The Formation of Thai New Words from Foreign Languages: A Case Study of the Royal Institute’s New Words Dictionary

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the patterns of new Thai word formation involving foreign language elements, as documented in The Dictionary of New Words by the Royal Institute of Thailand, Volumes 1 to 3. The analysis reveals eight distinct patterns of word formation. The most prevalent is transliteration, which includes three subtypes: full-word transliteration, partial-word transliteration, and the transliteration of abbreviations or acronyms. The second most common pattern is compound formation, with eight subtypes: Thai-English compounds, English-Thai compounds, English-English compounds, Thai-Chinese compounds, Chinese-Thai compounds, Chinese-Chinese compounds, English-Chinese compounds, and Chinese-English compounds. The third pattern is special formation, comprising four subtypes: the creation of multi-syllabic words or phrases incorporating foreign language elements, the formation of rhyming words or phrases, phonetic adaptation of loanwords to resemble Thai words, and word fusion. The fourth pattern is semantic translation. The fifth is reduplication. The sixth category includes two equally frequent patterns: coining of new terms and affixation. The final and least frequent pattern is word blending.