ThaiHeartTalk.Info : Say what you feel in Thai by Christopher G. Moore

‘Heart’ is the organ that pumps blood through your body. Yet it is not merely an organ that keeps us alive but also a key metaphor in our language that communicates our innermost feelings and emotions.

We use the word ‘heart’ to refer to the most precious human emotion—love. We love with our heart and have our heart broken by love gone astray. We fight with our heart—our nerve center. If we want to win, we can’t lose heart—the core of our spirit, our spunk. Heart is also the essence, the center—we drive into a city center; we get into the heart of the matter.

A courageous child or an athlete who gives it all usually wins our heart, and we go to incredible length to win someone’s heart. If not always, we often know in our heart what we want and how we feel. In short, the heart is ours to give, to keep, to lose, to win, to share and to feel. In relationships, the language of the heart is indispensable.

hearttalk: thai language of the heart

hearttalk is a unique study of the Thai language of the heart. If the English language of the heart is impressive, the Thai language of the heart is exceedingly compelling, encompassing and wonderfully intriguing.

The word ‘heart’ (or jai, as it is pronounced in Thai) is like stem cells of the Thai language. It is difficult to imagine a conversation in Thai where a jai expression isn’t used. The Thai heart vocabulary—over 700 words and phrases that contain the word jai—covers a vast range and fine shades of feelings, and emotional and mental states of being.

Since the Age of Reason, English speakers have become accustomed to viewing ‘heart’ and ‘mind’ as different. A common perception in English is to divide left-brain and right-brain ‘thinking’ as an explanation for conduct and vocabulary. In the Thai language and culture, the consequences of the post-Enlightenment tradition did not split mind and heart into separate orbits of perception.

The Thai word jai means both ‘heart’ and ‘mind’. Often, the heart metaphor is used interchangeably to refer to the emotional and mental state of being. At times the Thai jai is expressed as though the heart and mind were one. (Learn more about jai: the Thai language of the heart.)

hearttalk: a key to unlock the thai heart

If you have a heart connection with Thailand and her people or if you are a student of Thai language, you must have had a glimpse of the central importance of jai in the Thai culture. Even infrequent visitors of Thailand may have heard basic jai expressions such as jai dii (good heart), dii jai (glad heart), jai rÓOn (hot heart), and jai yen (cool heart).

Someone who is good and kind-hearted is jai dii (having a good heart), and you always feel dii jai (your heart is glad) to see the person. If you are a kind of easy-going, cool-tempered person, your Thai friends will say you are jai yen (you have a cool heart), and they love you for that. On the other hand, if you are hot-headed and impatient, jai rÓOn (having a hot heart), you will not be received very favorably by Thais. When you have steams coming out of your ears, you Thai friends will tell you to be jai yen yen (calm down, have a cool heart).

hearttalk is an on-going book project that collects and presents the Thai jai vocabulary used in various situations in the Thai contexts. It explores the basic Thai emotional expressions such as these found in daily life, as well as other more unique, interesting and puzzling expressions that relate to the heart.

Christopher G. Moore’s book hearttalk: Say What You Feel in Thai is now in its third edition (Heaven Lake Press, 2006), containing 743 jai phrases—over 200 more than in the second edition (Heaven Lake Press, 1998). hearttalk explains the basic conditions of the Thai heart such as ‘happy, sad, kind, cruel’, the more vivid expressions such as ‘hard, soft, broad, narrow, open, concealed, confident, doubting, sinking, uplifting’, and the metaphors such as ‘bland, salty, diamond, dog, monk, monster’ that are often puzzling to non-native Thai speakers. (more about the book: heart talk)

If you are a student of Thai language, hearttalk provides a learning tool that can help you not only to understand and expand your vocabulary (see sample jai phrases), but also tap into the mainframe of the Thai language. hearttalk is a key to unlock the mysterious Thai language of the heart; it equips you with insights into the linguistic heartscape of the Thai language where ideas take shape, feelings are formed, moods floated, and relationships started or mended when broken, that will help you in learning Thai and to better express your feelings in different situations in the way understood by Thai people.

Test how much you know about the Thai heart.
Browse sample jai phrases from the book.
Learn about the book: hearttalk.