As someone who knows nothing about thai language, I found your linguistics explanation quite interesting and it got me wondering about how does the phi/nong work in details, like in the new dsn episode Leon said that Fiat's only a few months older than him and he only calls him P' because he started school yearly. Is it somehow similar to the korean yearly birthday situation?
Thai Honorifics Between Ages in BL & in Real Life
Technically yes but also... no.
phi/nong/ai - honorifics & pronouns
So anyone born the year(s) before you, and/or in school a grade above you, within a few years (amorphous and somewhat generational) should be called P'+name. This is usually considered polite but not very formal.
(I would say it covers anyone who might be at high school or university with you, so about 4-5 years or so ahead and about 4-5 years or so behind, but it's super flexible. So actors might meet a much older but queer or super hip member of the press who will insist on phi, even though they are a decade or more senior.) Phi/P’ is gender neutral.
Very loosely phi when used alone = older sibling and nong used along = younger sibling. (Phi is similar but not the same as hyung in Korean or senpai in Japanese.)
The older person will usually use the pronoun version phi to refer to themself as "I" but the younger boy will usually use their own name or pom for I (but rarely nong).
Both boys will use the particle krab/kap. (Girls use kha.)
BL shows will occasionally mess with this but the actors in interviews are usually really careful about their phi/nongs & krap/khas.
guu/mueng - I and you rude informal pronouns (used the most in BL), should NEVER be spoken by an outsider until said outsider fully understands the implications.
The grown up version of all this is khun which is polite, formal and age + gender neutral. Khun may be used as the you pronoun and as an honorific Khun + name especially in the workplace. (Thai doesn’t really have a sunbae or sensei form of address.) To confuse matter Khun is also a first name in Thailand and BL.
To really confuse matters there are a number of other I/you pronouns (rao, chan, ter, hia) which are (somewhat) gender neutral, definitely situational, and fall into various categories of rudeness, formality, and intimacy.
Hia honorific or you pronoun. Hia functions the same as phi but is used only by those with Chinese ancestry and is slightly more household intimate than phi (more strongly associated with actual siblings/cousins/family members). In UWMA Team calls Win hia (and leaves off the P'Win - cheeky boy), but he uses phi and P'Dean for Dean. In Bad Buddy Pat’s sister uses hia with him.
It’s rare to hear hia used IRL on the actor circuit. But New uses it with Zee (Cutie Pie) which is interesting. They have a soft but strictly older younger dynamic (Zee is almost a decade older then New). And Zee has been through the ringer with a pair before so there’s a lot of subtext going on here. You can see them (and hia) in action here.
OhmFluke. Fluke is older than Ohm but refers to him as P'Ohm and Ohm usually uses a nickname on Fluke. They decided this early on in their relationship as actors promoting Until We Meet Again.
So clearly phi/nong has some flexibility of choice built into it socially.
SantaEarth. Earth clearly does not like how much older he is than Santa so they have negotiated some kind of complicated referral system between them that I still can't quite follow. But I find kinda fascinating to listen to. Thai is a language where you can actually avoid all pronouns most of the time and still clearly communicate. These two seem to do that a lot.
LeonPob. Leon and Pob tackle modes of address many times in Don’t Say No. In ep 10, over the phone Leon says if Pob uses just Pob (no Phi) as the “I” pronoun when they are talking, Leon will melt. Pob does, right before hanging up. Then Pob does it again when he’s begging Leon later, and Leon just crumbles. Pob is older but acting linguistically younger and Leon (the seme) finds this unbearably CUTE. He also takes it as linguistic submission and permission to take their relationship to the next level. Which it kind of is.
SibGene. They have an ongoing conversation about this in Lovely Writer. In general couples where the seme is younger than the uke and aggressive about it have a kind of negotiation as part of their relationship. I talk about it here, under age flipped dynamics.
BohnDuen in My Engineer and WinTeam in UWMA are abnormal too. I call them linguistic brats.
Anyone significantly older than you, like a generation or more above you, and in a casual environment like retail or food service, is usually called par/lung AKA auntie/uncle by students (also your parent's friends, your friend's parents, and adult neighbors).
See par used a lot in Lovely Writer.
Your boyfriend's parents, if they approve the relationship, will likely invite the use of paa/maa.
But the older you are in life, the more you should be using khun + krap/kha instead of any of these. You can see khun grappled with as part of the plot of Lovely Writer and Day’s plot line in SOTUS S. There’s a rise in its use post 2020 as more Thai BLs move into the adult sphere and workplace environments (see Manner of Death and Paint with Love).
Nong does not work the same a phi
Anyone younger than you technically is a nong but most older kids will actually use no honorific for those younger than them but in the same general age bracket/generation/schooling system. Nong carries with it cute or diminutive connotations. A little like the difference between "my little brother" or "my baby brother" versus "my younger brother." Nong is more babyish. Thus it's more likely to be used across a much wider age gap, or with very specific cute personality types.
Nong in the third person is different again and almost entirely dependent on circumstances.
Also nong is often used on animals and pets.
Unlike phi a boy nong will rarely use nong in place of the personal pronoun, he would use pom or his own name. A girl will usually use chan. However, boys can/do also use chan as an informal I pronoun across age barriers, amongst intimates, and with female friends. Peach uses chan with YoonOh in Peach of Time.
Both genders/ages also have access to (and use) the I pronoun rao (which s ALSO the pronoun for we, sounds like lao) and is... soft? Cutsie? Gentle. Also a tiny bit stiff. It can be used when you don’t want to use guu, or don’t know (or want to know) the age relationship in play. I would say it has an old fashioned tone, but it’s experiencing a resurgence in modern Thai amongst youngsters right now. Yok drops from pom to rao in Not Me only AFTER he and Dan kiss, it’s very sweet.
I’ve talked about ter before. We are taught ter as she/her when learning Thai. That would be the formal and polite use but actually it’s rarely spoken that way. It’s not frozen register, it is used as she/her, but not often.
When ter shows up in Thai BLs is tends to show up as you, which used to be frozen register. It entered parlance in songs/poems in particular. As you it’s not gender specific. When Tine sings his song to Sarawat at the end of Still 2gether he uses ter for you. In normal conversation, these two characters use mueng. In formal situations they tend to use each others names. But in song, Tine uses ter. It has an old fashioned romantic connotation when used in this way and is often paired with the I pronoun rao as a result.
The time we hear ter=you discussed in BL is He’s Coming to Me. Thun/Than calls his mother ter over the phone, and Med/Mes thinks Thun is talking to a lover. Imagine picking up the phone or running into someone and saying softly, “Hay, you.”It’s sweet. Thun uses ter with his mother instead of maa because, as his mother explains later, maa makes her feel too old. This is a bit like giving one’s parent a pet name and is showcasing how close Thun is to her.
Here’s a YT vid where a Thai language teacher talks about modern use of ter & rao.
There's a point where Bhon calls Duen "nong Duen" in My Engineer and clearly absolutely relishes the teasing nature of that, because it's a bit of an insult to Duen's dignity.
In Bad Buddy, Korn uses nong to tease Pat about flirting with Pran. It’s very very funny if you understand the implications of the term under the context of their friendship (equals and age mates) and Pat pretending to be jealous of Wai in order to cope with how much Wai is hurting his boyfriend.
Dean's friends tease both Pharm and Dean by flirting with Pharm and calling him "nong Pharm" in front of Dean. Partly this is because Pharm is so cute and shy. Just think if they tried that with Team? He'd beat the shit out of them. And Win would hold his jacket while Team punched.
So there's a bit of affection baby-talk to nong as well, once romance is involved. (Much like we use the affectionate term "baby" as English-speaking couples.)
Ai'+ name is technically supposed to be used between age mates but it is usually dropped in BL and on the interview circuit. It can and is applied in cases where social formality is required - meeting a stranger's kids who are the same age or something like that.
But in BL it ALSO will be applied with a long drawn out tone when insult is required between close friends. Ae and Pond do it a lot in LBC. In which case Ai'+name is a little like an affectionate "my asshole friend here." The opposite is also true, Ai can be softened and applied for affection.
Fiat uses Ai’Leeooo with Leo all the time in Don’t Say No. It’s a kind of bratty affection coming from him. Leo, on the other hand, only uses Ai’Fiat when he is annoyed af with his boy.
Informality between same year/age mates (or from older to younger) can be better tracked through the use of no honorifics and, often in BL, the application of guu/mueng pronouns for I/you and the use of wa particle instead of krap/kha. These are all gender neutral. But you will never hear these used on the promo circuit between actors. They are quite rude.
NOT ME TROTS THEM ALL OUT AT ONCE
In Not Me episode 7 at the rally, those addressing the crowd use Phi Nong Ai. It was translated as citizens but it was literally the pronouns in a row: older siblings, younger siblings, equal friends. I actually would have thought they’d just use puern (friend) but maybe it can’t be applied to a group like that.
Once you're out and about in the workplace khun is pretty much required, unless you're invited by your older workplace mates to revert back to phi. This can be made immediately clear to you because that workmate will just use phi in conversation when referring to themself, and that means you have been invited to call them phi instead of khun - it's a gesture of friendship. You can see this in SOTUS S.
Impolite or Flexible Particles:
There are no hard and fast rules here except that a tourist should use kha/krap particles and khun honorifics.
men use krap rolling the “r” = sarcasm (or the curt slightly more informal) kap!
women use kha (or very rarely a drawn out sarcastic kaaa - this is a bit tough/agro/bad) the hardness of the “k” noise makes a difference
Both these can also be used alone as verbal acknowledgement agreement especially to an adult or someone older than you. However, when a boy uses solo krap with his boyfriend or someone younger than him or an age-mate it’s almost always sarcastic. Like “yessir” or “sure, dude.”
HOWEVER THERE ARE A TON OF EXCEPTIONS.
Kha particle as used by a man. A hard kha may be used by (or occasionally with) members of the queer community by those who identify as male and would formally use krap. A soft kha may be used by a man talking to a much younger girl (Pete, who ALWAYS uses krap, uses kha with Ae's niece in Love By Chance because he is being very gentle/soft with her). A male player picking up women in a bar may also use kha.
Ja & ha particles. Queer and gay-identified performers and Thai third gender (kathoey) have more flexibility with their particles even in formal situations (if they want) and may use ja or ha instead of krap. Ja seems slightly more associated with femininity and ha with neutral or masculinity. Most kathoey (MTF) use kha (hard and soft) and ja particles. Most gay men (masculine identified) use krap except when talking to their queer community, then they will pick up kha, ja, or ha.
More on ha. Outside of queer ha is used amongst family members (and intimates) with loads of affection attached. (Phun uses ha with his adored younger sister in Love Sick.) Because it is a little cutsie it can also be used between lovers in a teasing capacity. It’s the kind of thing we might get in a certain jocular LTR on screen. (Honestly, I could see MaxTul popping in a ha or two IRL just to fuck with us.) Bad Buddy trots out a ha when wrestling in the final episode.
June in Love Area 2 is one of my all time favorite linguistic characters. June is agender INCLUDING linguistically (I use agender intentionally since we can’t tell if the character is butch, FTM, gender fluid, or gender neutral). I legitimately have been told this was not possible in the Thai language. June uses the ha particle only, and sparingly, and has never gendered self or been gendered by others as part of the narrative. June is linguistically curt and a bit rude as a result, but the surrounding characters never seem very offended by this, even older generations. It is FASCINATING.
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