Richard W

For Sanskrit -rv- yielding Pali -bb-, see http://en.wikipedia....i#Assimilations and look for 'sarva'.  (I suspect the English page is the most complete on the topic.)  I first became aware of it through นิพพาน  for nirvana.

The restrictions on the co-occurrences of vowels and final /w/ and /y/ in Thai are that Front + /j/ does not occur (เอย represents /əəj/), and rounded + /w/ does not occur.  It so happens that /oj/ is also missing, while /oːj/ does occur.

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Only surprise is guaranteed when readinɡ Thaiǃ  However, sometimes the information is given.

I can't offer any general rules, just specific examples.

For สุรวงค์, the clue lies in the karan, which says Sanskrit or English, and which rules out -ua- in most cases.  That leaves sù-rá-woŋ, sǔn-woŋ and sǔn-rá-wonɡ.  However, if you say sǔn-woŋ, how will people tell that you know that it has รʔ  I suppose you might reduce the odds in this case by remember that Sanskrit -rv- yields Pali -bb-, which makes sù-rá-woŋ more likely than sǔn-rá-wonɡ.

For นวยนต์, there are two approaches.  First, /now/ is *not* a possible Thai syllable.  There are restrictions on the co-occurrences of vowels and final /w/ and /y/ in Thai.  Secondly, have you forgotten your Sanskrit?  *navyantra is unlikely - one would expect *noyantra instead, though I suppose *navyantra might arise from pre-Classical Sanskrit *naviantra.

TravelTeach, on 2012-05-12 16:30:47, said:

Three of the four letters are accounted for by the fact that there are three s-like sounds in Sanskrit, but only one in Thai (or Pali, for that matter).  Secondly, most sounds come in pairs according to the tone they take.  The different members of the pairs used to have different sounds, but the difference is now manifested in the tones - Thai went from having three tones to, roughly speaking, having six tones which have now been reduced to five.  The Thais made the extra letter for /s/ by putting a kink in the letter for Indic /j/.

Other duplications are caused by the fact that Sanskrit and Pali distinguish retroflex and ordinary dental sounds but Thai never has, Sanskrit and Pali distinguish /d/ (as in dukkha) and /dh/ (as in dharma), but Thai has /th/ for both, and the two obsolete consonants were made obsolete by Thai losing the syllable-initial distinction between the German ach-laut and /kh/ as in the polite particle khrap.

As I wrote in one of the now locked duplicates of this thread, there are enmtries on thai-language.com:

It is either ไอ้ [F]ai or อ้าย [F]aai. It probably indicates a significant lack of indifference towards the person.

wayned, on 2012-05-05 05:20:46, said:

They're foreigners until they return to Thailand on their Thai passports.  I can imagine all sorts of hassle getting their Thai passports.

The twins' father is Thai; it's the mother who's a New Zealander.