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The International Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand
Volume XII, 2020

In the Social Media Era most of these household employees own a
smartphone that connects them with their parents, children and grandchildren.
They can use Line and Facebook easily, can take ‘selfie’ photos and can exchange

them with their family. Unfortunately, some of them can barely read and write.

Figure 23 Social Media and the Thai Keyboard

As keen users of their smartphones these lesser-educated folks look
at the characters on the keyboard and notice their shapes, paying no attention
to the name and pronunciation, nor do they use any method taught in school.
They notice that if they hit the แ, the มุ, and the they will get the word แมุ่
่
(mother). They may not be interested in the names of the characters and the way
they are combined to form words, but they can hit the keys and get the words
they want. Eventually they come to understand messages received and can also
compose messages themselves.

The smartphone serves as a means to ‘unintentionally’ study the language,
a by-product that manufacturers may not have intended to produce. It can be
compared to the reading of ancient scripts, where the reader may not know the
pronunciation, but is able to retrieve meaning. And, if the “assistant housewife”
or the “nurse’s aid” earns enough, she may be able to purchase a smartphone
model that converts sound into text.

Conclusion

Thai Language 4.0 is the Thai Language that will be developing in an
era where technology has come to assist in language teaching and learning.
New words, phrases, and ways of expressing ideas about the current world will

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Nitaya Kanchanawan

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