Pad kaphrao contest seeks true taste of Thai dish

And your solution works for /k/ and /kh/, but runs into problems when you have a three-way contrast (/b/p/ph/ and /d/t/th). You can't write "buu" for "crab" just because you think it sounds like an English "b"; you need "b" for the actual /b/ sound.

The consonant group in question is the "velar plosives", so-called because they are produced by the sudden release of air blocked behind the tongue and the velum. In English, this includes the k and g sounds.

There are two relevant modifiers that can be applied to consonant sounds: voice and aspiration. Voice is the vibration of the vocal chords. If you touch your throat, you will feel the difference between s and z. Aspiration is the "h-iness" of some sounds, where a short burst of breath is produced alongside the consonant.

In common English dialects, the k sound is unvoiced and aspirated, whereas the g is voiced and unaspirated. The two properties go hand in hand, so either can be used to distinguish the consonants. (0)

In Thai (as I understand it), there is an unvoiced and aspirated sound, and an unvoiced and unaspirated sound. So whether these two sounds are interpreted as k/g or two varieties of k (kh/k) is ultimately arbitrary.

Pinyin, the most common romanisation scheme for Standard Chinese, went down the "k/g" route. It sounds like RTGS goes down the "kh/k" route instead.

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(0) In actual speech, this apparently clean distinction is much more blurry for a variety of reasons, but it's a good enough approximation for this purpose. For the interested you can Google "fortis and lenis".

ETA: Wikipedia says this: "Between pairs of stops or affricates having the same place of articulation and manner of articulation, the primary distinction is not voiced vs. voiceless (as in French or Russian), but unaspirated vs. aspirated (as in Scottish Gaelic or Icelandic)."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Con...

( And apparently this practice has roots from the even older transliteration of Phi )

Pudina (mint) chutney is ubiquitous, often mixed with fresh green coriander leaves (hara dhaniya).

>When I think about it, fragrant fresh herbs are very seldom used in Indian cooking, outside of coriander (mostly used as garnish).

Somewhat true, but would vary by region. Curry leaf usage is widespread in South India. Just had an egg curry today with curry leaf (and other) flavoring, with chapatis, at a Kerala restaurant in a non-Kerala town. With raita and chopped onion and chilis on the side. :)

Methi (fenugreek) is used as a green and cooked and eaten, apart from use in parathas. Methi thepla (like paratha but from a different region, Gujarat / Rajasthan), is so tasty (to me) that I can eat it by itself. :)

And if you extend the definition of fresh (but not necessarily fragrant, some are neutral in smell) herbs to greens used like spinach, India has a wide variety of such greens that are eaten on a regular basis in different parts of the country. For example, many kinds of keerai in South India, including amaranths, palak, siru keerai, thandu keerai, agathi keerai, and many more. It's just that they are not much offered at mainstream Indian restaurants in India or abroad, AFAIK. That's because such restaurants are conservative and mainly make what sells the most.

Yes. When I first googled for holy basil Wikipedia, to post about it here, I was a bit surprised to see that other second name, because I too knew it earlier only by the sanctum second name.

>There are a few different varieties of holy basil, too.

Right. A few I know of are Krishna tulasi, Rama tulasi, vana tulasi (maybe some overlap there). Those names are mentioned in some Ayurvedic medicines that include tulasi as an ingredient, IIRC.