Thai

อักษรไทย

Abugida · 44 letters

Each consonant carries an implied vowel — ka, not k — and marks hung above, below or around it change that vowel. You learn the consonants, then the vowel marks, then the combinations: three steps instead of one. Every script of India, plus Thai and Khmer.

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What pays off on the road

• The abbreviations of the 77 provinces, on rural roads, kilometre stones and local signs: ชม is Chiang Mai, ขก Khon Kaen.
• Five words that cut a sign into parts: จังหวัด province, อำเภอ district, ตำบล subdistrict, ถนน street, เมือง city.
• Reading a name: the sixteen look-alikes first, then the five vowels written before their consonant.

How it works

Forty-four consonants for twenty-one sounds

Thai inherited its consonants twice: once from Khmer, once from Sanskrit through the Buddhist texts. The second set is pronounced like the first — five signs say "kh", six say "th", four say "s" — and only spelling separates them.

For someone learning to read signs, that is good news: the sixteen learned consonants are rare, and knowing they exist is enough not to stall on them. Twenty-eight common signs carry almost every place name in the country.

Five vowels are written before what you read after

เ แ โ ใ ไ sit to the left of their consonant. เชียงใหม่ starts with เ but reads "chiang": the ช comes first to the ear. Reading in the order the signs are painted gives "echiang", which does not exist.

This is the central trap of Thai, and it comes down to five signs, all on the left. ขอนแก่น, below, is read step by step.

Words are not separated

Thai writes no space between words. A sentence is one continuous line, and the spaces you do see mark the end of a clause, like a comma.

On a sign this is almost never a problem: a place name comes in one block, and that block is what you transcribe. ขอนแก่น is written in one go and reads Khon Kaen. Knowing it saves you looking for a break that is not there.

Tones are not needed for reading

Thai has five tones, marked by four accents — ่ ้ ๊ ๋ — and by the class of the consonant. The system is real and intricate, and it is useless for transcribing a name: these accents do not change the letters, only the melody.

So you learn to recognise them, so as not to mistake them for vowels, and move on. That is exactly what the official Thai romanisation does too.

Cheat sheet

The look-alikes

Sixteen signs that differ only by a loop, a hook or a foot. ก, ถ and ภ differ only in their tail; ผ, ฝ, พ and ฟ by one stroke. The most rewarding family of the whole script: these are the common consonants, and these are the ones you mix up.

The consonants with no trap

Twelve signs that look like nothing else. Nothing to tell apart, nothing to confuse: you either know them or you do not.

The Sanskrit doubles

Sixteen consonants from the Buddhist texts, each pronounced like another, commoner one. Recognising them is enough — knowing which is which earns nothing in front of a sign. Two of them are no longer used at all.

The vowels written before

Five signs that sit to the left of the consonant you pronounce before them. The central trap of Thai, with no European equivalent — but there are only five, they are all on the left, and the reflex is learnt once and for all.

The other vowels

They sit after the consonant, above it or below it. The floating ones are shown here on a dotted circle: in a real word, a consonant carries them.

The marks

Four tone accents and three service marks. None changes the letters: you recognise them so as not to mistake them for vowels, and move on. The official Thai romanisation ignores them too.

The words on signs

Countries

Thailand

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