| CONSONANTS | VOWELS | NUMBERS | PECULIARITIES | TONES |
THAI ALPHABET |
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This section is intended as a reference and aid to help recognize and determine the transcription of certain Thai words in our lexicon. There are many exceptions and rules that are not mentioned. The pronunciation of a consonant often differs depending on whether it stands at the beginning of a word or syllable, or at the end. In our reference list this is indicated by putting the pronunciation at the beginning of a syllable, followed by the pronunciation of the consonant at the end of a syllable. Sometimes consonants are written just once but pronounced twice. Some vowels are pronounced but not written. This mainly applies to the vowels o and a and are called 'silent vowels'. Thai is a tonal language and there are five tones namely high, low, middle, falling and rising. The meaning of a word changes according to its tone. These details are lost when transcribing into Latin script. So seemingly similar words in Latin script are different when read in Thai script. Consonants belong to a certain class of tone. The word-tone will be determined by this class and the changes to it are influenced by the vowels and consonants following it, or by 'tone marks'. In the section 'tone rules' the expression a 'living sound' refers to a sound that has either an open syllable ending on a long vowel or vowel combination (e.g. phaa, pai) or a closed syllable which end sound is nasal and reverberates (e.g. phaan, ping). With a 'dead sound' we refer to a sound that has a closed syllable ending with an occlusive and does not reverberate (e.g. phat) or a sound that has an open syllable ending on a short vowel that does not reverberate, possibly with a glottal stop (e.g. dja).
Tone marks:
Tone rules:
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