Thai Language

Since I'm studying Thai every day, I thought, you might would like to know a little about it...

First of all you have to know, that Thai is a tonal language. This means, that the same word pronounced in a different way gets another meaning. Thai contains five different tones. Luckily there are not five different meanings for each word.

Thai is using an alphabet, which consists of 44 consonants and 18 single vowels. The vowels are used in compounds, so there are 32 in total. The consonants are organized in three groups: middle class, high class and low class consonants.

In the table below, the green consonants are middle class, the red consonants are high class and the blue consonants are low class consonants.


In the table below you can see the most used vowels. Nowadays not all vowels used, but I think these are more than enough for the start ;-)


Since this would be to easy so far, some clever person invited tone marks to get it really confusing ;-)

The tones are:
- unmarked,
' mai eak (low),
้ mai toh (falling),
๊ mai dtree (high),
+ mai juttawa (rising).

There are some rules how to apply the tone marks. Basically the tonemarks can change the tone of the consonant, which means, that the tone changes and although a consonant belongs to the middle class you'll have to use a raising tone.

And to complete the funny part, there are even different number


The get an idea, how a text in Thai looks like, have a look this:

Translation: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Some of the images above I copied from Omniglot, thanks.