why is 'chewit' meaning life pronouned as 'sh' when it is chor chang?

Question

it is not a sound change because of initial position so is it an exception determined by what; apart from memorising the initail and final sound rules I suppose it is a question of grinding out the individula spelling;can't be as bad as the irregularity of english spelling where it is estimated that it takes and english child three years extra to learn the language due to the spelling irregularities and mismatch with the sound.

Answer 1

Take my advice with a grain of salt as I am a bilingual Thai-American who studied much Thai literature and language at university.

It is my understand (and diction) that the "sh" sound is a colloquialism, similar to the slurrings of R's and L's in Thai. "ช" should always be enunciated as "ch," and "ชีวิต" should actually be pronounced "chee-WIT" and not "shee-WIT."

However, enunciating to that extent may sound pretentious (think of people faking posh accents in English).

The "sh" sound technically is not supposed to exist in Thai, but it just comes out that way as a quirk.

Answer 2

I'm Thai but don't know too. :P

Normally we use "ch" for chor-chang and after I checked with The Royal Institute, they notice to use "ch" for that case. They have an explanation in site but frankly I can't understand ... again I'm Thai but still difficult to understand.

Answer 3

From what I understand, the 'chor chang' consonant is neither 'sh' nor 'ch'. This is just what I've been taught, and I'm sure the issue is still largely debatable. As to why it sounds more like 'sh' in this case, I think the vowel 'e' is a long sound, thus the 'chor chang' comes out sounding softer.

On the matter of difficulty, I think Thai language makes up for it with the spelling. Try and look up some of the more elaborate words and if you don't know before hand how they're spelled, you wouldn't be able to guess. I always failed at spelling when I was in school.