Languages naturally develop shortcuts to speech. Any word thats spoken really often, involves too many syllables, and\/or perhaps is difficult to say will likely be shortened in every day speech. And of course, slang used long enough becomes part of normal discourse.<\/p>\n
In this case, language shortcuts in reference to nationalities. For example, in English, we often refer to the British as \u2018Brits\u2019 or the Vietnamese as \u2018Viets\u2019. There are much less polite (and possibly racist) terms to refer to Chinese (chinks), Ethiopians (skinnies), Vietnamese (Charlie), Japanese (Japs), etc.<\/p>\n
Yes, Thai has rude racist terms to refer to other nationalities, too. But I\u2019m not going to teach you that . . . at least not today.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Americans<\/strong><\/p>\n So let\u2019s start with Americans. More specifically, the United States\u2019icans. Or whatever. Anyway, Thais refer to the North American continent as \u2018America\u2019 aa2meh1ri4gaa1 \u0e2d\u0e32\u0e40\u0e21\u0e23\u0e34\u0e01\u0e32<\/strong>. But that\u2019s just too complicated with way too many syllables and tones, so they are much more likely to just say meh1ga1 \u0e40\u0e21\u0e01\u0e30. In other words, Americans are called kon1 meh1gaa1 \u0e04\u0e19\u0e40\u0e21\u0e01\u0e32<\/strong>. I guess that makes me a Megaman!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Indonesians<\/strong><\/p>\n Another exception is with Indonesians. While it\u2019s perfectly ok to say kon1 in1do1nee1siia1 \u0e04\u0e19\u0e2d\u0e34\u0e42\u0e14\u0e19\u0e35\u0e40\u0e0b\u0e35\u0e22<\/strong>, that\u2019s too many letters and syllables. Often times it\u2019s abbreviated as \u0e04\u0e19\u0e2d\u0e34\u0e19\u0e42\u0e14\u0e2f<\/strong>, and so this results in people simply saying kon1 in1do1 \u0e04\u0e19\u0e2d\u0e34\u0e19\u0e42\u0e14.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Vietnamese<\/strong><\/p>\n Now, things get a bit more complicated with the Vietnamese as they have three different ways to be referred to. One is racist and rarely used so I won\u2019t teach that. The second, and easiest, way is kon1 weit3naam1 \u0e04\u0e19\u0e40\u0e27\u0e35\u0e22\u0e14\u0e19\u0e32\u0e21<\/strong>. Although perfectly correct, it\u2019s mostly reserved for only written Thai. The most used for spoken Thai is kon1 yuan1 \u0e04\u0e19\u0e0d\u0e27\u0e19<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Africans<\/strong><\/p>\n Africa is that type of continent where most people think of it as just one big country. It\u2019s that hot dry blob of mass far over there with nothing but starving people and civil wars. The average person \u2013 of any western or Asian country \u2013 likely couldn\u2019t name more than two or three countries within Africa. And likely couldn\u2019t find any on a map. Thai\u2019s are no exception. Now, it\u2019s not to say the average person isn\u2019t intelligent, it\u2019s just Africa doesn\u2019t play much of a part in the international world, ie out of site out of mind. So what do you do if you\u2019re from Africa and a Thai asks you your nationality? For a short answer, suck up your national pride and just answer kon1 aae2fri4gaa1 \u0e04\u0e19\u0e41\u0e2d\u0e1f\u0e23\u0e34\u0e01\u0e32. If you have plenty of conversation time, feel free to be more specific and tell them about your country.<\/p>\n Or maybe say something complicated like, \u2018I\u2019m from Ghana, a country located in western Africa\u2019. But that\u2019s beyond beginner level, so I won\u2019t teach that here today.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n South Americans<\/strong><\/p>\n If you\u2019re from South America, to the Thais your continent is just one more big blob of mass that doesn\u2019t do anything. Just take my advice for Africa above and say you\u2019re from aa2meh1ri4gaa1 dtai3 \u0e2d\u0e32\u0e40\u0e21\u0e23\u0e34\u0e01\u0e32\u0e43\u0e15\u0e49<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Arabs<\/strong><\/p>\n With the exception of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the Arab world is also fairly unknown to Thais. The [polite] way to say you\u2019re from the Arabic region is kon1 aa1rab2 \u0e04\u0e19\u0e2d\u0e32\u0e2b\u0e23\u0e31\u0e1a.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Others<\/strong><\/p>\n There are two more regions of the world that Thais generally aren\u2019t even aware that exist. One is the entirety of Central America (with the exception of Mexico), and the other is the eastern European block.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n One last note: I am of course stereotyping with my above statements. Any well educated person, Thai or any other nationality, will of course be much more geographically aware of the world. Those involved with the tourist industry will also know much more than the average Thai as well. Use your best judgment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Languages naturally develop shortcuts to speech. Any word thats spoken really often, involves too many syllables, and\/or perhaps is difficult to say will likely be shortened in every day speech. In this case, language shortcuts in reference to nationalities.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[10208],"tags":[2039,2040,3646,10177],"class_list":["post-1237","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-beginner","tag-countries","tag-country","tag-nationality","tag-thai"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1237"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1240,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1237\/revisions\/1240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}