อกูซื่อ instead of พ่อกูชื่อ) is further evidence of this. 
3. Numbers. The obvious thing here is that many numbers are missing … this doesn’t mean that Thais used to use some strange numerical system based on 0, 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7 … only that these are the only numerals used in the stele and that no other evidence of this writing system has been found. 

Combining Things / The Contraversy

1. Ok, aside from carbon-dating issues, the main reason that there remains significant controversy around the origins of the stele, is that vowels and consonants are combined on the same line, similar to Western languages and different from Thai writing systems before and after this. The inscriptions from the Prayalitai พระยาลิไท period, the next period from which evidence has been found, use the modern system of vowels being before, after, above and below the consonant (both Ramkhamhaeng and Prayalitai are from the Sukotai period).

Instead of putting vowel signs above and below the consonant symbols as is done in the Thai writing system, the inscription stone put the signs on the same line of the consonants.

“Such a system [writing vowel signs on the same line as the consonants] was the one used in Western countries. This demonstrates that the writer must have been fluent in Western languages,” Piriya said in his book.

Rama IV was influenced by Western culture, and he paid a lot of attention to foreign languages as he set about modernising Siam through clever diplomacy.

Pthomrerk insists that Rama IV made up the story that the stone was completed during the reign of King Ramkhamhaeng.

“It was his great attempt to protect the country from imperialism. The King did not want to deceive later generations,” he said.

Pthomrerk believed that Rama IV wanted to show Western imperial powers, especially Great Britain and France, that Siam was a civilised kingdom with a writing system centuries old; not an uncivilised society, which was often used by imperialists as an excuse for colonisation.

(http://www.thailandqa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1152)

1. ออ and อือ vowels
2. อุ อู ไอ โอ vowels. Here we have crystal-clear evidence of vowels which in pretty much every other example of Thai writing (both before and after) are either below the line or extending above the line. 
   
3. เอือ vowels
   
4. เอีย vowels. This is also somewhat similar to modern Laos in that the เอีย vowel differs somewhat depending on if it is part of a final sound. In the first example (เมีย), that circle with a line through it is อี, the next character is ม, then two ย letters used to complete the vowel. In the second example, only one ย is used (the first three consonants are ว ย ง), as it is sufficient to form the vowel when there is another syllable before the end of the word.  

Three more points of interest is that whenever we have a group of consonants whose sounds are combined, they are written together. This is somewhat similar to the way that consonant clusters hang off each other in Devanagari, Burmese, and Lanna, except that in this case they appear on the same line.

นิคหิต (อํ) is used similar to Pali and Sanskrit to mean อม

Finally, there is a doubling of consonants to indicate that the middle one should be pronounced as the อะ vowel. This was pretty common at that point in time, the earliest use of ไม้หันอากาศ that has been found is from 1361 CE (พศ ๑๙๐๔).

If you spend some time trying to read the stele, you will have to use your imagination somewhat. In the case where the same sound has more than one letter, there can be arbitrary use of either. For example, you might see ทง and ธง where both mean flag. Also things like ไม้เอก and ไม้โท may or may not be used, depends on the mood of the person doing the work.

Big thanks to my professor อาจารวิโรจน์ ผดุงสุนทรารักษ์ who wrote the textbook from which I scanned everything used in these posts. If anyone wants to try their hand at writing something out, you can scan it in and email to lukecd at gmail dot com and I will post them here.

http://womenlearnthai.com/index.php/grokking-the-thai-writing-system-part-1-consonants/

Iʼve seen a lot of posts on this site about how learning the writing system is essential if you want to pronounce Thai correctly (it is) and how itʼs really not that hard (itʼs not), but what seems to be missing is a good tutorial on how to make sounds pop out of your mouth that youʼre not used to.

Stu Jay Raj likens the Thai alphabet to a map of the human mouth (brilliant), but for someone who isnʼt used to thinking about his mouth, nose, throat and tongue this can be tricky.

I had a singer friend come visit for a week once and he was one of the few people who could perfectly pronounce Thai words after hearing them only once or twice. The thing is singers are used to thinking about the mouth as an instrument but the rest of us arenʼt. If you want to pronounce this language correctly, you need to spend some time making sure that you are pronouncing each letter correctly. Sounds are the basic building blocks of a language, you assemble them first into words and then into sentences. Since Thaiʼs grammar is pretty simple, once you know a bunch of words they can easily be combined into sentences. No need to deal with verb conjugations or noun declensions.