Thai writing

October 2, 2009 12:10 PM

What is written here? It's Thai.

It should be a disease. My Thai aunt-in-law's father has it, but we don't understand what it is. Can the hive mind help?

Here it is. Thanks, hive mind!

posted by Baldons to writing & language (6 comments total)

My wonderful Thai coworker says the first three characters are "Lok" and the rest is "cao" (just as it's written beneath the Thai writing).

Lok means "sickness" and cao means "old" so it's apparently something about a previous sickness. Without context she couldn't guess at anything more.
posted by Balonious Assault at 12:32 PM on October 2

After reading your quetion a little closer and conferring with my coworker again, I'm told it's definitely referring to a pre-existing condition, but not any particular disease, and it doesn't mean "sickness of the elderly" or anything like that.

"Lok cao" refers to a previous or existing condition, and "lok ma" would refer a new condition. In case that helps.
posted by Balonious Assault at 12:48 PM on October 2

Thank you, Balonious Assault!
posted by Baldons at 2:39 PM on October 2

Could it be gout? There's a silent character "t" missing from the end though.

Old in Thai is spelled differently to what's on that note. And a new condition would be "lok mai" not "lok ma" which would be horse disease or dog disease!
posted by Transparent Yak at 3:12 PM on October 2

And a new condition would be "lok mai" not "lok ma" which would be horse disease or dog disease!

That's my mistake. I didn't ask how to spell lok mai. I should have known it would mean something ridiculous if I just spelled it the way it sounded. In any case, I was trying to clarify that it means "old sickness" and not "old person's sickness."

My coworker was adamant, though, that the note does mean "old sickness" but not a specific sickness.
posted by Balonious Assault at 5:45 PM on October 2

Fair enough if they are adamant that is what it is. Thai is not my first language but the pre-existing condition answer didn't pass my sanity test. Why would you give someone information on a person's illness but be vague and say it was a pre-exisiting condition.

"โรคเก๊า" (Gout) - http://www.tweeh.com/article?id=4121&lang=th

whereas old is "เก่า"
posted by Transparent Yak at 7:22 PM on October 2