Thai language

Script

Main article: Thai alphabet

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The Thai alphabet derived from the Khmer alphabet (??????????), which is modeled after the Brahmic script from the Indic family. Much like the Burmese adopted the Mon script (which also has Indic origins), the Thais adopted and modified Khmer script to create their own writing system. While the oldest known inscription in the Khmer language dates from 611 CE, inscriptions in Thai writing began to appear around 1292 CE. Notable features include:

Related Topics:
Khmer alphabet - Brahmi - Indic - Mon script - Khmer language

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• It is an abugida script, in which the implicit vowel is a short /a/ for consonants standing alone and a short /o/ if the initial consonant or cluster is followed by another consonant.
• Tone markers are placed above the initial consonant of a syllable or on the last consonant of an initial consonant cluster.
• Vowels associated with consonants are nonsequential: they can be located before, after, above or below their associated consonant, or in a combination of these positions.

The latter in particular causes problems for computer encoding and text rendering.

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There is no universal standard for transliterating Thai into English. For example, the name of King Rama IX, the present monarch, is transliterated variously as Bhumibol, Phumiphon, or many other versions. Guide books, text books and dictionaries may each follow different systems. For this reason, most language courses recommend that learners master the Thai alphabet. In scholarly usage, French scholars tend to romanize Thai with a letter-for-letter transcription according to the original Sanskrit value of the characters. Anglophone scholars generally prefer either a simplified phonetic rendering or some variation on the International Phonetic Alphabet. This article uses a simplified IPA system which does not indicate tone or vowel length.

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The Thai Royal Institute http://www.royin.go.th/ publishes sets of rules for transliterating Thai words into the Roman alphabet and vice versa (the Royal Thai General System of Transcription), but these are far from universally applied.

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The ISO published an international standard for the transliteration of Thai into Roman script in September 2003 http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPage.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=20574&ICS1=1&ICS2=140&ICS3=10.

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