Thai Alphabet Chart printable pdf download

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Thai alphabet (ตั ว อั ก ษรไทย)

Origin

The Thai alphabet was probably derived from, or at least influenced by, the Old Khmer

alphabet. According to tradition it was created in 1283 by King Ramkhamhaeng (พ อ ขุ น ราม

คํ า แหงมหาราช).

Notable features

This is a syllabic alphabet consisting of 44 basic consonants, each with an inherent

vowel: [o] in medial position and [a] in final position. The [a] is usually found in

words of Sanskrit, Pali or Khmer origin while the [o] is found native Thai words.

The 18 other vowels and 6 diphthongs are indicated using diacritics which appear

in front of, above, below of after the consonants they modify.

8 of the letters are used only for writing words of Pali and Sanskrit origin.

For some consonants there are multiple letters. Originally they represented

separate sounds, but over the years the distinction between those sounds was lost

and the letters were used instead to indicate tones.

Thai is a tonal language with 5 tones. The tone of a syllable is determined by a

combination of the class of consonant, the type of syllable (open or closed), the

tone marker and the length of the vowel.

There are no spaces between words, instead spaces in a Thai text indicate the end

of a clause or sentence.

Used to write

Thai (ภาษาไทย), a Tai-Kadai language spoken by about 25 million people in Thailand

(ประเทศไทย), the Midway Islands, Singapore, the UAE and the USA

Thai alphabet (ตั ว อั ก ษรไทย)

Consonants (พยั ญ ชนะ)

Consonants are divided into three classes: 1 (green), 2 (red) and 3 (blue), which help to

determine the tone of a syllable. The sounds represented by some consonants change

when they are used at the end of a syllable (indicated by the letters on the right of the

slash below). Some consonants can only be used at the beginning of a syllable.

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Thai Alphabet Chart