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Lexical innovation and “the genius of the Thai language”

Published/Copyright: August 22, 2007
International Journal of the Sociology of Language
From the journal Volume 2007 Issue 186

Abstract

Lexical resources in Thai have been increased through the interplay of communicative need, institutional intervention, and popular resolve. This study reviews how the interaction was given cohesion by Prince Wan Waithayakorn (1891–1976), a scholar-bureaucrat whose impact on Thai has been substantial through hundreds of neologisms in common usage. To explain popular uptake of some proposed neologisms but rejection of others, he referred to the “genius of the Thai language.” The study probes this explanation, which may seem odd to contemporary sociolinguists. The linguistic background of “genius of language” is summarized, showing that issues of theoretical weight have been coded by the term. These involve sound, meaning, and morphophonemics. Relevance is indicated for sociolinguistic analysis as well as for typological claims associated with innate parameters. Some themes appear to apply in the Thai case, and the study concludes by pointing to what Prince Wan may have had in mind when he proposed “genius of language” as a Thai sociolinguistic mechanism.

Published Online: 2007-08-22
Published in Print: 2007-07-20

© Walter de Gruyter

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Introduction
  2. History of foreign language education in Thailand until World War II
  3. Lexical innovation and “the genius of the Thai language”
  4. Language of the news media in Thailand
  5. Discussing assimilation and language shift among the Chinese in Thailand
  6. Principles of Thai place-name formation: a reflection of natural and cultural heritage
  7. Endangered languages of Thailand
  8. Thai political slang: formation and attitudes towards usage
  9. Animate classifiers in Tai languages
  10. Does the number of speakers of a language determine its fate?
https://doi.org/10.1515/IJSL.2007.039

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Introduction
  2. History of foreign language education in Thailand until World War II
  3. Lexical innovation and “the genius of the Thai language”
  4. Language of the news media in Thailand
  5. Discussing assimilation and language shift among the Chinese in Thailand
  6. Principles of Thai place-name formation: a reflection of natural and cultural heritage
  7. Endangered languages of Thailand
  8. Thai political slang: formation and attitudes towards usage
  9. Animate classifiers in Tai languages
  10. Does the number of speakers of a language determine its fate?
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