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Names of Thai snooker players

Postby roy142857

Rather than take 'Names of Chinese snooker players' ( viewtopic.php?f=25&t=4929 ) further off topic, quotes from that topic:

Andy Spark wrote:Of course, the Thai's have a solution to all this struggling around with names, they get a nickname. Like Dechawat Poomjaeng says, "guys, just call me Jack". Gotta love the Thais! :-D


roy142857 wrote:In Thailand the press refer to Dechawat as Jack Saraburi and his older brother (excellent amateur player Suchakree Poomjaeng) is referred to as Kwan Saraburi. The Poomjaeng brothers being from the city of Saraburi.

Re: Names of Thai snooker players

Postby roy142857

Another example is James Wattana, but anyone know why he changed his Thai name in 2003, had been Wattana Pu-Ob-Orm, became Ratchapol Pu-Ob-Orm ?

Chuchart Trairattanapradit being known as Tai Pichit has been mentioned in recent posts, his great rival from the 90's Praput Chaithanasakul had a different name solution, was (and is) known just as 'Praput'.

Re: Names of Thai snooker players

Postby roy142857

One problem with the Thai language and names of Thai players - and that's the 'H' in Thai (which is sounded like 'tie' not 'thigh') and all over the place in names and other words.

It's a substantial part of a disagreement with how Thai should be represented in western/roman script, there's a substantial movement to change from what is currently used, in part because of the prevalence of English internationally and how English speakers perceive particularly "Ph" and "Th" resulting in incorrect pronunciation - an 'f' sound instead of 'p' sound for 'Ph' and 'Th' being pronounced as in the start of 'that' rather than (much more correctly) the start of 'Tat'.

So why the aitches? They signal that the previous letter should be aspirated - said with the release of a small puff of air, like English speakers do at the start of 'here' and most 'H' words (when they aitches aren't being dropped, which even the most precise speakers of English do from time to time!)