Thai Alphabet Chart

Are you looking for a Thai alphabet chart? If you're interested in learning how to read or write in the Thai language, a Thai alphabet chart is a great starting point. Fortunately, you can easily find one by purchasing a book of the Thai language, or by doing a quick online search.

There are a number of different Thai alphabet charts available online. You can do an Internet search to find one that meets your needs. To get you started, however, an excellent chart for beginners can be found at Learn Thai Online. It is a downloadable PDF so you will need Acrobat reader on your computer to use it. 

Is it An Alphabet at All?

When looking for a Thai alphabet chart, it is important to first note that referring to Thai letters as an alphabet is not technically accurate. The letters are, in fact, considered an abugida, which is the term for a writing system in which vowels are inherently indicated by the consonants used.

Using Your Thai Alphabet Chart

Now that you know where to find a Thai alphabet chart, it's important to understand how the Thai script works before you begin your study.

• The Thai script is a derivative of the Old Khmer script, and also contains elements of ancient Sanskrit and Pali languages.
• Thai letters are used to write the Thai language and a few other languages represented in the country of Thailand. Sanskrit is still used in Thai Buddhist temples and for various religious writings throughout the country.

• The Thai alphabet has forty-four consonants, fifteen vowels (which combine into at least twenty-eight forms), and four “tone marks,” which indicate the tone of speech used to pronounce them.
• The Thai language also has its own set of numerals, although the standard Western numerals are also widely understood and often used.

Writing the Thai Language

You also need to know how the Thai language is actually written and used in order to make the best use of the Thai alphabet chart:

• The Thai language is written left to right, as is English; however, unlike English, words are not made up of a combination of consonants and vowels in the typical way a Westerner might expect.
• Instead, the word is indicated by a series of consonants, and the vowels inherent to those consonants are written either above, below, or to the sides of the consonants to which they are attached.
• Upper and lower-case letters are not a part of the Thai language, nor are spaces between words; this can naturally cause some confusion for those who are coming from a native background in a Western language.
• Commas are sometimes used in Thai to indicate pauses in speech, and periods are used for major pauses; this, at least, will be familiar to English speakers and other speakers of Romance languages. Other familiar punctuation will include quotation markers and parentheses.

Pronunciation of Thai Language

Pronunciation is perhaps the most complex part of understanding Thai.

• The rules for how to pronounce words and letter combinations are quite complex, partially due to changes that have developed in the sound of the language over time, which have not necessarily been reflected in equal ways within the spelling of the sounds themselves.
• The sound of a Thai letter can differ depending on where in the word the letter appears, i.e. at the beginning or end of a word or syllable.
• Only six consonants of the script can be used to end a syllable, and if another letter appears in that spot, it will be pronounced as one of those six consonants.

So, now you know where you can find a Thai alphabet chart, as well as a great deal more about the language.