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Font: Thai
Thai script descended from the Brahmi Indic script through the
intermediate descendant, Old Khmer. Traditionally, the development
of Thai script is attributed to King Ramkhamhaeng in the 13th
century AD. Naturally, there have been many stylistic changes since
then. As in the case of most Indic-derived scripts, the alphabet of
Modern Thai is syllabic and reflects the Indic scheme in the order
of its consonants1. Belonging to the Tai group of the
Sino-Tibetan family of languages, Thai is a tonal language closely
related to Lao. Moreover, the resemblance applies equally well to
their respective writing systems. Thai script is also used for
writing Lao, as well as other minority languages in Thailand.
Faithful to the Indic model, the consonants of Thai script all have
an inherent vowel. Considered the primary symbols of the Thai
alphabet, consonants are divided into 3 classes (low, medium and
high). Part of the high complexity of Thai script is owed to the
excessive number of consonant symbols. In fact, 44 symbols are used
to represent 21 unique consonant sounds. Thai spelling is often
based on etymological derivation of a word rather than its phonetic
realization in contemporary language. Words can often contain
letters which go unpronounced in modern Thai.
Used to represent the 21 vowel sounds of Thai, vowel symbols can
take either diacritic or syllable-initial forms and are grouped in
parallel sets of short and long vowels. Vowel diacritics, which can
appear next to, above or below a consonant, serve to replace the
inherent vowel of the consonant. Whenever appearing in
syllable-initial form, vowels are actually presented as modifiers of
a consonant, the glottal stop.
While there are 4 tone symbols in Thai, two of which are most
frequently used, the indication of tone is also dependent on the
class of the host consonant, length of the associated vowel and type
of syllable. Tone marks always appear above the consonant, as well
as any vowel diacritics.
Words in Thai are not separated by spaces. However, groups of
sentences or phrases can be separated by spaces. Thai script
includes its own set of the numerals 0 to 9. There are also a series
of special symbols to indicate repetition, silent letters and
abbreviation.
1 For a fuller description of the features of
Brahmi-derived scripts, see 'Devanagari'.
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