Blackwell Reference Online

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A syllabic alphabet, the Thai writing system appears to be derived from the Khmer script which is itself an offshoot of the southern branch of Indian writing systems which spread to Indo-China in the wake of Buddhism. Traditionally, King Ramkhamhaeng (1275–1317) is credited with having early in his reign designed a writing for the Siamese language which developed into the Thai script. The oldest known inscription dates from 1283.Structured on the basis of the general Indian pattern, the Thai writing system consists of C plus inherent V letters (table 7). V indication is by diacritic satellites (table 8). A number of peculiarities set Thai writing apart from other Brāhmī-derived scripts. The 44 basic letters are all Cs with inherent V. Although no V muting device is used, the inherent V is sometimes not pronounced when two C letters are juxtaposed without additional V diacritic. C clusters are thus expressed without conjunct C letters. Further, there are no letters for initial, i.e. independentTable 7 The Thai syllabic alphabetTable 8 Thai vowel diacriticsVs. The inherent V is /ə/; other Vs are expressed by diacritics. For initial Vs the letter for the glottal stop is used as a base for the appropriate diacritic. The diacritics are for 18 Vs and six diphthongs. The vocalism of Thai is complicated by five tones (table 9). Four tone marks are used for low, falling, high and rising ... log in or subscribe to read full text