The compound vowels are made up of combinations of a simple vowel with certain consonants or of two or more simple vowels used together as one.

In addition to the consonants and vowels, there are four symbols which represent combined consonant and vowel sounds. These however are not very often met with.

There is no comprehensive alphabetical order which includes both consonants and vowels as in European languages; each series has to be learned separately in its own order.

In Thai writing there are no capital letters and no punctuation and no break is made between words although a break may be made between groups of words at the writer’s discretion.

When pronouncing Thai consonants we always add the vowel sound “OR” after them. (American sound “Aw”)

	e.g.	ก = G	is pronounced	GOR
		ง = NG	is pronounced	NGOR

Many consonants have a different sound depending on whether they are used as initial consonants at the beginning of a syllable or as final consonants at the end of the syllable.

e.g.

ส

as an initial consonant at the beginning of a syllable has the sound of the English S but as a final consonant has the sound of T.

For instance ศ, ษ and ส all have the sound S and are all spoken as SOR. Obviously it is necessary to have some method of distinguishing between these letters when referring to them verbally and this the Thai do by giving each letter a name.

This name is usually a noun, the spelling of which incorporates the consonant concerned and is considered to be generally familiar to most literates.

In a few cases the name is descriptive referring to the appearance of the consonant and its similarity to another consonant.

Examples.

	ข = K is called KOR KY	from the word KY ไข่ meaning “an egg”.
	ค = K is called KOR KWAI	from the word KWAI ควาย meaning “a buffalo”.
	ศ = S is called SOR KOR	from its resemblance to the letter KOR ค.
	ส = S is called SOR SEU-A	from the word SEU-A เสือ “a tiger” but is also called SOR LOR from its resemblance to the letter LOR ล.

Many Thai, although they use it themselves, tend to disparage this method of naming the consonants as being rather childish and unscholarly, which it may be, but apart from writing the letter, we know of no other way in which it is possible to give verbally the correct spelling of many Thai words.

The names of all the consonants will be given in the lessons and though it is hardly necessary to try and remember the names of those consonants which have a unique sound it will be found very useful later on to be able to refer to the consonants having K, P, B, T and S sounds by their Thai names.

You will notice in conversation however that the final P’s often sound rather more like B’s and the final T’s like D’s.

e.g.

แก = AAG pronounced GAA with the sound of “a” in LAND.

When writing a list of vowels it is usual to put a dash (-) to represent the position of the consonant.

-ะ -ั -ี -า แ- -ู เ-ิ เ-ือ ไ-

A vowel cannot stand alone, it must always be related to some consonant. Where a vowel sound alone is required the consonant อ must be added to support the vowel and in this case the อ is always silent.

Certain consonants namely ย, ว and อ are sometimes used as vowels.

Generated by Lyndon Hill on Thu Jul 20 18:40:31 BST 2006.

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