Alphabet

Consonants
Vowels
Numbers

King Ramkhamhaeng (1275-1317) is thought to have created an alphabet for Siam which later developed into the Thai alphabet. It was probably derived, influenced by the Khmer alphabet. Thai is spoken by 25 million people in Thailand.

• This is a syllabic alphabet consisting of 44 basic consonants, each with an inherent vowel /o/. The 18 other vowels and 6 dipthongs are indicated using diacritics which appear in front of, above, below or after the consonants they modify.
  
  
• 8 of the letters are used only for writing words of Pali and Sanskrit origin.
  
  
• There are 4 additional markers which appear above the vowel diacritics and are used to indicate the tones of Thai - the exact tone indicated depends on which consonant they are attached to.
  
  
• There are no spaces between words, instead spaces in a Thai text indicate the end of a clause or sentence.