The Thai alphabet is indirectly of Indian origin. In 1283 A.D., King Ramkhamhaeng of the Sukhothai dynasty instituted the present Thai alphabet. Though modeled on the Indian alphabet through the medium of the old Khmer characters, the Thai alphabet differs from the Indian and the Khmer in two essential points.

As was pointed out by Phaya Anuman Rajadhon in his paper The Nature and Development of the Thai Language, in Indian and Khmer writing when two or more consonants come in contact as an initial or an ending of a word or a syllable, they coalesce into one whole when written: a certain consonant becomes abbreviated in form when juxtaposed with the main one. Suppose the English word grasp is to be written in the Indian or Khmer style, the initial gr and the final sp are coalesced by abbreviating the r and the s and blending them with their respective g and p.

King Ramkhamhaeng split the combinations into independent characters, like the Roman alphabet and much in the same manner as one writes the English word "grasp".

The vowel signs of the Indian and Khmer form a different set from that of the consonants. They are written, as if they are an afterthought, either before, after, above or below the consonants. While this is also the case in present Thai writing, King Ramkhamhaeng's scheme was more similar to the Roman (and English) one. That the written Thai language departed from Ramkhamhaeng's original method and reverted to a system closer to the Indian original has been judged as a backward development by many scholars. Common opinion is that King Ramkhamhaeng's system would have been more practical, especially as it would have made it much easier to compile clear dictionaries.

In 1917 A.D. King Vajuravudh revived King Ramkhamhaeng's scheme as an experiment, but found no success. With the exception of the vowel notation, today's written Thai follows fundamentally King Ramkhamhaeng's system - with certain minor modifications and additions.

There are in the modern Thai or Siamese alphabet 44 consonants. Of these, 16 are redundant, leaving in all 28 basic consonantal sounds. The redundant consonants are used chiefly in transliteration of Sanskrit and Pali words. In fact, there are two consonants in this redundancy which have become obsolete.

There are 9 simple vowels and 12 diphthongs with corresponding relative long and short sounds. There are also 3 triphthongs, making in all 45 vowels both long and short.


Photo: A sign board in Thai writing

The final consonants of words or syllables are g, t, p or their corresponding nasal consonants and the two semi-vowels y and w. Such endings have non-explosive sounds. Words of foreign origin, especially Sanskrit and Pali, if ending in consonants other than g, t, p are usually pronounced like the above three consonants nevertheless.

The writing and reading of words in a sentence are from left to right, and usually, there are no spaces or intervals between words.

Languages often develop in unpredictable manners and the causes for certain adaptations or changes may often seem strange and sometimes amusing from a historical perspective. In one of the strangest cases, a young American had an impact on written Thai of which he probably never dreamed of during his lifetime. As related by Phaya Anuman Rajadhon in his paper The Nature and Development of the Thai Language, it was in 1892 that Edwin McFarland who was born in Thailand the son of an American missionary, brought with him on his return from America, the first Thai typewriter, which he had succeeded in making in the United States. Because McFarland was unable to accommodate the numerous characters of the Thai alphabet with its 44 consonants, 24 vowels and four tonal signs on his modified American typewriter, he just eliminated two Thai characters which were rarely used in writing.

As Bertha Idlount wrote, "incidentally, these two letters gradually ceased to be used at all and today there are few who know that they ever existed".