Thailand’s island of Phuket might be pronounced “F*ck it” by some Americans. Ambiguity of pronunciation affects other languages as well — should sushi be spelled sooshee to make sure English speakers pronounce it properly? — but I’ll limit this post to Thai examples. And the very word Thai is an example of the problem: Some Americans might read that and think the pronunciation is like English “they” not “tie.”
I’ve not posed my question yet, but “Use the International Phonetic Alphabet” is NOT the answer to my question! We want to map Thai names to the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet, with no other symbols used. (I’d allow hyphen and/or apostrophe as one additional symbol denoting a glottal stop, or syllable separator, as in the Thai name Cha-on.) Thai citizens’ names are written with the Roman alphabet on identity cards, and passports. Place names are rendered in the Roman alphabet on road signs, and so on. Some of these transcriptions become relevant in legal documents.
There is an official Thai government standard (RTGS) in place to address this question. (It has undergone changes and I think some variants allow diacritical marks or other deviations from a pure 26-letter system.) I don’t really think I could improve on it much. Both consonants and vowels pose trouble. For example, there are many Thai names that rhyme, more or less, with English “worry,” “furry” or “jury.” A Thai child nick-named เจ้ย will be taught to write her name in English as “Joei.” Does anyone think she should write her name as “Jurry”? Especially since that English form only approximates the correct sound; the less familiar “Joei” might jog someone into learning a more correct pronunciation.
One reason for RTGS’ rendering ‘u’ instead of ‘oo’ is that many non-English languages use the Roman alphabet. Am I wrong that only English uses ‘oo’ to denote the ‘u’ sound? (However English is increasingly the “official” language of Thailand and its neighbors. Should that affect the transcriptions?)
For me, the transcription issue became a puzzle when writing letters to my U.S. relatives discussing my Thai friends and relatives. Should I use a spelling more likely to induce a correct pronunciation in easy cases? Or a more consistent system? Finally I decided consistency was best, even if it meant trusting the reader to know that ‘u’ was pronounced ‘oo’ and so on.
Here’s another example, a province name shown in Thai, RTGS, IPA, and an easy-to-read phonetic form showing tones:
อุดรธานี … Udonthani … /ʔùʔ dɔːn tʰaː niː/ … oo[sup]L[/sup] daawn[sup]M[/sup] thaa[sup]M[/sup] nee[sup]M[/sup]
Even the “easy to read” form assumes the reader will know ‘th’ is aspirated T, not English ‘th’ as in “this” or “thistle.”
(Thai distinguishes vowels of long and short duration, but RTGS does not. Udonthani has the short ‘u’ but Phuket has a long ‘u’. I might write Phu:ket or Phuuket to denote the duration, though doubling ‘o’ or ‘e’ to show long duration would be far too confusing.)
There are various other quandaries that arise in these transcriptions, but to keep OP short I’ll mention them in follow-ups if at all. One reason this whole question has become topical is that, supposedly, British consulates are now mandating a different transcription system from RTGS, for example insisting that ‘u’ be replaced with ‘oo.’ (The U.K. FCO hasn’t answered my e-mail so I’ve not confirmed this, but “certified translaters” seem to be enforcing the change.) Even slight variations in transcriptions can cause grief with government bureaucracies.
The rule change allegedly mandated by U.K. FCO may be based on a misunderstanding, but meanwhile some schools here are starting to do their own non-RTGS transcriptions. I pointed out to my friend, an English teacher here, that some Thais will no longer be able to write their names properly in English with his system. He didn’t care!
Nor do Bangkok street signs show separate renderings for English, French and German!