New words and notes.
This is a letter from a wash girl who has fallen out with the No. 1 servant, (MAHLEE) and resigned. Her knowledge of writing is about Grade 3 or 4. Notice that she refers to herself as NOO (little one) throughout except at the end where she refers to herself by her job as SUK PAH.
She uses no 2nd. person pronoun but refers to her employer as NAI. It is by no means a very good letter but is reproduced exactly as written.
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เรียน |
REE-AN |
This word
which normally means “to learn” is used as the introduction to a
letter and in this case cannot be translated. |
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|
เคารพ |
KOWROP |
Respect |
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นับถือ |
NUP
TEU |
Respect |
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ลา |
LAH |
To resign,
to go away, take leave of. |
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ก็ |
GOR |
An untranslatable
particle which in this case is used more or less as punctuation. (See Lesson
24). |
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หลาน |
LAHN |
A grandchild, nephew or
nice. |
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ซิ |
SI |
This merely
indicates a mild form of imperative and cannot be translated (See Lesson
25.A). |
|
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หาว่า |
HAH
WAH |
To accuse
or charge a person with some thing. |
Translation.
Sir, who I respect
Yesterday that NOO took leave of NAI and did not work. Because MAHLEE is no good. She has a story that NOO uses a lot of water but MAHLEE uses more. Husband one person, boy one person, nephew one person, MAHLEE one person, altogether 4 people. As for NOO one person alone. NAI think which will be the most. MAHLEE’s child comes to sleep here every night, sleeps in the kitchen, she never lets NAI see. That day MAHLEE took NAI’s beer and gave it to the Samlor Man to drink but she says she did not give. NOO saw her give it to him to drink.
If NAI doesn’t want NOO to go NAI must tell MAHLEE not to come and say anything with wash girl. Wash girl live with NAI very happily but MAHLEE she is no good. At the time when NOO goes to see her elder sister she charges her with going out for fun, but no, NAI must not believe MAHLEE.
If NAI lets NOO go NAI lead me to other work can you?
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Generated by Lyndon Hill on Thu Jul 20 18:40:34 BST 2006.
Copyright remains with the original authors.