The Thai use the same week, month and year subdivisions as in the West.

The name of each day of the week is prefixed by the word WUN “day” instead of ending with the syllable “-day” as in English.

Officially and commercially they observe Saturday afternoons and Sundays as holidays.

Their own religious holiday corresponding to Sunday, however, is a day called WUN PRA “Priest’s Day” which is largely observed in the agricultural districts, and even in Bangkok is the general day for going to the WUT or Temple if possible.

As this day falls on the 8th and 15th of the waxing and waning of the Moon it usually falls on a different day each week and is rather difficult to calculate, but most Thai calendars show it.

January 1st is observed as a holiday although the actual Thai New Year falls on the 13th, 14th or 15th of April depending on the moon and is the occasion of the SONG GRAHN festival commonly known as the “Water Festival”.

It is not observed as an official holiday in Bangkok although it is a great holiday period in the northern provinces.

The months in Thai are named after the signs of the Zodiac and their names are rather complicated.

Many Thai themselves have difficulty in working out which month follows which and will often run through them until they come to the one they want. As it is hardly necessary to try and remember the names of the months at this stage, they are given in Appendix 2 for reference.

When referring to a month we always use the word DEU-AN “month” in front of the name of the month.

Years in Thailand are usually specified in relation to the Buddhist Era which is obtained by adding 543 to the Christian Era.

This is indicated by the prefix B.E. (Buddhist Era) in English or พ.ศ. in Thai which is short for,

พุทธศักราช

POOT-TASUKA-RAHT

(Buddhist Era)

Newspapers very often use the Christian calendar and in this case the abbreviation is, ค.ศ.

คริสตศักราช

KRIT-SUKA-RAHT

(Christian Era)

A.D. 1971 = B.E. 2514 = พ.ศ. ๒๕๑๔ = ค.ศ. ๑๙๗๑. This spoken as, POR SOR SORNG PUN HAH ROY SIP SEE or, KOR SOR PUN GOW ROY JET SIP ET.

Generated by Lyndon Hill on Thu Jul 20 18:40:31 BST 2006.

Copyright remains with the original authors.