ภาษาไทย

Introduction

This section is intended as a reference and aid to help recognize and determine the transcription of certain Thai words in the 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). See also comparative language list. 回

Consonants

See also Photographic Alphabet and Alphabet Postage Stamps.

 

Vowels

Numerals

๑ ..... 1 ๒ ..... 2 ๓ ..... 3 ๔ ..... 4 ๕ ..... 5

๖ ..... 6 ๗ ..... 7 ๘ ..... 8 ๙ ..... 9 0 ..... 0

Peculiarities

รร ..... an (double consonant), am (when รรม)

ฤ ..... reu (re), ri (comb. vowel/cons.)

ฤา ..... reuh (reua)

ฦ ..... leu (le) (comb. vowel/cons.)

ฦา ..... leuh

อ็ ..... mai tai ku (short o or shortens any sound)

อ์ ..... mai tan takaat, kahran (silences or changes final sound)

ฯ ..... pai yaan noi (used with abbreviations, ฯลฯ = etc.)

ๆ ..... yamok (used for repetition)

ทร ..... s-sound (combination of consonants)

Tones (marks and rules)

    Tone marks:

อ่ ..... mai ek  (ไม้เอก)

อ้ ..... mai toh (ไม้โท)

อ๊ ..... mai trih (ไม้ตรี)

อ๋ ..... mai chatawah (ไม้จัตวา)

    Tone rules:

High tone class - อักษรสูง	Midtone class - อักษรกลาง	Low tone class - อักษรต่ำ
ข (ฃ) ฉ ฐ ถ ผ ฝ ศ ษ ส ห mnemonic: ฃวดของฉันใส่ถุงผ้าฝากให้เศรษฐี	ก จ ฎ ฏ ด ต บ ป อ mnemonic: ไก่จิกเด็กตายเฎ็กฏายบนปากโอ่ง	ค (ฅ) ฆ ง ช ซ ฌ ญ ฑ ฒ ณ ท ธ น พ ฟ ภ ม ย ร ล ว ฬ ฮ
living sound = rising tone dead sound = low tone     อ่ = low tone อ้ = falling tone	living sound = mid tone dead sound = low tone     อ่ = low tone อ้ = falling tone อ๊ = high tone อ๋ = rising tone	living sound = mid tone dead sound (short vowel) = high tone dead sound (long vowel) = falling tone อ่ = falling tone อ้ = high tone

Note: Low tone class consonants (fig.) can be divided into two groups, separating consonants that have an equivalent sounding consonant in either the high or mid tone class, from those that don't. The first group of 14 consonants with 7 different sounds is referred to as akson tam khoo (อักษรต่ำคู่), i.e. ‘associated low consonants’, the second group of 10 consonants is referred to as akson tam diaw (อักษรต่ำเดี่ยว), i.e. ‘single low consonants’. Hence, there are two mnemonics for the low tone class consonants, one for each group, i.e. พ่อค้าฟันทองซื้อช้างฮ่อ for the 7 sounds in the group of associated low consonants (the mnemonic does not mention ฅ, ฆ, ฌ, ฑ, ฒ, ธ and ภ, which are consonants with a similar sound as those used in the sentence), and งูใหญ่นอนอยู่ ณ ริมวัดโมฬีโลก for the 10 single low consonants. It may, however, be sufficient to learn just the consonants of the high tone and midtone classes, as all the remaining consonants do than automatically belong to the low tone class.

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