“seŋ” From Food to Emotions

Abstract

The aim of this article is to examine the meaning development of the word “seŋ” and its meaning extension from the early Bangkok period to the present. Data collection involved information about meanings of the word “seŋ” from dictionaries in each period, usage of the word “seŋ” during the reign of King Rama I to the reign of King Rama VIII from prose documents, and the present usage of the term “seŋ” from the Thai National Corpus as well as a social medium; Twitter. All sources were taken into account for the analysis. The findings showed that the word “seŋ” was derived from Chaozhou Chinese 清 /cêng1/ meaning ‘clear.’ The findings also showed that it can be used not only with respect to the taste of food, but also for various other things. Thai people have adopted this word as a ‘taste term’ to describe the loss of flavor for food left for a long time. Finally, the meaning of the word “seŋ” was extended to displays of ‘emotion’ with two semantic devices: metaphor and metaphtonymy.