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Thai
Central Thai, Siamese
ภาษาไทย, Phasa Thai
"Phasa Thai" (literally meaning "Thai language") written in Thai script
Pronunciation	[pʰāːsǎːtʰāj]
Region	Thailand (Central Thailand and Thai Chinese enclaves throughout country) Cambodia (Koh Kong province) Myanmar (Kengtung District)
Ethnicity	Central Thai, Thai Chinese, Mon, Lao Wiang, Phuan
Speakers	L1: 21 million (2000) L2: 40 million (2001) Total: 61 million
Language family	Kra–Dai Tai Southwestern Chiang Saen Sukhothai Thai
Writing system	Thai script Thai Braille Khom Thai (religious use)
Official status
Official language in	Thailand
Recognised minority language in	Cambodia  Laos  Malaysia  Myanmar
Regulated by	Royal Society of Thailand
Language codes
ISO 639-1	th
ISO 639-2	tha
ISO 639-3	tha
Glottolog	thai1261
Linguasphere	47-AAA-b
Majority   Minority

Thai, or Central Thai (historically Siamese; Thai: ภาษาไทย), is a Tai language of the Kra–Dai language family spoken by the Central Thai, Mon, Lao Wiang, Phuan people in Central Thailand and the vast majority of Thai Chinese enclaves throughout the country. It is the sole official language of Thailand.

Thai is the most spoken of over 60 languages of Thailand by both number of native and overall speakers. Over half of its vocabulary is derived from or borrowed from Pali, Sanskrit, Mon and Old Khmer. It is a tonal and analytic language. Thai has a complex orthography and system of relational markers. Spoken Thai, depending on standard sociolinguistic factors such as age, gender, class, spatial proximity, and the urban/rural divide, is partly mutually intelligible with Lao, Isan, and some fellow Thai topolects. These languages are written with slightly different scripts, but are linguistically similar and effectively form a dialect continuum.

Thai language is spoken by over 69 million people (2020). Moreover, most Thais in the northern (Lanna) and the northeastern (Isan) parts of the country today are bilingual speakers of Central Thai and their respective regional dialects because Central Thai is the language of television, education, news reporting, and all forms of media. A recent research found that the speakers of the Northern Thai language (also known as Phasa Mueang or Kham Mueang) have become so few, as most people in northern Thailand now invariably speak Standard Thai, so that they are now using mostly Central Thai words and only seasoning their speech with the "Kham Mueang" accent. Standard Thai is based on the register of the educated classes by Central Thai and ethnic minorities in the area along the ring surrounding the Metropolis.

In addition to Central Thai, Thailand is home to other related Tai languages. Although most linguists classify these dialects as related but distinct languages, native speakers often identify them as regional variants or dialects of the "same" Thai language, or as "different kinds of Thai". As a dominant language in all aspects of society in Thailand, Thai initially saw gradual and later widespread adoption as a second language among the country's minority ethnic groups from the mid-late Ayutthaya period onward. Ethnic minorities today are predominantly bilingual, speaking Thai alongside their native language or dialect.

Classification

Standard Thai is classified as one of the Chiang Saen languages—others being Northern Thai, Southern Thai and numerous smaller languages, which together with the Northwestern Tai and Lao-Phutai languages, form the Southwestern branch of Tai languages. The Tai languages are a branch of the Kra–Dai language family, which encompasses a large number of indigenous languages spoken in an arc from Hainan and Guangxi south through Laos and Northern Vietnam to the Cambodian border.

Standard Thai is the principal language of education and government and spoken throughout Thailand. The standard is based on the dialect of the central Thai people, and it is written in the Thai script.

History

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Thai has undergone various historical sound changes. Some of the most significant changes occurred during the evolution from Old Thai to modern Thai. The Thai writing system has an eight-century history and many of these changes, especially in consonants and tones, are evidenced in the modern orthography.

Early spread

According to a Chinese source, during the Ming dynasty, Yingya Shenglan (1405–1433), Ma Huan reported on the language of the Xiānluó (暹羅) or Ayutthaya Kingdom, saying that it somewhat resembled the local patois as pronounced in Guangdong Ayutthaya, the old capital of Thailand from 1351 - 1767 A.D., was from the beginning a bilingual society, speaking Thai and Khmer. Bilingualism must have been strengthened and maintained for some time by the great number of Khmer-speaking captives the Thais took from Angkor Thom after their victories in 1369, 1388 and 1431. Gradually toward the end of the period, a language shift took place. Khmer fell out of use. Both Thai and Khmer descendants whose great-grand parents or earlier ancestors were bilingual came to use only Thai. In the process of language shift, an abundance of Khmer elements were transferred into Thai and permeated all aspects of the language. Consequently, the Thai of the late Ayutthaya Period which later became Ratanakosin or Bangkok Thai, was a thorough mixture of Thai and Khmer. There were more Khmer words in use than Tai cognates. Khmer grammatical rules were used actively to coin new disyllabic and polysyllabic words and phrases. Khmer expressions, sayings, and proverbs were expressed in Thai through transference.

Thais borrowed both the Royal vocabulary and rules to enlarge the vocabulary from Khmer. The Thais later developed the royal vocabulary according to their immediate environment. Thai and Pali, the latter from Theravada Buddhism, were added to the vocabulary. An investigation of the Ayutthaya Rajasap reveals that three languages, Thai, Khmer and Khmero-Indic were at work closely both in formulaic expressions and in normal discourse. In fact, Khmero-Indic may be classified in the same category as Khmer because Indic had been adapted to the Khmer system first before the Thai borrowed.

Old Thai

Old Thai had a three-way tone distinction on "live syllables" (those not ending in a stop), with no possible distinction on "dead syllables" (those ending in a stop, i.e. either /p/, /t/, /k/ or the glottal stop that automatically closes syllables otherwise ending in a short vowel).

There was a two-way voiced vs. voiceless distinction among all fricative and sonorant consonants, and up to a four-way distinction among stops and affricates. The maximal four-way occurred in labials (/p pʰ b ʔb/) and denti-alveolars (/t tʰ d ʔd/); the three-way distinction among velars (/k kʰ ɡ/) and palatals (/tɕ tɕʰ dʑ/), with the glottalized member of each set apparently missing.

The major change between old and modern Thai was due to voicing distinction losses and the concomitant tone split. This may have happened between about 1300 and 1600 CE, possibly occurring at different times in different parts of the Thai-speaking area. All voiced–voiceless pairs of consonants lost the voicing distinction:

• Plain voiced stops (/b d ɡ dʑ/) became voiceless aspirated stops (/pʰ tʰ kʰ tɕʰ/).
• Voiced fricatives became voiceless.
• Voiceless sonorants became voiced.

However, in the process of these mergers, the former distinction of voice was transferred into a new set of tonal distinctions. In essence, every tone in Old Thai split into two new tones, with a lower-pitched tone corresponding to a syllable that formerly began with a voiced consonant, and a higher-pitched tone corresponding to a syllable that formerly began with a voiceless consonant (including glottalized stops). An additional complication is that formerly voiceless unaspirated stops/affricates (original /p t k tɕ ʔb ʔd/) also caused original tone 1 to lower, but had no such effect on original tones 2 or 3.

The above consonant mergers and tone splits account for the complex relationship between spelling and sound in modern Thai. Modern "low"-class consonants were voiced in Old Thai, and the terminology "low" reflects the lower tone variants that resulted. Modern "mid"-class consonants were voiceless unaspirated stops or affricates in Old Thai—precisely the class that triggered lowering in original tone 1 but not tones 2 or 3. Modern "high"-class consonants were the remaining voiceless consonants in Old Thai (voiceless fricatives, voiceless sonorants, voiceless aspirated stops). The three most common tone "marks" (the lack of any tone mark, as well as the two marks termed mai ek and mai tho) represent the three tones of Old Thai, and the complex relationship between tone mark and actual tone is due to the various tonal changes since then. Since the tone split, the tones have changed in actual representation to the point that the former relationship between lower and higher tonal variants has been completely obscured. Furthermore, the six tones that resulted after the three tones of Old Thai were split have since merged into five in standard Thai, with the lower variant of former tone 2 merging with the higher variant of former tone 3, becoming the modern "falling" tone.

Old Thai (Sukhothai) consonant inventory

Historical Sukhothai pronuncation

Early Old Thai

Early Old Thai also apparently had velar fricatives /x ɣ/ as distinct phonemes. These were represented by the now-obsolete letters ฃ kho khuat and ฅ kho khon, respectively. During the Old Thai period, these sounds merged into the corresponding stops /kʰ ɡ/, and as a result the use of these letters became unstable.

At some point in the history of Thai, an alveolo-palatal nasal phoneme /ɲ/ also existed, inherited from Proto-Tai. A letter ญ yo ying also exists, which is used to represent an alveolo-palatal nasal in words borrowed from Sanskrit and Pali, and is currently pronounced /j/ at the beginning of a syllable but /n/ at the end of a syllable. Most native Thai words that are reconstructed as beginning with /ɲ/ are also pronounced /j/ in modern Thai, but generally spelled with ย yo yak, which consistently represents /j/. This suggests that /ɲ/ > /j/ in native words occurred in the pre-literary period. It is unclear whether Sanskrit and Pali words beginning with /ɲ/ were borrowed directly with a /j/, or whether a /ɲ/ was re-introduced, followed by a second change /ɲ/ > /j/. The northeastern Thai dialect Isan and the Lao language still preserve the phoneme /ɲ/, which is represented in the Lao script by ຍ, such as in the word ຍຸງ (/ɲúŋ/, mosquito). This letter is distinct from the phoneme /j/ and its Lao letter ຢ, such as in the word ຢາ (/jàː/, medicine). The distinction in writing has been lost in the informal writing of the Isan language with the Thai script and both sounds are represented by ย /j/ (See: Comparison of Lao and Isan).

Proto-Tai also had a glottalized palatal sound, reconstructed as /ʔj/ in Li Fang-Kuei (1977). Corresponding Thai words are generally spelled หย, which implies an Old Thai pronunciation of /hj/ (or /j̊/), but a few such words are spelled อย, which implies a pronunciation of /ʔj/ and suggests that the glottalization may have persisted through to the early literary period.

Vowel developments

The vowel system of modern Thai contains nine pure vowels and three centering diphthongs, each of which can occur short or long. According to Li (1977), however, many Thai dialects have only one such short–long pair (/a aː/), and in general it is difficult or impossible to find minimal short–long pairs in Thai that involve vowels other than /a/ and where both members have frequent correspondences throughout the Tai languages. More specifically, he notes the following facts about Thai:

• In open syllables, only long vowels occur. (This assumes that all apparent cases of short open syllables are better described as ending in a glottal stop. This makes sense from the lack of tonal distinctions in such syllables, and the glottal stop is also reconstructible across the Tai languages.)
• In closed syllables, the long high vowels /iː ɯː uː/ are rare, and cases that do exist typically have diphthongs in other Tai languages.
• In closed syllables, both short and long mid /e eː o oː/ and low /ɛ ɛː ɔ ɔː/ do occur. However, generally, only words with short /e o/ and long /ɛː ɔː/ are reconstructible back to Proto-Tai.
• Both of the mid back unrounded vowels /ɤ ɤː/ are rare, and words with such sounds generally cannot be reconstructed back to Proto-Tai.

Furthermore, the vowel that corresponds to short Thai /a/ has a different and often higher quality in many of the Tai languages compared with the vowel corresponding to Thai /aː/.

This leads Li to posit the following:

1. Proto-Tai had a system of nine pure vowels with no length distinction, and possessing approximately the same qualities as in modern Thai: high /i ɯ u/, mid /e ɤ o/, low /ɛ a ɔ/.
2. All Proto-Tai vowels were lengthened in open syllables, and low vowels were also lengthened in closed syllables.
3. Modern Thai largely preserved the original lengths and qualities, but lowered /ɤ/ to /a/, which became short /a/ in closed syllables and created a phonemic length distinction /a aː/. Eventually, length in all other vowels became phonemic as well and a new /ɤ/ (both short and long) was introduced, through a combination of borrowing and sound change. Li believes that the development of long /iː ɯː uː/ from diphthongs, and the lowering of /ɤ/ to /a/ to create a length distinction /a aː/, had occurred by the time of Proto-Southwestern-Tai, but the other missing modern Thai vowels had not yet developed.

Not all researchers agree with Li. Pittayaporn (2009), for example, reconstructs a similar system for Proto-Southwestern-Tai, but believes that there was also a mid back unrounded vowel /ə/ (which he describes as /ɤ/), occurring only before final velar /k ŋ/. He also seems to believe that the Proto-Southwestern-Tai vowel length distinctions can be reconstructed back to similar distinctions in Proto-Tai.

Phonology

Consonants

Initials

Standard Thai distinguishes three voice-onset times among plosive and affricate consonants:

• voiced
• tenuis (unvoiced, unaspirated)
• aspirated

Where English makes a distinction between voiced /b/ and unvoiced aspirated /pʰ/, Thai distinguishes a third sound – the unvoiced, unaspirated /p/ that occurs in English only as an allophone of /pʰ/, for example after an /s/ as in the sound of the p in "spin". There is similarly a laminal denti-alveolar /d/, /t/, /tʰ/ triplet in Thai. In the velar series there is a /k/, /kʰ/ pair and in the postalveolar series a /tɕ/, /tɕʰ/ pair, but the language lacks the corresponding voiced sounds /ɡ/ and /dʑ/. (In loanwords from English, English /ɡ/ and /d͡ʒ/ are borrowed as the tenuis stops /k/ and /tɕ/.)

In each cell below, the first line indicates International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the second indicates the Thai characters in initial position (several letters appearing in the same box have identical pronunciation). The letter ห, one of the two h letters, is also used to help write certain tones (described below).

Finals

Although the overall 44 Thai consonant letters provide 21 sounds in case of initials, the case for finals is different. For finals, only eight sounds, as well as no sound, called mātrā (มาตรา) are used. To demonstrate, at the end of a syllable, บ (/b/) and ด (/d/) are devoiced, becoming pronounced as /p/ and /t/ respectively. Additionally, all plosive sounds are unreleased. Hence, final /p/, /t/, and /k/ sounds are pronounced as , , and respectively.

Of the consonant letters, excluding the disused ฃ and ฅ, six (ฉ ผ ฝ ห อ ฮ) cannot be used as a final and the other 36 are grouped as following.

Clusters

In Thai, each syllable in a word is articulated independently, so consonants from adjacent syllables (i.e. heterosyllabic) show no sign of articulation as a cluster. Thai has specific phonotactical patterns that describe its syllable structure, including tautosyllabic consonant clusters, and vowel sequences. In core Thai words (i.e. excluding loanwords), only clusters of two consonants occur, of which there are 11 combinations:

• /kr/ (กร), /kl/ (กล), /kw/ (กว)
• /kʰr/ (ขร, คร), /kʰl/ (ขล, คล), /kʰw/ (ขว, คว)
• /pr/ (ปร), /pl/ (ปล)
• /pʰr/ (พร), /pʰl/ (ผล, พล)
• /tr/ (ตร)

The number of clusters increases in loanwords such as /tʰr/ (ทร) in อินทรา (/ʔīn.tʰrāː/, from Sanskrit indrā) or /fr/ (ฟร) in ฟรี (/frīː/, from English free); however, these usually only occur in initial position, with either /r/, /l/, or /w/ as the second consonant sound and not more than two sounds at a time.

Vowels

The vowel nuclei of the Thai language are given in the following table. The top entry in every cell is the symbol from the International Phonetic Alphabet, the second entry gives the spelling in the Thai script, where a dash (–) indicates the position of the initial consonant after which the vowel is pronounced. A second dash indicates that a final consonant follows.

Each vowel quality occurs in long-short pairs: these are distinct phonemes forming distinct words in Thai.

The long-short pairs are as follows:

There are also opening and closing diphthongs in Thai, which Tingsabadh & Abramson (1993) analyze as /Vj/ and /Vw/. For purposes of determining tone, those marked with an asterisk are sometimes classified as long:

Additionally, there are three triphthongs. For purposes of determining tone, those marked with an asterisk are sometimes classified as long:

Tones

There are five phonemic tones: mid, low, falling, high, and rising, sometimes referred to in older reference works as rectus, gravis, circumflexus, altus, and demissus, respectively. The table shows an example of both the phonemic tones and their phonetic realization, in the IPA. Moren & Zsiga (2006) and Zsiga & Nitisaroj (2007) provide phonetic and phonological analyses of Thai tone realization.

Notes:

1. Five-level tone value: Mid , Low , Falling , High , Rising . Traditionally, the high tone was recorded as either or . This remains true for the older generation, but the high tone is changing to among youngsters.
2. For the diachronic changes of tone value, see Pittayaporn (2007).
3. The full complement of tones exists only in so-called "live syllables", those that end in a long vowel or a sonorant (/m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /j/, /w/).
4. For "dead syllables", those that end in a plosive (/p/, /t/, /k/) or in a short vowel, only three tonal distinctions are possible: low, high, and falling. Because syllables analyzed as ending in a short vowel may have a final glottal stop (especially in slower speech), all "dead syllables" are phonetically checked, and have the reduced tonal inventory characteristic of checked syllables.

Unchecked syllables

Checked syllables

In some English loanwords, closed syllables with a long vowel ending in an obstruent sound have a high tone, and closed syllables with a short vowel ending in an obstruent sound have a falling tone.

Grammar

From the perspective of linguistic typology, Thai can be considered to be an analytic language. The word order is subject–verb–object, although the subject is often omitted. Additionally, Thai is an isolating language lacking any form of inflectional morphology whatsoever. Thai pronouns are selected according to the gender and relative status of speaker and audience.

Adjectives and adverbs

There is no morphological distinction between adverbs and adjectives. Many words can be used in either function. They follow the word they modify, which may be a noun, verb, or another adjective or adverb.

คน

khon

/kʰōn

อ้วน

uan

ʔûan/

คน อ้วน

khon uan

/kʰōn ʔûan/

'a fat person'

คน

khon

/kʰōn

ที่

thi

tʰîː

อ้วน

uan

ʔûan

เร็ว

reo

rēw/

คน ที่ อ้วน เร็ว

khon thi uan reo

/kʰōn tʰîː ʔûan rēw/

'a person who became fat quickly'

Comparatives take the form "A X กว่า B" (kwa, /kwàː/), 'A is more X than B'. The superlative is expressed as "A X ที่สุด" (thi sut, /tʰîː sùt/), 'A is most X'.

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

อ้วน

uan

ʔûan

กว่า

kwa

kwàː

ฉัน

chan

tɕʰǎn/

เขา อ้วน กว่า ฉัน

khao uan kwa chan

/kʰǎw ʔûan kwàː tɕʰǎn/

'S/he is fatter than me.'

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

อ้วน

uan

ʔûan

ที่สุด

thi sut

tʰîː sùt/

เขา อ้วน ที่สุด

khao uan {thi sut}

/kʰǎw ʔûan tʰîː sùt/

'S/he is the fattest (of all).'

Adjectives in Thai can be used as complete predicates. Because of this, many words used to indicate tense in verbs (see Verbs:Tense below) may be used to describe adjectives.

ฉัน

chan

/tɕʰǎn

หิว

hio

hǐw/

ฉัน หิว

chan hio

/tɕʰǎn hǐw/

'I am hungry.'

ฉัน

chan

/tɕʰǎn

จะ

cha

tɕàʔ

หิว

hio

hǐw/

ฉัน จะ หิว

chan cha hio

/tɕʰǎn tɕàʔ hǐw/

'I will be hungry.'

ฉัน

chan

/tɕʰǎn

กำลัง

kamlang

kām.lāŋ

หิว

hio

hǐw/

ฉัน กำลัง หิว

chan kamlang hio

/tɕʰǎn kām.lāŋ hǐw/

'I am hungry right now.'

ฉัน

chan

/tɕʰǎn

หิว

hio

hǐw

แล้ว

laeo

lɛ́ːw/

ฉัน หิว แล้ว

chan hio laeo

/tɕʰǎn hǐw lɛ́ːw/

'I am already hungry.'

• Remark ฉันหิวแล้ว mostly means 'I am hungry right now' because normally, แล้ว (/lɛ́ːw/) marks the change of a state, but แล้ว has many other uses as well. For example, in the sentence, แล้วเธอจะไปไหน (/lɛ́ːw tʰɤ̄ː tɕàʔ pāj nǎj/): 'So where are you going?', แล้ว (/lɛ́ːw/) is used as a discourse particle.

Verbs

Verbs do not inflect. They do not change with person, tense, voice, mood, or number; nor are there any participles. The language being analytic and case-less, the relationship between subject, direct and indirect object is conveyed through word order and auxiliary verbs. Transitive verbs follow the pattern subject-verb-object.

ฉัน

chan

/tɕʰǎn

1SG

ตี

ti

tīː

hit

เขา

khao

kʰǎw/

3SG

ฉัน ตี เขา

chan ti khao

/tɕʰǎn tīː kʰǎw/

1SG hit 3SG

'I hit him.'

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

3SG

ตี

ti

tīː

hit

ฉัน

chan

tɕʰǎn/

1SG

เขา ตี ฉัน

khao ti chan

/kʰǎw tīː tɕʰǎn/

3SG hit 1SG

'S/He hit me.'

In order to convey tense, aspect and mood (TAM), the Thai verbal system employs auxiliaries and verb serialization. TAM markers are however not obligatory and often left out in colloquial use. In such cases, the precise meaning is determined through context. This results in sentences lacking both TAM markers and overt context being ambiguous and subject to various interpretations.

ฉัน

chan

/tɕʰǎn

กิน

kin

kīn

ที่

thi

tʰîː

นั่น

nan

nân/

ฉัน กิน ที่ นั่น

chan kin thi nan

/tɕʰǎn kīn tʰîː nân/

'I eat there.'

ฉัน

chan

/tɕʰǎn

กิน

kin

kīn

ที่

thi

tʰîː

นั่น

nan

nân

เมื่อวาน

mueawan

mɯ̂a.wāːn/

ฉัน กิน ที่ นั่น เมื่อวาน

chan kin thi nan mueawan

/tɕʰǎn kīn tʰîː nân mɯ̂a.wāːn/

'I ate there yesterday.'

ฉัน

chan

/tɕʰǎn

จะ

cha

tɕàʔ

กิน

kin

kīn

ที่

thi

thîː

นั่น

nan

nân

พรุ่งนี้

phrungni

pʰrûŋ.níː/

ฉัน จะ กิน ที่ นั่น พรุ่งนี้

chan cha kin thi nan phrungni

/tɕʰǎn tɕàʔ kīn thîː nân pʰrûŋ.níː/

'I'll eat there tomorrow.'

The sentence chan kin thi nan can thus be interpreted as 'I am eating there', 'I eat there habitually', 'I will eat there' or 'I ate there'. Aspect markers in Thai have been divided into four distinct groups based on their usage. These markers could appear either before or after the verb. The following list describes some of the most commonly used aspect markers. A number of these aspect markers are also full verbs on their own and carry a distinct meaning. For example yu (อยู่) as a full verb means 'to stay, to live or to remain at'. However, as an auxiliary it can be described as a temporary aspect or continuative marker.

• Imperfective
  • อยู่ yu /jùː/
  • ไป pai /pāj/
  • ยัง yang /jāŋ/
  • กำลัง kamlang /kām.lāŋ/
  • เคย khoey /kʰɤ̄ːj/
• Perfective
  • ได้ dai /dâːj/
• Perfect
  • แล้ว laeo /lɛ́ːw/
  • มา ma /māː/
• Prospective/Future
  • จะ cha /tɕàʔ/

The imperfective aspect marker กำลัง (kamlang, /kām lāŋ/, currently) is used before the verb to denote an ongoing action (similar to the -ing suffix in English). Kamlang is commonly interpreted as a progressive aspect marker. Similarly, อยู่ (yu, /jùː/) is a post-verbal aspect marker which corresponds to the continuative or temporary aspect.

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

กำลัง

kamlang

kām.lāŋ

วิ่ง

wing

wîŋ/

เขา กำลัง วิ่ง

khao kamlang wing

/kʰǎw kām.lāŋ wîŋ/

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

วิ่ง

wing

wîŋ

อยู่

yu

jùː/

เขา วิ่ง อยู่

khao wing yu

/kʰǎw wîŋ jùː/

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

กำลัง

kamlang

kām.lāŋ

วิ่ง

wing

wîŋ

อยู่

yu

jùː/

เขา กำลัง วิ่ง อยู่

khao kamlang wing yu

/kʰǎw kām.lāŋ wîŋ jùː/

'He is running.'

Comparably ยัง (yang, /jāŋ/, still) which is used in an incompleted action, and usually cognates in phrase with yu (อยู่) or any other aspect markers in common use.

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

ยัง

yang

jāŋ

เขียน

khian

kʰiǎn

อยู่

yu

jùː/

เขา ยัง เขียน อยู่

khao yang khian yu

/kʰǎw jāŋ kʰiǎn jùː/

He is still writing.

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

3SG

ยัง

yang

jāŋ

IMP

เขียน

khian

kʰiǎn

write

ไม่เป็น

mai pen

mâj pēn/

unable to

เขา ยัง เขียน ไม่เป็น

khao yang khian {mai pen}

/kʰǎw jāŋ kʰiǎn mâj pēn/

3SG IMP write {unable to}

He can't even write yet.

The marker ได้ (dai, /dâːj/) is usually analyzed as a past tense marker when it occurs before the verb. As a full verb, dai means 'to get or receive'. However, when used after a verb, dai takes on a meaning of potentiality or successful outcome of the main verb.

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

ได้

dai

dâːj

ไป

pai

pāj

เที่ยว

thiao

tʰîaw

เมือง

mueang

mɯ̄aŋ

ลาว

lao

lāːw/

เขา ได้ ไป เที่ยว เมือง ลาว

khao dai pai thiao mueang lao

/kʰǎw dâːj pāj tʰîaw mɯ̄aŋ lāːw/

He visited Laos. (Past/Perfective)

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

3SG

ตี

ti

tīː

hit

ได้

dai

dâːj/

POT

เขา ตี ได้

khao ti dai

/kʰǎw tīː dâːj/

3SG hit POT

'He is/was allowed to hit' or 'He is/was able to hit.' (Potentiality)

แล้ว (laeo, /lɛ́ːw/; 'already') is treated as a marker indicating the perfect aspect. That is to say, laeo marks the event as being completed at the time of reference. Laeo has two other meanings in addition to its use as a TAM marker. Laeo can either be a conjunction for sequential actions or an archaic word for 'to finish'.

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

3SG

ได้

dai

dâːj

PST

กิน

kin

kīn/

eat

เขา ได้ กิน

khao dai kin

/kʰǎw dâːj kīn/

3SG PST eat

He ate.

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

3SG

กิน

kin

kīn

eat

แล้ว

laeo

lɛ́ːw/

PRF

เขา กิน แล้ว

khao kin laeo

/kʰǎw kīn lɛ́ːw/

3SG eat PRF

He has eaten.

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

3SG

ได้

dai

dâːj

PST

กิน

kin

kīn

eat

แล้ว

laeo

lɛ́ːw/

PRF

เขา ได้ กิน แล้ว

khao dai kin laeo

/kʰǎw dâːj kīn lɛ́ːw/

3SG PST eat PRF

He's already eaten.

Future can be indicated by จะ (cha, /tɕàʔ/; 'will') before the verb or by a time expression indicating the future. For example:

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

3SG

จะ

cha

tɕàʔ

FUT

วิ่ง

wing

wîŋ/

run

เขา จะ วิ่ง

khao cha wing

/kʰǎw tɕàʔ wîŋ/

3SG FUT run

'He will run' or 'He is going to run.'

Dative marker ให้ (hai, /hâj/; 'give') often used in a sentence as prepositional or double objects.

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

3SG

อ่าน

an

ʔàːn

read

หนังสือ

nangsue

nǎŋ.sɯ̌ː

book

ให้

hai

hâj/

DAT

เขา อ่าน หนังสือ ให้

khao an {nangsue} hai

/kʰǎw ʔàːn nǎŋ.sɯ̌ː hâj/

3SG read book DAT

'He reads book for (us).'

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

3SG

ให้

hai

hâj

DAT

อ่าน

an

ʔàːn

read

หนังสือ

nangsue

nǎŋ.sɯ̌ː/

book

เขา ให้ อ่าน หนังสือ

khao hai an {nangsue}

/kʰǎw hâj ʔàːn nǎŋ.sɯ̌ː/

3SG DAT read book

'He obligates (us) to read book.'

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

3SG

ให้

hai

hâj

DAT

หนังสือ

nangsue

nǎŋ.sɯ̌ː

book

นักเรียน

nak rian

nák rian/

student

เขา ให้ หนังสือ นักเรียน

khao hai {nangsue} {nak rian}

/kʰǎw hâj nǎŋ.sɯ̌ː nák rian/

3SG DAT book student

'He gives book to student.'

The passive voice is indicated by the insertion of ถูก (thuk, /tʰùːk/) before the verb. For example:

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

3SG

ถูก

thuk

tʰùːk

PASS

ตี

ti

tīː/

hit

เขา ถูก ตี

khao thuk ti

/kʰǎw tʰùːk tīː/

3SG PASS hit

'He got hit.'

This describes an action that is out of the receiver's control and, thus, conveys suffering.

Negation is indicated by placing ไม่ (mai, /mâj/; not) before the verb.

• เขาไม่ตี, (khao mai ti) 'He is not hitting' or 'He doesn't hit'.

Thai exhibits serial verb constructions, where verbs are strung together. Some word combinations are common and may be considered set phrases.

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

he

ไป

pai

pāj

go

กิน

kin

kīn

eat

ข้าว

khao

kʰâːw/

rice

เขา ไป กิน ข้าว

khao pai kin khao

/kʰǎw pāj kīn kʰâːw/

he go eat rice

'He went out to eat'

ฉัน

chan

/tɕʰǎn

I

ฟัง

fang

fāŋ

listen

ไม่

mai

mâj

not

เข้าใจ

khao chai

kʰâw tɕāj/

understand

ฉัน ฟัง ไม่ เข้าใจ

chan fang mai {khao chai}

/tɕʰǎn fāŋ mâj kʰâw tɕāj/

I listen not understand

'I don't understand what was said'

เข้า

khao

/kʰâw

enter

มา

ma

māː/

come

เข้า มา

khao ma

/kʰâw māː/

enter come

'Come in'

ออก

ok

/ʔɔ̀ːk

exit

ไป!

pai

pāj/

go

ออก ไป!

ok pai

/ʔɔ̀ːk pāj/

exit go

'Leave!' or 'Get out!'

Nouns

Nouns are uninflected and have no gender; there are no articles. Thai nouns are bare nouns and can be interpreted as singular, plural, definite or indefinite. Some specific nouns are reduplicated to form collectives: เด็ก (dek, 'child') is often repeated as เด็ก ๆ (dek dek) to refer to a group of children. The word พวก (phuak, /pʰûak/) may be used as a prefix of a noun or pronoun as a collective to pluralize or emphasise the following word. (พวกผม, phuak phom, /pʰûak pʰǒm/, 'we', masculine; พวกเรา phuak rao, /pʰûak rāw/, emphasised 'we'; พวกหมา phuak ma, '(the) dogs'). Plurals are expressed by adding classifiers, used as measure words (ลักษณนาม), in the form of noun-number-classifier:

ครู

khru

/kʰrūː

teacher

ห้า

ha

hâː

five

คน

khon

kʰōn/

person

ครู ห้า คน

khru ha khon

/kʰrūː hâː kʰōn/

teacher five person

"five teachers"

While in English, such classifiers are usually absent ("four chairs") or optional ("two bottles of beer" or "two beers"), a classifier is almost always used in Thai (hence "chair four item" and "beer two bottle").

Possession in Thai is indicated by adding the word ของ (khong) in front of the noun or pronoun, but it may often be omitted. For example:

ลูก

luk

/lûːk

child

ของ

khong

kʰɔ̌ːŋ

belonging to

แม่

mae

mɛ̂ː/

mother

ลูก ของ แม่

luk khong mae

/lûːk kʰɔ̌ːŋ mɛ̂ː/

child {belonging to} mother

"mother's child"

นา

na

/nāː

field

อา

a

ʔāː/

uncle

นา อา

na a

/nāː ʔāː/

field uncle

"uncle's field"

Nominal phrases

Nominal phrases in Thai often use a special class of words classifiers. As previously mentioned, these classifiers are obligatory for noun phrases containing numerals e.g.

ผู้หญิง

phuying

/pʰûː.jǐŋ

woman

สอง

song

sɔ̌ːŋ

two

คน

khon

kʰōn/

CL

ผู้หญิง สอง คน

phuying song khon

/pʰûː.jǐŋ sɔ̌ːŋ kʰōn/

woman two CL

two women

In the previous example khon (คน) acts as the classifier in the nominal phrase. This follows the form of noun-cardinal-classifier mentioned above. Classifiers are also required to form quantified noun phrases in Thai with some quantifiers such as ทุก ('all'), บาง ('some'). The examples below are demonstrated using the classifier khon, which is used for people.

นักเรียน

nak rian

/nák rīan

student

ทุก

thuk

tʰúk

every

คน

khon

kʰōn/

CL

{นักเรียน} ทุก คน

{nak rian} thuk khon

/nák rīan tʰúk kʰōn/

student every CL

"every student"

ครู

khru

/kʰrūː

teacher

บาง

bang

bāːŋ

some

คน

khon

kʰōn/

CL

ครู บาง คน

khru bang khon

/kʰrūː bāːŋ kʰōn/

teacher some CL

"some teacher"

However, classifiers are not utilized for negative quantification. Negative quantification is expressed by the pattern ไม่มี (mai mi, /mâj mīː/) + NOUN. Classifiers are also used for demonstratives such as นี้ (ni, /níː/; 'this/these') and นั่น (nan, /nán/; 'that/those'). The syntax for demonstrative phrases, however, differ from that of cardinals and follow the pattern noun-classifier-demonstrative. For example, the noun phrase "this dog" would be expressed in Thai as หมาตัวนี้ (literally 'dog (classifier) this').

Pronouns

Subject pronouns are often omitted, with nicknames used where English would use a pronoun. See Thai name#Nicknames for more details. Pronouns, when used, are ranked in honorific registers, and may also make a T–V distinction in relation to kinship and social status. Specialised pronouns are used for royalty, and for Buddhist monks. The following are appropriate for conversational use:

The reflexive pronoun is ตัวเอง (tua eng), which can mean any of: myself, yourself, ourselves, himself, herself, themselves. This can be mixed with another pronoun to create an intensive pronoun, such as ตัวผมเอง (tua phom eng, lit: I myself) or ตัวคุณเอง (tua khun eng, lit: you yourself). Thai also does not have a separate possessive pronoun. Instead, possession is indicated by the particle ของ (khong). For example, "my mother" is แม่ของผม (mae khong phom, lit: mother of I). This particle is often implicit, so the phrase is shortened to แม่ผม (mae phom). Plural pronouns can be easily constructed by adding the word พวก (phuak) in front of a singular pronoun as in พวกเขา (phuak khao) meaning 'they' or พวกเธอ (phuak thoe) meaning the plural sense of 'you'. The only exception to this is เรา (rao), which can be used as singular (informal) or plural, but can also be used in the form of พวกเรา (phuak rao), which is only plural.

Thai has many more pronouns than those listed above. Their usage is full of nuances. For example:

• "ผม เรา ฉัน ดิฉัน หนู กู ข้า กระผม ข้าพเจ้า กระหม่อม อาตมา กัน ข้าน้อย ข้าพระพุทธเจ้า อั๊ว เขา" all translate to "I", but each expresses a different gender, age, politeness, status, or relationship between speaker and listener.
• เรา (rao) can be first person (I), second person (you), or both (we), depending on the context.
• Children or younger female could use or being referred by word หนู (nu) when talking with older person. The word หนู could be both feminine first person (I) and feminine second person (you) and also neuter first and neuter second person for children.
  • หนู commonly means rat or mouse, though it also refers to small creatures in general.
• The second person pronoun เธอ (thoe) (lit: you) is semi-feminine. It is used only when the speaker or the listener (or both) are female. Males usually do not address each other by this pronoun.
• Both คุณ (khun) and เธอ (thoe) are polite neuter second person pronouns. However, คุณเธอ (khun thoe) is a feminine derogative third person.
• Instead of a second person pronoun such as คุณ ('you'), it is much more common for unrelated strangers to call each other พี่ น้อง ลุง ป้า น้า อา ตา or ยาย (brother, sister, aunt, uncle, granny).
• To express deference, the second person pronoun is sometimes replaced by a profession, similar to how, in English, presiding judges are always addressed as "your honor" rather than "you". In Thai, students always address their teachers by ครู, คุณครู or อาจารย์ (each meaning 'teacher') rather than คุณ ('you'). Teachers, monks, and doctors are almost always addressed this way.

Particles

The particles are often untranslatable words added to the end of a sentence to indicate respect, a request, encouragement or other moods (similar to the use of intonation in English), as well as varying the level of formality. They are not used in elegant (written) Thai. The most common particles indicating respect are ครับ (khrap, /kʰráp/, with a high tone) when the speaker is a man, and ค่ะ (kha, /kʰâʔ/, with a falling tone) when the speaker is a woman. Used in a question or a request, the particle ค่ะ (falling tone) is changed to a คะ (high tone).

Other common particles are:

Register

Central Thai is composed of several distinct registers, forms for different social contexts:

• Street or Common Thai (ภาษาพูด, phasa phut, spoken Thai): informal, without polite terms of address, as used between close relatives and friends.
• Elegant or Formal Thai (ภาษาเขียน, phasa khian, written Thai): official and written version, includes respectful terms of address; used in simplified form in newspapers.
• Rhetorical Thai: used for public speaking.
• Religious Thai: (heavily influenced by Sanskrit and Pāli) used when discussing Buddhism or addressing monks.
• Royal Thai (ราชาศัพท์, racha sap): influenced by Khmer, this is used when addressing members of the royal family or describing their activities. (See Monarchy of Thailand § Rachasap.)

Most Thais can speak and understand all of these contexts. Street and Elegant Thai are the basis of all conversations. Rhetorical, religious, and royal Thai are taught in schools as part of the national curriculum.

As noted above, Thai has several registers, each having certain usages, such as colloquial, formal, literary, and poetic. Thus, the word 'eat' can be กิน (kin; common), แดก (daek; vulgar), ยัด (yat; vulgar), บริโภค (boriphok; formal), รับประทาน (rapprathan; formal), ฉัน (chan; religious), or เสวย (sawoei; royal), as illustrated below:

Thailand also uses the distinctive Thai six-hour clock in addition to the 24-hour clock.

Vocabulary

Other than compound words and words of foreign origin, most words are monosyllabic.

Chinese-language influence was strong until the 13th century when the use of Chinese characters was abandoned, and replaced by Sanskrit and Pali scripts. However, the vocabulary of Thai retains many words borrowed from Middle Chinese.

Khmer was used as a prestige language in the early days of the Thai kingdoms which are believed to have been bilingual societies proficient in Thai and Khmer. There are over 2,500 Thai words derived from Khmer, surpassing the number of Tai cognates. These Khmer words span across all semantic fields. Thai scholar Uraisi Varasarin classified them into over 200 sub-categories. As a result, it is impossible for Thais, past and present, to engage in a conversation without incorporating Khmer loanwords in any given topic. The influence is particularly preponderant in regard to royal court terminology.

Later, most vocabulary was borrowed from Sanskrit and Pāli; Buddhist terminology is particularly indebted to these. Indic words have a more formal register, and may be compared to Latin and French borrowings in English. Since the beginning of the 20th century, however, the English language has had the greatest influence, especially for scientific, technical, international, and other modern terms.

Arabic-origin

Chinese-origin

From Middle Chinese or Teochew Chinese.

English-origin

French-origin

Japanese-origin

Khmer-origin

From Old Khmer

Malay-origin

Persian-origin

Portuguese-origin

The Portuguese were the first Western nation to arrive in what is modern-day Thailand in the 16th century during the Ayutthaya period. Their influence in trade, especially weaponry, allowed them to establish a community just outside the capital and practise their faith, as well as exposing and converting the locals to Christianity. Thus, Portuguese words involving trade and religion were introduced and used by the locals.

Tamil-origin

Writing system

Thai is written in the Thai script, an abugida written from left to right. The language and its script are closely related to the Lao language and script. Most literate Lao are able to read and understand Thai, as more than half of the Thai vocabulary, grammar, intonation, vowels and so forth are common with the Lao language.

The Thais adopted and modified the Khmer script to create their own writing system. While in Thai the pronunciation can largely be inferred from the script, the orthography is complex, with silent letters to preserve original spellings and many letters representing the same sound. While the oldest known inscription in the Khmer language dates from 611 CE, inscriptions in Thai writing began to appear around 1292 CE. Notable features include:

1. It is an abugida script, in which the implicit vowel is a short /a/ in a syllable without final consonant and a short /o/ in a syllable with final consonant.
2. Tone markers, if present, are placed above the final onset consonant of the syllable.
3. Vowels sounding after an initial consonant can be located before, after, above or below the consonant, or in a combination of these positions.

Transcription

There is no universally applied method for transcribing Thai into the Latin alphabet. For example, the name of the main airport is transcribed variably as Suvarnabhumi, Suwannaphum, or Suwunnapoom. Guide books, textbooks and dictionaries may each follow different systems. For this reason, many language courses recommend that learners master the Thai script.

Official standards are the Royal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGS), published by the Royal Institute of Thailand, and the almost identical ISO 11940-2 defined by the International Organization for Standardization. The RTGS system is increasingly used in Thailand by central and local governments, especially for road signs. Its main drawbacks are that it does not indicate tone or vowel length. As the system is based on pronunciation, not orthography, reconstruction of Thai spelling from RTGS romanisation is not possible.

Transliteration

The ISO published an international standard for the transliteration of Thai into Roman script in September 2005 (ISO 11940). By adding diacritics to the Latin letters it makes the transcription reversible, making it a true transliteration. Notably, this system is used by Google Translate, although it does not seem to appear in many other contexts, such as textbooks and other instructional media.

See also

• Thai script
• Thai honorifics
• Thai literature
• Thai numerals
• Thai braille
• Thai typography
• Comparison of Lao and Thai

Explanatory notes

1. In Thai: ภาษาไทย Phasa Thai
2. In Thai: ภาษาไทยกลาง Phasa Thai Klang; not to be confused with Central Tai
3. In Thai: ภาษาสยาม Phasa Sayam
4. Although "Thai" and "Central Thai" have become more common, the older term, "Siamese", is still used by linguists, especially when it is being distinguished from other Tai languages (Diller 2008:6). "Proto-Thai" is, for example, the ancestor of all of Southwestern Tai, not just Siamese (Rischel 1998).
5. Xiānluó was the Chinese name for Ayutthaya, a kingdom created by the merger of Lavo and Sukhothai or Suvarnabhumi.
6. The glottalized stops /ʔb ʔd/ were unaffected, as they were treated in every respect like voiceless unaspirated stops due to the initial glottal stop. These stops are often described in the modern language as phonemically plain stops /b d/, but the glottalization is still commonly heard.
7. Modern Lao, Isan and northern Thai dialects are often described as having six tones, but these are not necessarily due to preservation of the original six tones resulting from the tone split. For example, in standard Lao, both the high and low variants of Old Thai tone 2 merged; however, the mid-class variant of tone 1 became pronounced differently from either the high-class or low-class variants, and all three eventually became phonemic due to further changes, e.g. /kr/ > /kʰ/. For similar reasons, Lao has developed more than two tonal distinctions in "dead" syllables.
8. Initial อ is silent and therefore considered as a glottal stop.
9. ฃ and ฅ are no longer used. Thus, modern Thai is said to have 42 consonant letters.
10. The glottal plosive appears at the end when no final follows a short vowel

References

Citations

1. ^ Thai at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
2. Diller, A.; Reynolds, Craig J. (2002). "What makes central Thai a national language?". In Reynolds (ed.). National identity and its defenders: Thailand today. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. ISBN 974-7551-88-8. OCLC 54373362.
3. Draper, John (2019). "Language education policy in Thailand". The Routledge International Handbook of Language Education Policy in Asia. Abingdon, Oxfordshire; New York City: Routledge. pp. 229–242. doi:10.4324/9781315666235-16. ISBN 978-1-315-66623-5. S2CID 159127015.
4. Baker, Christopher (2014). A history of Thailand. Melbourne, Australia: Cambridge University Press. pp. 3–4. ISBN 978-1-316-00733-4.
5. Enfield, N. J. "How to define 'Lao', 'Thai', and 'Isan' language? A view from linguistic science". Tai Culture. 3 (1): 62–67.
6. Peansiri Vongvipanond (Summer 1994). "Linguistic Perspectives of Thai Culture". paper presented to a workshop of teachers of social science. University of New Orleans. p. 2. Archived from the original on 20 November 2012. Retrieved 26 April 2011. The dialect one hears on radio and television is the Bangkok dialect, considered the standard dialect.
7. Kemasingki, Pim; Prateepkoh, Pariyakorn (1 August 2017). "Kham Mueang: the slow death of a language". Chiang Mai City Life: 8. there are still many people speaking kham mueang, but as an accent, not as a language. Because we now share the written language with Bangkok, we are beginning to use its vocabulary as well
8. Simpson, Andrew (2007). Language and national identity in Asia. Oxford University Press. Standard Thai is a form of Central Thai based on the variety of Thai spoken earlier by the elite of the court, and now by the educated middle and upper classes of Bangkok. It ... was standardized in grammar books in the nineteenth century, and spread dramatically from the 1930s onwards, when public education became much more widespread
9. Thepboriruk, Kanjana (2010). "Bangkok Thai tones revisited". Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistic Society. 3 (1). University of Hawaii Press: 86–105. Linguists generally consider Bangkok Thai and Standard Thai, the Kingdom's national language, to be one and the same.
10. Rappa, Antonio L.; Wee, Lionel (2006), Language Policy and Modernity in Southeast Asia: Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, Springer, pp. 114–115
11. Lieberman, Victor (2003). Strange Parallels. Studies in Comparative World History. Vol. 1: Integration on the Mainland: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830 (Kindle ed.). ISBN 978-0-521-80086-0.
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15. Kasetsiri 1999: 25
16. Varasarin 1984: 91
17. Tingsabadh & Abramson (1993:25)
18. Frankfurter, Oscar. Elements of Siamese grammar with appendices. American Presbyterian mission press, 1900 (Full text available on Google Books)
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21. Teeranon, Phanintra. (2007). "The change of Standard Thai high tone: An acoustic study and a perceptual experiment". SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics, 4(3), 1–16.
22. Thepboriruk, Kanjana. (2010). "Bangkok Thai Tones Revisited". Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 3(1), 86–105.
23. Pittayaporn, Pittayawat. (2007). "Directionality of Tone Change". Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS XVI).
24. Warotamasikkhadit, Udom (1972). Thai Syntax. The Hague: Mouton.
25. ^ Bisang, W. (1991), "Verb serialisation, grammaticalisation, and attractor positions in Chinese, Hmong, Vietnamese, Thai and Khmer", Partizipation: das sprachliche Erfassen von Sachverhalten, Tübingen: Narr, pp. 509–562, retrieved 2 May 2021
26. ^ Jenny, Mathias; Ebert, Karen H.; Zúñiga, Fernando (2001), "The aspect system of Thai", Aktionsart and Aspectotemporality in non-European languages, Zürich: Seminar für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Universität Zürich, pp. 97–140, ISBN 978-3-9521010-8-7, retrieved 2 May 2021
27. ^ Boonyapatipark, Tasanalai (1983). A study of aspect in Thai. University of London.
28. Koenig, Jean-Pierre; Muansuwan, Nuttanart (2005). "The Syntax of Aspect in Thai". Natural Language & Linguistic Theory. 23 (2): 335–380. doi:10.1007/s11049-004-0488-8. ISSN 0167-806X. JSTOR 4048104. S2CID 170429648.
29. "The Acquisition Of Dative Constructions By Thai" (PDF).
30. Jenks, Peter (2011). The Hidden Structure of Thai Noun Phrases (PDF) (PhD dissertation). Harvard University. ISBN 978-1-267-10767-1. S2CID 118127511. ProQuest 915016895. Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 May 2015.
31. "Thailanguage.org". Archived from the original on 11 November 2005. Retrieved 18 September 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
32. ^ Smyth, David (2014). Thai (2nd ed.). Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-97457-4. OCLC 879025983.
33. "The Many Different Ways To Say "I"". Beginner Thai Speaking. 28 September 2021. Retrieved 12 November 2021.
34. Joanne Tan. "How to say You in Thai Language". Learn Thai in Singapore.
35. ^ "What Do 'krub' And 'ka' Mean In Thai Language & When To Use". 5 October 2021. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
36. "The Languages spoken in Thailand". Studycountry. Retrieved 26 December 2017.
37. Haspelmath, Martin; Tadmor, Uri (2009). Loanwords in the World's Languages: A Comparative Handbook. p. 611. Thai is of special interest to lexical borrowing for various reasons. The copious borrowing of basic vocabulary from Middle Chinese and later from Khmer indicates that, given the right sociolinguistic context, such vocabulary is not at all immune
38. Haarmann, Harald (1986). Language in Ethnicity: A View of Basic Ecological Relations. p. 165. In Thailand, for instance, where the Chinese influence was strong until the Middle Ages, Chinese characters were abandoned in written Thai in the course of the thirteenth century.
39. Leppert, Paul A. (1992). Doing Business With Thailand. p. 13. At an early time the Thais used Chinese characters. But, under the influence of Indian traders and monks, they soon dropped Chinese characters in favor of Sanskrit and Pali scripts.
40. "S̄yām-portukes̄ ṣ̄ụks̄ʹā: Khả reīyk "chā kāfæ" khır lxk khır thịy h̄rụ̄x portukes̄" สยาม-โปรตุเกสศึกษา: คำเรียก "ชา กาแฟ" ใครลอกใคร ไทย หรือ โปรตุเกส [Siam-Portuguese Studies: The term 'tea, coffee'. Who copied someone, Thai or Portuguese?]. 2010.
41. Pronk, Marco (2013). The Essential Thai Language Companion: Reference Book: Basics, Structures, Rules. Schwabe AG. p. v. ISBN 978-3-9523664-9-3. learn the Thai alphabet as early as possible, and get rid of romanized transcriptions as soon as you can
42. Juyaso, Arthit (2015). Read Thai in 10 Days. Bingo-Lingo. p. xii. There have been attempts by Thai language schools to create a perfect phonetic system for learners, but none have been successful so far. ... Only Thai script is prevalent and consistent in Thailand.
43. Waites, Dan (2014). "Learning the Language: To Write or Not to Write". CultureShock! Bangkok. Marshall Cavendish. ISBN 978-981-4516-93-8. you're far better off learning the Thai alphabet
44. Cooper, Robert (2019). "Learning Thai: Writing Thai in English". CultureShock! Thailand: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette. Marshall Cavendish. ISBN 978-981-4841-39-9. take a bit of time to learn the letters. The time you spend is saved many times over when you begin to really learn Thai.
45. Royal Thai General System of Transcription, published by the Thai Royal Institute only in Thai
46. Handbook and standard for traffic signs (PDF) (in Thai), Appendix ง, archived (PDF) from the original on 15 November 2017
47. ISO 11940 Standard.

General and cited sources

• อภิลักษณ์ ธรรมทวีธิกุล และ กัลยารัตน์ ฐิติกานต์นารา. 2549. การเน้นพยางค์กับทำนองเสียงภาษาไทย (Stress and Intonation in Thai) วารสารภาษาและภาษาศาสตร์ ปีที่ 24 ฉบับที่ 2 (มกราคม – มิถุนายน 2549) หน้า 59–76. ISSN 0857-1406.
• สัทวิทยา : การวิเคราะห์ระบบเสียงในภาษา. 2547. กรุงเทพฯ : สำนักพิมพ์มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์. ISBN 974-537-499-7.
• Diller, Anthony van Nostrand, et al. 2008. The Tai–Kadai Languages. ISBN 978-070-071-457-5.
• Gandour, Jack, Tumtavitikul, Apiluck and Satthamnuwong, Nakarin. 1999. Effects of Speaking Rate on the Thai Tones. Phonetica 56, pp. 123–134.
• Li, Fang-Kuei. A handbook of comparative Tai. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1977. Print.
• Rischel, Jørgen. 1998. 'Structural and Functional Aspects of Tone Split in Thai'. In Sound structure in language, 2009.
• Tumtavitikul, Apiluck, 1998. The Metrical Structure of Thai in a Non-Linear Perspective. Papers presented to the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 1994, pp. 53–71. Udom Warotamasikkhadit and Thanyarat Panakul, eds. Temple, Arizona: Program for Southeast Asian Studies, Arizona State University.
• Apiluck Tumtavitikul. 1997. The Reflection on the X′ category in Thai. Mon-Khmer Studies XXVII, pp. 307–316.
• อภิลักษณ์ ธรรมทวีธิกุล. 2539. ข้อคิดเกี่ยวกับหน่วยวากยสัมพันธ์ในภาษาไทย วารสารมนุษยศาสตร์วิชาการ. 4.57–66. ISSN 0859-3485 ISSN 2673-0502.
• Tumtavitikul, Appi. 1995. Tonal Movements in Thai. The Proceedings of the XIIIth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Vol. I, pp. 188–121. Stockholm: Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm University.
• Tumtavitikul, Apiluck. 1994. Thai Contour Tones. Current Issues in Sino-Tibetan Linguistics, pp. 869–875. Hajime Kitamura et al., eds, Ozaka: The Organization Committee of the 26th Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics, National Museum of Ethnology.
• Tumtavitikul, Apiluck. 1993. FO – Induced VOT Variants in Thai. Journal of Languages and Linguistics, 12.1.34 – 56.
• Tumtavitikul, Apiluck. 1993. Perhaps, the Tones are in the Consonants? Mon-Khmer Studies XXIII, pp. 11–41.
• Higbie, James and Thinsan, Snea. Thai Reference Grammar: The Structure of Spoken Thai. Bangkok: Orchid Press, 2003. ISBN 974-8304-96-5.
• Nacaskul, Karnchana (ศาสตราจารย์กิตติคุณ ดร.กาญจนา นาคสกุล) Thai Phonology, 4th printing. (ระบบเสียงภาษาไทย, พิมพ์ครั้งที่ 4) Bangkok: Chulalongkorn Press, 1998. ISBN 978-974-639-375-1.
• Nanthana Ronnakiat (ดร.นันทนา รณเกียรติ) Phonetics in Principle and Practical. (สัทศาสตร์ภาคทฤษฎีและภาคปฏิบัติ) Bangkok: Thammasat University, 2005. ISBN 974-571-929-3.
• Segaller, Denis. Thai Without Tears: A Guide to Simple Thai Speaking. Bangkok: BMD Book Mags, 1999. ISBN 974-87115-2-8.
• Smyth, David (2002). Thai: An Essential Grammar, first edition. London: Routledge.
• Smyth, David (2014). Thai: An Essential Grammar, second edition. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-041-551-034-9.
• Tingsabadh, M.R. Kalaya; Abramson, Arthur (1993), "Thai", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 23 (1): 24–28, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004746, S2CID 249403146

Further reading

• Inglis, Douglas. 1999. Lexical conceptual structure of numeral classifiers in Thai-Part 1. Payap Research and Development Institute and The Summer Institute of Linguistics. Payap University.
• Inglis, Douglas. 2000. Grammatical conceptual structure of numeral classifiers in Thai-Part 2. Payap Research and Development Institute and The Summer Institute of Linguistics. Payap University.
• Inglis, Douglas. 2003. Conceptual structure of numeral classifiers in Thai. In Eugene E. Casad and Gary B. Palmer (eds.). Cognitive linguistics and non-Indo-European languages. CLR Series 18. De Gruyter Mouton. 223–246. ISBN 978-311-017-371-0

External links

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• IPA and SAMPA for Thai
• Consonant Ear Training Tape
• Tones of Tai Dialect

Glossaries and word lists

• Thai phrasebook from Wikivoyage
• Thai Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix)

Dictionaries

• English–Thai Dictionary: English–Thai bilingual online dictionary
• The Royal Institute Dictionary, official standard Thai–Thai dictionary
• Thai-English dictionary
• Thai2english.com: LEXiTRON-based Thai–English dictionary
• Daoulagad Thai: mobile OCR Thai–English dictionary
• Thai dictionaries for Stardict/GoldenDict – Thai – English (also French, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese and others) dictionaries in Stardict and GoldenDict formats
• Volubilis Dictionary VOLUBILIS (Romanized Thai – Thai – English – French): free databases (ods/xlsx) and dictionaries (PDF) – Thai transcription system.

Learners' resources

• thai-language.com English speakers' online resource for the Thai language
• Say Hello in the Thai Language
• FSI Thai language course (Formerly at thailanguagewiki.com)
• Spoken Thai (30 exercises with audio)

v t e Languages of Thailand
Official language	Thai
Other Thais	Lao–Phutai Isan Phu Thai Chiang Saen Northern Thai Tai Lü Phuan Thai Song Sukhothai Southern Thai Northwestern Khün Shan Tai Nüa
Minority by languages groups	Austroasiatic Bru Chong Chung Jahai Kensiu Khmer Northern Western Kintaq Kuy Mlabri Mon Nyah Kur Palaung Ten'edn Thavung Vietnamese Austronesian Cham Malay Bangkok Malay Pattani Malay Satun Malay Moken Moklen Urak Lawoi’ Hmong-Mien Hmong Iu Mien Sino-Tibetan Akha Eastern Pwo Lisu Sinitic Cantonese Teochew Hakka Hokkien Hainanese Hokchew Nuosu Mpi Northern Pwo Phrae Pwo Red Karen (Eastern Kayah) S'gaw Karen Ugong
Non-Indigenous	Immigrant language Burmese Hindi Punjabi Russian Southwestern Mandarin Working language English Japanese Korean
Sign languages	Thai Sign Language Ban Khor Sign

• Thai language
• Analytic languages
• Isolating languages
• Languages attested from the 13th century
• Languages of Thailand
• Languages written in Brahmic scripts
• Stress-timed languages
• Subject–verb–object languages