There are more than 7000 active languages in the world and 147 language families. Languages have been divided into families based on their origin, similarities, and other connections. Also, these languages keep evolving and can become either more mutually intelligible or unintelligible. Likewise, the composition of the languages and the factors that make the language what it is today have a greater impact on the translation process. Translating some languages is easy, and the process gets challenging for some complex languages. Similarly, many language pairs are easy to translate to and from such as English to French or German due to similar roots.
When it comes to Thai and Vietnamese languages, these are two important Asian languages representing Thailand and Vietnam respectively. Despite the close proximity of the countries and divided by the sea border, both languages have different language families and ancestors. Vietnamese is part of the Austroasiatic language family whereas Thai comes from the Tai Kadai family. The languages do share similarities and differences on many grounds. The comparison may include their grammar composition, unique characteristics, historical development, and the influence that they have left on each other's culture. It is important to mention that both countries have been great rivals. However, these countries maintain a peaceful relationship now.
Being part of Southeast Asia, both languages have been under migrations, invasions, cultural exchanges, and conquests which have also molded the language to a greater extent.
Origin of Thai & Vietnamese
The origin of Vietnamese and Thai has been mentioned below.
Thai Language
Thai language which is part of the Tai Kadai language as mentioned above is said to have originated from today’s southern China. As the historians report, the Thai-speaking people migrated from this region into South Asia during the first millennium. This migration made the language spread in the regions and surroundings and this further also led to the establishment of the Thai region which is present-day Thailand. The Chinese, Sanskrit, and Pali languages have been greatly influenced due to Buddhism and Chinese trade and migration.
Vietnamese
The Vietnamese language with 85 million speakers is said to emerge from the Mon Khmer linguistic roots. Like Thai and other languages, Vietnamese also underwent the transformations. It also has influences of the Chinese rule, the time of independence, and French colonization also had a greater impact on this language. The origin of the language starts from the proto-viet-muong which witnessed its earliest form in the 7th century. It is the official language of Vietnam and represents 54 ethnic groups.
Linguistic Features
When it comes to the linguistic features of both languages, they are also important to consider and go through for quality Vietnamese or Thai translation services. The linguistic features include phonetics, grammar, script and the writing system.
Phonetics and Phonology
These features of a language revolve around the sounds of a language and how speakers speak and pronounce certain words. One most important similarity between Thai and Vietnamese in terms of phonetics is their tonal nature. Both these languages are tonal and the tone and pitch decide the word’s meaning. However, these tones may vary with particular factors.
The Thai language has up to five tones. These are
Low
Mid
High
Falling
Rising
All these pitches are significant to differentiate the meanings.
Vietnamese get a little more complex in this regard. It has one additional tone.
The tones for Vietnamese are
Level
Low falling
High rising
Low rising
High broken
Heavy
All these tones and their use may depend on the region. This information is also vital to convey during the translation of both languages so that the translation agencies can translate the content as per the regional requirements. Moreover, it is suggested to always seek help from a local Vietnamese translation company for translation to get the services of native speakers.
Grammar
Despite different language families, both Thai and Vietnamese share similarities and have differences too in terms of grammar.
The Thai grammar is different in a way that there is no use of verb conjugations for the tenses. Rather, the speakers believe in relying on context and words that are time-specific to indicate or refer to time aspects. This factor is relatively unique and can make English to Thai translation services challenging along with other languages.
Vietnamese grammar does not conjugate verbs for tenses. However, the time aspects and their indication are similar to those in Thai with the help of time words. The method of denoting questions and modifying the meanings of the sentences often relies on the usage of particles in this language. However, you might not want to dig out the personal pronoun system because it can give you a headache due to the complexities involved.
Script and Writing
The writing system and scripts many times mirror the historical influences and evolution accordingly.
Thai script follows abugida. Due to the roots of Thai script with old Khmer script, the history goes back to Brahmi script commonly used in ancient India in the past days. It has 44 consonants and 15 vowels with four diacritics.
The Vietnamese language has used a writing system based on Chinese characters known as Vhu Nom for centuries. Now they use the Latin alphabet and there are particular diacritics for the tones and certain vowels and consonants. It was during the 17th century when Portuguese missionaries developed this script named Quoc ngu.
Both languages are complex due to distinct features and hence it is extremely crucial to only opt for the local translation vendor. A Vietnamese translation agency for the Vietnamese and Thai translation vendors for Thai can be the right choice for accurate and quality translation.
Conclusion
Vietnamese and Thai languages share different relationships. Both belong to different language families, but share similarities and have differences too. These languages can be a tough choice for translation. Therefore, it is important that local translation agencies are chosen for quality business translation so that there are no mistakes.
