This process of translation-as-transformation was shaped by the Thai language
itself: popular speech and literary genres emphasize end-sound rhyming. Thus, if new
coinages were to gain wide circulation, they could not merely be transliterated from their
native languages – they had to be transformed into Thai; that is, they had to be situated
both within preexistent structures of lexical meaning and aural aesthetics at the same time
that they pushed the boundaries of these socio-political language norms. In simpler terms,
they had to sound good to the Thai ear, which listens for and desires certain patterns of
language, especially those of rhyme. The process of translation-as-transformation points
both to the specific ways in which the entrance of foreign terms has been seen as an
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important site for political intervention by various official translators in Thailand and also
to the flexibility and generativity of Thai rhyming genres.