Lexical intermingling

Re: “Thai language in dire state, says poll,” ( BP, July 29).

A Dusit Poll finds that “most people believe the country’s language is in a catastrophic state”, with the language contaminated by jargon and borrowings from foreign languages.

To use an Australian colloquial vulgarism, you are “paddling a barbed wire canoe up s**t creek” if you think you can stop the further development (corruption?) of the Thai language.

Languages, all languages, change over the years with borrowings or loan words from other languages, and science, technology and other influences are constantly adding newly invented words to the lexicon.

English is a prime example. For more than a thousand years it has borrowed words from Latin, Greek, French, German, Hindi, and countless other languages. Just read a few paragraphs of Chaucer (14th century), Shakespeare (16th century) or Emily Bronte (19th century), and compare the writings with modern English.

Thai is no different, and has been borrowing words from foreign languages for hundreds of years, including from Sanskrit, Persian, English, Arabic, Hokkien, French and Chinese.

The French set up the Academie Francaise to protect the “purity” of their language but it has failed dismally because words and ideas cannot be stopped from crossing national borders.

DAVID BROWN Rayong