Talk:Thai six-hour clock

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I don't understand the statement: "However most commonly used nowadays is a combination of the traditional six hour counting with a twelve hour counting, thus the numbering of the hours of the second and fourth quarter starts from 7 instead from 1."

That combination produces, in fact, a 12-hour clock. So what makes it a combination rather than a replacement?

Unless the only distinction is one of terminology for the hours, and if it is, then the article should state that.

TimBovee 21:18, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

My Thai wife also says: the list is wrong! "nɨng mong chaw" means 7am and not 8am. Going on with the counting 8am = sᴐng mong chaw, 9am = sam mong chaw, 10am = si mong chaw, 11am = ha mong chaw. Please check your article. Tom 19 Jul 2004

Your wife's right. ;) I've fixed it to the best of my understanding, and tweaked the romanisations. Markalexander100 00:44, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You might want to add that one left over from the pre-1901 system is Song Yaam สองยาม that denotes midnight; also that the six hour clock is *only* used colloquially nowadays. 1 - 5 mong chaw is used less, 6 mong (6am) - 11 mong is perfectly understandable and is prone to less confusion; however this does not applys to "thum" or evenings, 7pm = 1tum and so on.... --Bobbagum 16:18, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Done. Markalexander100 01:44, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)


"7 am jet mong chao เจ็ดโมงเช้า" doesn't seem correct. I believe it is rather nueng mong chao (หนึ่งโมงเช้า) or simply mong chao, the หนึ่ง being omitted in the same sense as bai mong บ่ายโมง.--Paul C 14:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation of early morning hours "ti" is misleading[edit]

If you say "ti neung" it means "first." If you want to say one in the morning, you must say "dtee neung."

The initial consonant in that word is called "dtau dtau" in the Thai language. It is definitely not the same as a "t" sound. You make the sound by putting your tongue between your front teeth and making a sound somewhere between a "T" and a "D."

The author of the Thai language page made the same mistake regarding dtau dtao.

It's not a mistake- it's a consequence of transliteration. 'Dt' looks like a consonant cluster, and so is also unsatisfactory. HenryFlower 18:15, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia uses the Royal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGS). So ท (thahan) (as in Thai for first) is spelled "th", while ต (tao) (as in Thai for strike) is spelled "t". There are tourist language guides that use "t" and "dt" instead, but that is in no way a standard trancription and almost never used in Thailand itself. −Woodstone 19:02, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia does NOT "use" the RTGS. Rather Wikipedia has lots of rules for determining what is COMMON and USE. "T" is indeed a mistake as an English "T" is assumed. Dtau Dtaow ต is indeed a DT sound (both aspirates and voices) and at the very least a "D" should be used. Everyone knows RTGS blindly follows IPA, which itself is counter-intuitive and unhelpful in actual usable transcription. DT is in fact the most used system in Thailand for those learning and creating phonetic transcriptions. RTGS is not used for phonetic transcriptions but for legal and standardized reverse-transcribable latin alphabet words (aka used for Thai drivers' licenses and passports). --Jeffmcneill (talk) 15:40, 1 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Jeffmcneill, This discussion is almost ten years old. If you wish to revisit the issue, it'd be better to start a new discussion in a more centralised location such as WT:WikiProject Thailand. --Paul_012 (talk) 08:26, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Paul_012, appreciate the suggestion but that project page has a few edits every year or so, and actually I am dealing with content on this particular page. I'm sure Wikipedia has a nuanced view of the value of discussion vs. its recency. --Jeffmcneill (talk) 04:56, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The article seems a little confused, offering two versions of the time without explanation of the difference.

Lived in Thailand for eight years. Regionally and from person to person, Thais choose to say the time in different ways, and then write it in another. There's 4 systems and they can pick and choose to mix them in a single sentence.

However the most common method seems to be the list on the left with a few modifications. 4 in the afternoon is always considered 'yen' in everything I've read. However I've frequently heard Thais use 'bai' in conversation so is thus interchangeable in conversation. The list on the left list 7 in the morning onwards with 'chao' and the list on the right without. Actually it's purely optional to the speaker. Finally Thais most commonly ~(and irrationally) use 'jet mong [chow]' on the first list never 'neung mong [chow]' then go on to 'song mong [chow]', weird but if you don't believe me just listen.

Lastly the criticism about 't' in the 'ti' below is correct. But also the vowel is wrong too. There is no word 'ti' (unexasperated 't' followed by short 'ee' vowel) in the Thai language.

There is however the word 'thi' (exasperated 't' followed by short 'ee' vowel) meaning 'st/nd/rd/th' ect in Thai.

Correctly what should be used is 'tee' (unexasperated 't' followed by long 'ee' vowel)

Paul 19 November 2007

Literal translations[edit]

Taking another look at the article, I have to argue against the literal translations. Apart from looking stupid, they don't add anything to the article. Even worse, they give a false impression of the meanings of the terms, since ตี, โมง and ทุ่ม simply mean o'clock (in the six-hour sense), not the sounds of various timekeeping devices in the past. --Paul_012 (talk) 19:02, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Before this turns into an edit war[edit]

If one did actually look for the words ตี, โมง and ทุ่ม in the dictionary, they would find that the Royal Institute's dictionary defines them, when treated as nouns, as "the traditional timekeeping system for night after midnight / daytime / the first six hours of night". Yes, ตี is also a verb meaning "to hit", โมง is also a kind of plant, and ทุ่ม also means "to throw something heavy". But even though it may be reasonable for one to suspect those terms to be related, it is impossible to rationally deduce that they actually are. There are a plethora of homographs in the Thai language, and if one was to claim that all of them mean the same thing, they would be thinking unreasonably.

The claim that they are dictionary words only supports their translation as "o'clock", per the definitions given above. Yes, their origins have been explored and citations could be provided if one cared to, but even then, they should be treated as the origins of those terms, not as their definitions, because, as stated, their current definitions are as timekeeping words.--Paul_012 (talk) 22:20, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They do not all mean just o'clock. They are each a distinct flavour of o'clock. The essence is that the specific term used makes the meaning of each of the four six-hour blocks unambiguous. If you translate ti, mong and thum (and yen) all by "o'clock", the distinction is lost and the translations become meaningless and thus invalid. That in a wider sense they all mean o'clock is obvious from their use in the table and adds no information. I had looked them up to make sure. −Woodstone (talk) 08:29, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a good reference (in Thai)[edit]

Thongprasert, Chamnong (1985), "ทุ่ม-โมง-นาฬิกา (Thum-Mong-Nalika)", ภาษาไทยไขขาน (Thai Unlocked), Bangkok: Prae Pitaya Press, pp. 229–237. Covers most aspects this article deals with. --Paul_012 (talk) 12:43, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus Dabomb87 (talk) 01:43, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Six-hour clock6-hour clock — more consistent with existing articles 12-hour clock and 24-hour clock. Woodstone (talk) 17:57, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Survey[edit]

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.
  • Support. Would seem to be consistent with WP:ORDINAL ("single-digit whole numbers from zero to nine are spelled out in words; numbers greater than nine are commonly rendered in numerals" but "numerical elements of dates and times are not normally spelled out"). Wikiscient (talk) 18:35, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose; I don't think this counts as a "numerical element" of a date or time. That's intended for things like "6:00", not "six o'clock" or "six-hour". Powers T 20:07, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - I initially agreed with the consistency argument, but actually WP:ORDINAL seems fairly clear on the subject and, as User:LtPowers says, this does not qualify for the "numerical elements of dates and times" exception.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:56, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support For the purpose of being consistent with 24-hour clock and 12-hour clock. In other words I think consistency trumps WP:ORDINAL in this matter. --Labattblueboy (talk) 00:54, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support As Wikiscient. Cloudz679 (talk) 10:33, 27 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - I agree with Powers and Amakuru. Use proper English first, unless there is a very good reason not to. --Bejnar (talk) 23:37, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion[edit]

Any additional comments:

More from WP:ORDINAL[edit]

Okay, I agree that "numerical elements of dates and times" doesn't really apply here (though "times" could be considered to include "periods of time with numerical elements in their name" -- but fine).
There is also this though at WP:ORDINAL:

  • "Proper names, formal numerical designations, and other idioms comply with common usage; e.g., write Chanel No. 5, 4 Main Street, 1-Naphthylamine, Channel 6, Fourth Amendment, Seventeenth Judicial District, Seven Years' War. This is the case even where it causes a numeral to open a sentence, although this is usually avoided by rewording."

Which could be applied here according to the common usage of this "time-keeping" phrase. What would be an acceptable determination of the form of its most common usage? It would seem to be mostly used in Thai language but there does not seem to be a corresponding article at thai-wikipedia to consult on that. Google hits about 100,000 pages (in English) using "6-hour clock" and about 90,000 using "Six-hour clock". On that basis, I suppose I can just marginally maintain my support for the proposed move. Wikiscient (talk) 00:01, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Medieval six hour time counting in Europe[edit]

Also in parts of Europe, e.g. in Italy, the day was counted in 6 hours x 4. Here are two examples:

Photo of six hour clock in Tuscany (Italy) in travel blog of http://kathleenjonesauthor.blogspot.ch/2010/04/six-hour-clocks-of-italy.html
The clock strikes 6 times in Verdi's opera Rigoletto, act 3. The time? Midnight ("mezzanotte" in the libretto; in the musical score, the clock sounds 6 times not 12!).

83.77.253.211 (talk) 13:46, 30 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Start of Quarter Day[edit]

Do the Thais actually think of the quarters beginning at 01:00, 07:00 etc. or is this just an inference of an author? Karl (talk) 14:16, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A look at the Thai language version of this article suggests that the quarters really do begin at 01:00, 07:00 etc. Karl (talk) 15:06, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Request to change title to "6-hour clock"[edit]

For the 12 and 24 hour clock tiles, they are called "12-hour clock" and "24-hour clock", not "Twelve-hour clock" and "Twenty four-hour clock". So therefore, the page title should be called "6-hour clock", not "Six-hour clock". Could someone please tell me why this is called "Six hour clock" and not "6-hour clock" and maybe you could change the title? Thanks. 24.150.217.182 (talk) 18:00, 10 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

English/ translated version of 6-hour clock?[edit]

It shows the 6-hour time in the table but it is in Thai, how do you write the 6-hour notation in English? What are the digits of the 6-hour clock? What is 7:30 am in 6 hour notation? Can someone help me please? Is there also an 8-hour clock, 4-hour clock, 3-hour clock, 2-hour clock, and 1-hour clock? Thanks. 24.150.217.182 (talk) 20:10, 10 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What is this?[edit]

"However most commonly used nowadays is a combination of the traditional six hour counting with a twelve hour counting, thus the numbering of the hours of the second and fourth quarter starts from 7 instead from 1." That is a 12-hour clock, not a 6-hour clock. The 6-hour clock divides the day into quarters, not halves. So therefore, it should be 1, not 7. 2, not 8. Why do people use this corrupted form? Thanks! 24.150.217.182 (talk) 14:21, 24 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You're quoting an erroneous passage from more than ten years ago. Please take a look at the current article version and see if your concerns have been solved since. --Paul_012 (talk) 15:22, 26 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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