>>When I was in Thailand I noticed what appeared to be at least 2 different alphabets: newspapers, street signs, billboards would often display totally diferent-looking characters. What's all that about?
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>Probably just stylized fonts. The Thai alphabet has something like 44 consonants and 22 vowels and half a dozen tonal markers and I've seen some pretty creative renditions of most of the letters.

I couldn't discern any similarity between any chars when seeing both "alphabest" simultaneously on display (eg two posters)

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>>One thing I did learn about the Thais is that if you don't smile when you address them they think you might be displeased with them. It taught me a lot about our western po-faced delivery and to smile at strangers, such as shop-keepers, bar-keeps, someone I ask direction of in the street, etc.
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>Thais smile all the time. Means nothing. Most frustrating thing in the world is to try to argue - Western style - with a Thai. they just won't play. But they have raised passive aggressive to an art form almost unknown in the West and communication can be just as blunt - just done differently. Smile - and show the sole of your foot - or approach a table of seated people while standing upright and you'll get the message across faster than shouting across the pub or spitting in somebody's beer would in English.

I'd heard about the sole of the foot thing but not the table approach. Once made a faux pas when visiting a wat. A friendly young bhuddist monk approached un and chatted to us just as you'd expect a young polite educated man to do so. We had a nice long talk and at least twice I patted his arm in a friendly gesture. I didn't know at the time that you're not supposed to touch them. He never flinched or showed any sign that that was tabu though.

Maybe he had to go off and birch himself and ritually cleanse himself for a week after though! :-)
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>>>In Thai the written language (alphabet based on Sanskrit ) has tonal markers - just part of the spelling. Sometimes the spelling is just completely different ( different 'M' used - based on origin of word ) Not sure in Chinese - just different characters I guess.
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>>>Of course sometimes the tonal differences are part of dialect and the written language may only reflect one version of the language. ( definitely the case in Lao. In Cambodian a missionary for Wycliffe Bible Society actually had to develop a written language for "high" Cambodian so he could translate the Bible into that very distinct flavor of the language. - pretty sure he was the only person that ever read it that way but ... )
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>>>>>It is just so conceptually different to have the pitch/tone of a word determine its meaning. The word 'ma' in Thai can mean mother, dog, horse, or come depending on the tone. Thai has only 5 tones. Lao has 7 or 9. I think Mandarin has 5 and Cantonese 9. I've never been able to hear the distinction of more than 7 and then only in controlled drills. You can get it from context, usually, but when speaking it is unlikely you'll get it right except by accident <g> unless you've spoken it from childhood.
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>>>>>We are so used to changing the pitch of a word to inflect meaning to the sentence that it is a hard habit to break.
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>>>>How do they understand the written word (a book or newspaper), by context?
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>>>>>It also explains why vocal music in Chinese is really awful to Western ears. <g>
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>>>>That it does.