Thai script - WikiHQ

The Thai script (, , ) is the abugida used to write Thai, Southern Thai and many other languages spoken in Thailand. The Thai script itself (as used to write Thai) has 44 consonant symbols (, ), 16 vowel symbols (, ) that combine into at least 32 vowel forms, four tone diacritics ( or , or ), and other diacritics.

Although commonly referred to as the Thai alphabet, the script is not a true alphabet but an abugida, a writing system in which the full characters represent consonants with diacritical marks for vowels; the absence of a vowel diacritic gives an implied 'a' or 'o'. Consonants are written horizontally from left to right, and vowels following a consonant in speech are written above, below, to the left or to the right of it, or a combination of those.

History

thumb|right|150px|[[Ramkhamhaeng inscription|Ram Khamhaeng Inscription, the oldest inscription using Sukhothai script

(Bangkok National Museum)]]

thumb|450x450px|The evolution of the Thai alphabet

The Thai script is derived from the Old Khmer script (, akson khom), a sophisticated writing system rooted in the South Indian Pallava alphabet () and a southern branch of the ancient Brahmi tradition. The Sukhothai script was the earliest Thai script developed from the Old Khmer script. The Ram Khamhaeng Inscription dated to 1292 is often cited as the script's first appearance, yet many scholars question its authenticity and reliability as historical evidence. However, according to the Wat Bang Sanuk Inscription (C.107) in Phrae province, several scholars proposed that the earliest Thai script could be dated back to 1219.

The introduction of tone markers in the Thai script was an adaptation to record tonal features absent in the source languages such as Dravidian languages, Indo-Aryan languages and the Mon-Khmer (Austroasiatic languages) family. The vowel marks were written on the main line. However, the practices fell out of use not long after.

Orthography

[[File:สถานทูตเวียดนาม ประจำประเทศไทย Vietnamese Embassy in Thailand, Bangkok.jpg|thumb|Here, the word meaning "embassy", which should be spelt สถานทูต, is misspelt สถานฑูต [sic] with tho montho instead of the correct tho thahan. These two letters look similar for untrained eyes and share the same class.]]

thumb|An example of Thai “teaching sign” illustrating handwritten script variation. The text reads The sample demonstrates the characteristic placement of superscript vowels and tone marks, as well as the decorative flourishes and ligatures common in written & artistic Thai orthography that differ from standard print fonts.

There is a fairly complex relationship between spelling and sound. There are various issues:

For many consonant sounds, there are two different letters that both represent the same sound, but which cause a different tone to be associated. This stems from a major change (a tone split) that occurred historically in the phonology of the Thai language. At the time the Thai script was created, the language had three tones and a full set of contrasts between voiced and unvoiced consonants at the beginning of a syllable (e.g. z vs. s). At a later time, the voicing distinction disappeared, but in the process, each of the three original tones split in two, with an originally voiced consonant (the modern "low" consonant signs) producing a lower-variant tone, and an originally unvoiced consonant (the modern "mid" and "high" consonant signs) producing a higher-variant tone.
Thai borrowed a large number of words from Sanskrit and Pali, and the Thai alphabet was created so that the original spelling of these words could be preserved as much as possible. This means that the Thai alphabet has a number of "duplicate" letters that represent separate sounds in Sanskrit and Pali (e.g. the alveolo-palatal fricative ś) but which never represented distinct sounds in the Thai language. Some are used to indicate tone distinctions as mentioned above, and others are mostly or exclusively used in Sanskrit and Pali borrowings.
The desire to preserve original Sanskrit and Pali spellings also produces a particularly large number of duplicate ways of spelling sounds at the end of a syllable (where Thai is strictly limited in the sounds that can occur but Sanskrit allowed all possibilities, especially once former final /a/ was deleted), as well as a number of silent letters. Moreover, many consonants from Sanskrit and Pali loanwords are generally silent. The spelling of the words resembles Sanskrit or Pali orthography:
Thai (spelled sǎamaarth but pronounced sa-mat with a silent r and a plain t that is represented using an aspirated consonant) "to be able" (Sanskrit समर्थ samartha)
Thai (spelled chanthr but pronounced chan because the th and the r are silent) "moon" (Sanskrit चन्द्र chandra)
Thai phonology dictates that all syllables must end in a vowel, an approximant, a nasal, or a voiceless plosive. Therefore, the letter written may not have the same pronunciation in the initial position as it does in the final position.
Even though the high class letter ho hip is used to write the sound /h/, if the letter comes before a low class letter in a syllable, it becomes the silent ho nam and turn the initial consonant into high class.

Thai letters do not have upper- and lower-case forms like Latin letters do. Spaces between words are not used, except in certain linguistically motivated cases.

Punctuation

Minor pauses in sentences may be marked by a comma ( or , or ), and major pauses by a period ( or , or ), but most often are marked by a blank space (, ). Thai writing also uses quotation marks (, ) and parentheses (round brackets) (, or , ), but not square brackets or braces.

A () is used for abbreviation. A () is the same as "etc." in English.

Several obsolete characters indicated the beginning or ending of sections. A bird's eye (, , officially called , ) formerly indicated paragraphs. An () was formerly used to mark the end of a chapter. A () was formerly used to mark the end of a document, but is now obsolete.

Alphabet listing

Thai (along with its sister system, Lao) lacks conjunct consonants and independent vowels, while both designs are common among Brahmic scripts (e.g., Burmese and Balinese). In scripts with conjunct consonants, each consonant has two forms: base and conjoined. Consonant clusters are represented with the two styles of consonants. The two styles may form typographical ligatures, as in Devanagari. Independent vowels are used when a syllable starts with a vowel sign.

Consonants

There are 44 consonant letters representing 21 distinct consonant sounds. Duplicate consonants either correspond to sounds that existed in Old Thai at the time the alphabet was created but no longer exist (in particular, voiced obstruents such as d), or different Sanskrit and Pali consonants pronounced identically in Thai. There are in addition four consonant-vowel combination characters not included in the tally of 44.

Consonants are divided into three classes—in alphabetical order these are middle (, ), high (, ), and low (, ) class—as shown in the table below. These class designations reflect phonetic qualities of the sounds to which the letters originally corresponded in Old Thai. In particular, "middle" sounds were voiceless unaspirated stops; "high" sounds, voiceless aspirated stops or voiceless fricatives; "low" sounds, voiced. Subsequent sound changes have obscured the phonetic nature of these classes. Today, the class of a consonant without a tone mark, along with the short or long length of the accompanying vowel, determine the base accent (, ). Middle class consonants with a long vowel spell an additional four tones with one of four tone marks over the controlling consonant: , , , and . Only middle class consonants can take the latter two, as shown in the . Differing interpretations of the two marks or their absence allow low class consonants to spell tones not allowed for the corresponding high class consonant. In the case of digraphs where a low class follows a higher class consonant, often the higher class rules apply, but the marker, if used, goes over the low class one; accordingly, and may be considered to be digraphs as such, as explained below the Tone table.

;Notes

To aid learning, each consonant is traditionally associated with an acrophonic Thai word that either starts with the same sound, or features it prominently. For example, the name of the letter is kho khai (), in which kho is the sound it represents, and khai () is a word which starts with the same sound and means "egg".

Two of the consonants, (kho khuat) and (kho khon), are no longer used in written Thai, but still appear on many keyboards and in character sets. When the first Thai typewriter was developed by Edwin Hunter McFarland in 1892, there was simply no space for all characters, thus two had to be left out. Also, neither of these two letters correspond to a Sanskrit or Pali letter, and each of them, being a modified form of the letter that precedes it (compare and ), has the same pronunciation and the same consonant class as the preceding letter, thus making them redundant. They used to represent the sound in Old Thai, but it has merged with in Modern Thai.

Equivalents for romanisation are shown in the table below. Many consonants are pronounced differently at the beginning and at the end of a syllable. The entries in columns initial and final indicate the pronunciation for that consonant in the corresponding positions in a syllable. Where the entry is '-', the consonant may not be used to close a syllable. Where a combination of consonants ends a written syllable, only the first is pronounced; possible closing consonant sounds are limited to 'k', 'm', 'n', 'ng', 'p' and 't'.

Although official standards for romanisation are the Royal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGS) defined by the Royal Thai Institute, and the almost identical defined by the International Organization for Standardization, many publications use different romanisation systems. In daily practice, a bewildering variety of romanisations are used, making it difficult to know how to pronounce a word, or to judge if two words (e.g. on a map and a street sign) are actually the same. For more precise information, an equivalent from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is given as well.

Alphabetic

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align: center;"

|-valign="top"

! rowspan="2" | Symbol

! colspan="3" | Name

! colspan="2" | RTGS

! colspan="2" | IPA

! rowspan="2" | Class

! Thai

! RTGS

! Meaning

! Initial

! Final

! Initial

! Final

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | chicken

| k

| style="background: #cfc" | mid

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | egg

| kh

| k

| style="background: #fcc" | high

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | bottle (obsolete)

| kh

| k

| style="background: #fcc" | high

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | buffalo

| kh

| k

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | person (obsolete)

| kh

| k

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | bell

| kh

| k

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | snake

| ng

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | plate

| ch

| t

| style="background: #cfc" | mid

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | cymbals

| ch || –

| style="background: #fcc" | high

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | elephant

| ch

| t

| ||

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | chain

| s

| t

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | tree

| ch

| t

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | woman

| y

| n

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | headdress

| d

| t

| style="background: #cfc" | mid

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | goad, javelin, spear

| t

| style="background: #cfc" | mid

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | pedestal

| th

| t

| style="background: #fcc" | high

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | Montho, character from Ramayana

| th or d

| t

| or

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | elder

| th

| t

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | samanera

| n

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | child

| d

| t

| style="background: #cfc" | mid

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | turtle

| t

| style="background: #cfc" | mid

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | sack

| th

| t

| style="background: #fcc" | high

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | soldier

| th

| t

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | flag

| th

| t

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | mouse

| n

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | leaf

| b

| p

| style="background: #cfc" | mid

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | fish

| p

| style="background: #cfc" | mid

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | bee

| ph

|  –

| style="background: #fcc" | high

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | lid

| f || –

| style="background: #fcc" | high

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | phan

| ph

| p

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | tooth

| f

| p

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | junk

| ph

| p

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | horse

| m

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | giant, yaksha

| y

| or n

| or

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | boat

| r

| n

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | monkey

| l

| n

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | ring

| w

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | pavilion, sala

| s

| t

| style="background: #fcc" | high

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | hermit

| s

| t

| style="background: #fcc" | high

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | tiger

| s

| t

| style="background: #fcc" | high

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | chest, box

| h

| –

| style="background: #fcc" | high

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | kite

| l

| n

| style="background: #ccf" | low

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | basin, tub

|  –

| style="background: #cfc" | mid

| style="font-size: 150%" |

| style="text-align: left" |

| style="text-align: left" | owl

| h

|  –

| style="background: #ccf" | low

Notes

Phonetic

The consonants can be organised by place and manner of articulation according to principles of the International Phonetic Association.

Thai distinguishes among three voice/aspiration patterns for plosive consonants:

unvoiced, unaspirated
unvoiced, aspirated
voiced, unaspirated

Where English has only a distinction between the voiced, unaspirated and the unvoiced, aspirated , Thai distinguishes a third sound which is neither voiced nor aspirated, which occurs in English only as an allophone of , approximately the sound of the p in "spin". There is similarly a laminal denti-alveolar , , triplet. In the velar series there is a , pair and in the postalveolar series the , pair.

In each cell below, the first line indicates International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), and the Romanisation according to the Royal Thai Institute as well as several variant Romanisations often encountered. A very approximate equivalent is given for various regions of English speakers and surrounding areas. Dotted circles represent the positions of consonants or consonant clusters. The first one represents the initial consonant and the latter (if it exists) represents the final.

Ro han (ร หัน) is not usually considered a vowel and is not included in the following table. It represents the sara a vowel in certain Sanskrit loanwords and appears as ◌รร◌. When used without a final consonant (◌รร), is implied as the final consonant, giving .

{| class="wikitable"

! colspan="7" style="width:49%"| Short vowels || rowspan="2" | || colspan="7" style="width:49%"|Long vowels

! colspan="2" | Name || Symbol || IPA || RTGS || Variants || Similar Sound (English RP pronunciation) || colspan="2"| Name || Symbol || IPA || RTGS || Variants || Similar Sound (English RP pronunciation)

! colspan="15" | Simple vowels

| สระอะ || sara a || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ◌ะ ◌ ◌ั◌ || style="text-align:center" | , || style="text-align:center"| a || u || u in "nut" || rowspan="9"| || สระอา || sara a || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ◌า ◌า◌ || style="text-align:center" | || style="text-align:center" | a || ah, ar, aa || a in "father"

| สระอิ || sara i || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ◌ิ ◌ิ◌ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"|i || || y in "greedy" || สระอี || sara i || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ◌ี ◌ี◌ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"|i || ee, ii, y || ee in "see"

| สระอึ || sara ue || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ◌ึ ◌ึ◌ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"|ue || eu, u, uh || Can be approximated by pronouncing the oo in "look" with unrounded lips

| สระอือ || sara ue || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ◌ือ ◌ื◌ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"|ue || eu, u || Can be approximated by pronouncing the oo in RP "goose" with unrounded lips

| สระอุ || sara u || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ◌ุ ◌ุ◌ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| u || oo || oo in "shoot" || สระอู || sara u || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ◌ู ◌ู◌ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| u || oo, uu || oo in "too"

| สระเอะ || sara e || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|เ◌ะ เ◌็◌ || style="text-align:center"| , || style="text-align:center"| e ||   || e in "neck" || สระเอ || sara e || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|เ◌ เ◌◌ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| e || ay, a, ae, ai, ei || a in "lame"

| สระแอะ || sara ae || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|แ◌ะ แ◌็◌ || style="text-align:center"| , || style="text-align:center"| ae || aeh, a || a in "at" || สระแอ || sara ae || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|แ◌ แ◌◌ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| ae || a || a in "ham"

| สระโอะ || sara o || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|โ◌ะ ◌◌ || style="text-align:center"| , || style="text-align:center"| o ||   || oa in "boat" || สระโอ || sara o || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|โ◌ โ◌◌ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| o || or, oh, ô || o in "go"

| สระเอาะ || sara o || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|เ◌าะ ◌็อ◌ || style="text-align:center"| , || style="text-align:center"| o || aw || o in "not" || สระออ || sara o || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ◌อ ◌อ◌ ◌◌ ◌็ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| o || or, aw || aw in "saw"

| สระเออะ || sara oe || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|เ◌อะ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| oe || eu || e in "the" || สระเออ || sara oe || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|เ◌อ เ◌ิ◌ เ◌อ◌ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| oe || er, eu, ur || u in "burn"

! colspan="15" | Diphthongs

| สระเอียะ || sara ia || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|เ◌ียะ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| ia || iah, ear, || ea in "ear" with glottal stop || rowspan="3"| || สระเอีย || sara ia || style="font-size:125%;text-align:center"|เ◌ีย เ◌ีย◌ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| ia || ear, ere, || ear in "ear"

| สระเอือะ || sara uea || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|เ◌ือะ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| uea || eua, ua || ure in "pure" || สระเอือ || sara uea || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|เ◌ือ เ◌ือ◌ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| uea || eua, ua, ue || ure in "pure"

| สระอัวะ || sara ua || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ◌ัวะ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| ua ||   || ewe in "sewer" || สระอัว || sara ua || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ◌ัว ◌ว◌ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| ua || uar || ewe in "newer"

! colspan="15"|Phonemic diphthongs

| สระอิ + ว || sara i + wo waen || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ◌ิว || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| io || iu, ew || ew in "few" || rowspan="13"| || colspan="7" |

| สระเอะ + ว || sara e + wo waen || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|เ◌็ว || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| eo || eu, ew || || สระเอ + ว || sara e + wo waen || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| เ◌ว || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| eo || eu, ew || ai + ow in "rainbow"

| colspan="7"| || สระแอ + ว || sara ae + wo waen || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|แ◌ว || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"|aeo || aew, eo || a in "ham" + ow in "low"

| สระเอา || sara ao || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|เ◌า || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"|ao || aw, au, ow || ow in "cow" || สระอา + ว || sara a + wo waen || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ◌าว || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"|ao || au || ow in "now"

| colspan="7"| || สระเอีย + ว || sara ia + wo waen || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|เ◌ียว || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| iao || eaw, iew, iow || io in "trio"

| สระอะ + ย || sara a + yo yak || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ◌ัย || rowspan="2" style="text-align:center"| || rowspan="2" style="text-align:center"|ai || rowspan="2" style="text-align:center"|ay || rowspan="2"|i in "hi" || rowspan="2"|สระอา + ย || rowspan="2"|sara a + yo yak || rowspan="2" style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ◌าย || rowspan="2" style="text-align:center"| || rowspan="2" style="text-align:center"|ai || rowspan="2"|aai, aay, ay || rowspan="2"|ye in "bye"

| สระไอ || sara ai || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ใ◌, ไ◌ ไ◌ย

| สระเอาะ + ย || sara o + yo yak || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ◌็อย || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| oi || oy || || สระออ + ย || sara o + yo yak || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ◌อย || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| oi || oy || oy in "boy"

| colspan="7"| || สระโอ + ย || sara o + yo yak || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|โ◌ย || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| oi || oy ||

| สระอุ + ย || sara u + yo yak || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ◌ุย || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| ui || uy || || colspan="7" |

| colspan="7"| || สระเออ + ย || sara oe + yo yak || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|เ◌ย || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| oei || oey || u in "burn" + y in "boy"

| colspan="7"| ||สระอัว + ย || sara ua + yo yak || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ◌วย || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| uai || uay || uoy in "buoy"

| colspan="7"| ||สระเอือ + ย || sara uea + yo yak || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|เ◌ือย || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| ueai || uai ||

! colspan="15" | Extra vowels

| สระอำ || sara am || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"| ◌ำ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| am || um || um in "sum" || rowspan="3"| || colspan="7"|

|ฤ || rue || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|ฤ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| rue, ri, roe || ru, ri || rew in "grew", ry in "angry" || ฤๅ || rue || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|ฤๅ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| rue || ruu ||

|ฦ || lue || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|ฦ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| lue || lu, li || lew in "blew" || ฦๅ || Lue || style="font-size:125%; text-align:center"|ฦๅ || style="text-align:center"| || style="text-align:center"| lue || lu ||

Notes

Tone

Central Thai

Central Thai is a tonal language, and the script gives full information on the tones. Tones are realised in the vowels, but indicated in the script by a combination of the class of the initial consonant (high, mid or low), vowel length (long or short), closing consonant (plosive or sonorant, called dead or live) and, if present, one of four tone marks, whose names derive from the names of the digits 1–4 borrowed from Pali or Sanskrit. The rules for denoting tones are shown in the following chart:

thumb|Tone type top to bottom: high, rising, mid, falling, low. Initial consonant class left to right: low (blue), middle (green), high (red). Syllable type: live (empty circle), dead (full circle), dead short (narrow ellipse), dead long (wide ellipse).

{|class="wikitable"

|-valign="top"

!rowspan="2" | Symbol

!colspan="2" | Name

!colspan="4" "style="background: #ffc"|Syllable composition and initial consonant class

!align="left" | Thai || RTGS || Vowel and final

!style="background: #ccf"| Low

!style="background: #cfc"| Mid

!style="background: #fcc"| High

|| ||(ไม่มี)||(none)|| live

|style="background: #ccf"|middle

|style="background: #cfc"|middle

|style="background: #fcc"|rising

|| ||(ไม่มี)||(none)|| dead short

|style="background: #ccf"|high

|style="background: #cfc"|low

|style="background: #fcc"|low

|| ||(ไม่มี)||(none)|| dead long

|style="background: #ccf"|falling

|style="background: #cfc"|low

|style="background: #fcc"|low

||  <big><big>่</big></big> ||ไม้เอก||mai ek||any

|style="background: #ccf"|falling

|style="background: #cfc"|low

|style="background: #fcc"|low

||  <big><big>้</big></big>||ไม้โท||mai tho||any

|style="background: #ccf"|high

|style="background: #cfc"|falling

|style="background: #fcc"|falling

||  <big><big>๊</big></big>||ไม้ตรี||mai tri||any

|style="background: #ccf"|-

|style="background: #cfc"|high

|style="background: #fcc"|-

||  <big><big>๋</big></big>||ไม้จัตวา ||mai chattawa||any

|style="background: #ccf"|-

|style="background: #cfc"|rising

|style="background: #fcc"|-

thumb|250px|Thai language tone chart

thumb|Flowchart for determining the tone of a Thai syllable. Click to enlarge

"None", that is, no tone marker, is used with the base accent (พื้นเสียง, ). Mai tri and mai chattawa are only used with mid-class consonants.

Two consonant characters (not diacritics) are used to modify the tone:

ห นำ ho nam, leading ho. A silent, high-class ห "leads" low-class nasal stops (ง, ญ, น and ม) and non-plosives (ว, ย, ร and ล), which have no corresponding high-class phonetic match, into the tone properties of a high-class consonant. In polysyllabic words, an initial mid- or high-class consonant with an implicit vowel similarly "leads" these same low-class consonants into the higher class tone rules, with the tone marker borne by the low-class consonant.
อ นำ o nam, leading o. In four words only, a silent, mid-class อ "leads" low-class ย into mid-class tone rules: อย่า (ya, don't) อยาก (yak, desire) อย่าง (yang, kind, sort, type) อยู่ (yu, stay). All four have long-vowel, low-tone siang ek; อยาก, a dead syllable, needs no tone marker, but the three live syllables all take mai ek.

{|class="wikitable"

|-valign="top"

! Low consonant !! High consonant || IPA

| style="background: #ccf"| ง || style="background: #fcc"| หง || /ŋ/

| style="background: #ccf"| ญ || style="background: #fcc"| หญ || /j/

| style="background: #ccf"| น || style="background: #fcc"| หน || /n/

| style="background: #ccf"| ม || style="background: #fcc"| หม || /m/

| style="background: #ccf"| ย || style="background: #fcc"| หย || /j/

| style="background: #ccf"| ร || style="background: #fcc"| หร || /r/

| style="background: #ccf"| ล || style="background: #fcc"| หล || /l/

| style="background: #ccf"| ว || style="background: #fcc"| หว || /w/

! Low consonant !! Middle consonant !! IPA

| style="background: #ccf"| ย || style="background: #cfc"| อย || /j/

In some dialects there are words which are spelled with one tone but pronounced with another and often occur in informal conversation (notably the pronouns ฉัน chan and เขา khao, which are both pronounced with a high tone rather than the rising tone indicated by the script). Generally, when such words are recited or read in public, they are pronounced as spelled.

Southern Thai

Although the Southern Thai writing form also gives full information on the tones as does Central Thai, the language itself is a pitch-accent language, whose spoken form can have up to seven tones. When Southern Thai is written in Thai script, there are different rules for indicating spoken tone.

{|class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em; text-align: center;"

! Tones

! colspan="3" | Nakhon Si Thammarat accent rules

! IPA

| rowspan="2" | First tone

| colspan="3" | An initial consonant class "high" with long sound, and an initial consonant class "low" after the word.

| colspan="3" | An initial consonant class "high" with short sound, and an initial consonant class "low" with [k̚], [t̚], [p̚] finals after the word.

| Second tone

| colspan="3" | An initial consonant class "high" both short long sound, and an initial consonant class "low" after the word.

| rowspan="2" | Third tone

| colspan="3" | An initial consonant class "middle" long sound.

| colspan="3" | An initial consonant class "middle" short sound with [k̚], [t̚], [p̚] finals.

| Fourth tone

| colspan="3" | An initial consonant class "middle" both short long sound.

| Fifth tone

| colspan="3" | An initial consonant class "low" with head word.

| Sixth tone

| colspan="3" | An initial consonant class "low" long sound.

| Seventh tone

| colspan="3" | An initial consonant class "low" short sound.

Diacritics

Other diacritics are used to indicate short vowels and silent letters:

means "climbing stick". It is a miniature Thai numeral 8 ๘. is often used with sara e (เ) and sara ae (แ) in closed syllables.
means "capital punishment". It is a miniature Thai numeral 4 ๔.

{|class="wikitable"

|-valign="top"

! rowspan="2" | Symbol

! colspan="2" | Name

! rowspan="2" | Meaning

! Thai || RTGS

|  <big><big>◌็</big></big> || ไม้ไต่คู้ || || shortens vowel

|  <big><big>◌์</big></big> || ทัณฑฆาต or การันต์|| thanthakhat or karan || indicates silent letter

Fan nu means "rat teeth" and is thought as being placed in combination with short sara i and fong man to form other characters.

{|class="wikitable"

|-valign="top"

! rowspan="2" | Symbol

! colspan="2" | Name

! rowspan="2" | Use

! Thai || RTGS

| rowspan="2"|  <big><big>"</big></big> || rowspan="2"| ฟันหนู || rowspan="2"| fan nu || combined with short sara i (<big><big>◌ิ</big></big>) to make long sara ue (<big><big>◌ื</big></big>)

| combined with fong man (๏) to make fong man fan nu (๏")

Numerals

For numerals, mostly the standard Hindu-Arabic numerals (, lek hindu arabik) are used, but Thai also has its own set of Thai numerals that are based on the Hindu-Arabic numeral system (, lek thai), which are mostly limited to government documents, election posters, license plates of military vehicles, and special entry prices for Thai nationals.

{| class="wikitable"

!Hindu-Arabic

||0||1||2||3||4||5||6||7||8||9

!Thai

||๐||๑||๒||๓||๔||๕||๖||๗||๘||๙

Other symbols

{|class="wikitable"

|-valign="top"

! rowspan="2" | Symbol

! colspan="2" | Name

! rowspan="2" | Meaning

! Thai || RTGS

| ฯ || ไปยาลน้อย || paiyan noi || marks formal phrase shortened by convention (abbreviation)

| ฯลฯ || ไปยาลใหญ่ || paiyan yai || et cetera

| ๆ || ไม้ยมก || mai yamok || preceding word or phrase is reduplicated

| ๏ || ฟองมัน, ตาไก่ || fong man, ta kai || previously marked beginning of a sentence, paragraph, or stanza (obsolete);

External links

Interactive Thai alphabet with audio
Comprehensive free Thai alphabet resource
Comparing Thai script with Devanagari, Khmer, Burmese, and Tai Tham
Omniglot – Thai
Thai consonants
Thai vowels
Transliterations for Thai Vowels, Thai Consonants
Phonetic Organization of the Thai Consonants, by Richard Wordingham
Virtual Thai Keyboard Freeware for the Windows operating system
Insert Zero-Width Space Character – This utility prepares Thai text by inserting the Unicode "Zero-Width Space Character" between detected word breaks.