-ะ	This is a very short “a” as in “sofa”. It is represented in the transliteration by “A”.

Note.
It should be noted that the short “a” (-ะ) or the inherent “a” (See Lesson 4.B.3.(a).) always closes a syllable so that in two syllable words when the first syllable ends with the short “a” either written or inherent, and the second starts with the Thai consonant ร (R) care should be taken not to pronounce the combination like the “ar” in “car”.

	e.g.	อะไร	ARY	pronounce A RY	“What”.
		อร่อย	AROY	pronounce A ROY	“Delicious”.

-ั	This vowel is called MYHUNAHGAHT and is considered by Thai scholars as being the same vowel as the vowel -ะ above, but is always used in place of it when there is a final consonant.

As this short “a” sound followed by a final consonant is generally represented in English by “u” in words such as “run” “cup” “Dunlop” “Sunday” etc. we feel that the use of the same convention will simplify pronunciation for English speaking readers.

This vowel will therefore be represented in the transliteration by “U”.

-า	This is the long “a” sound as in “Ah”. It is represented in the transliteration by “AH”.

In a very few words, of which ท่าน “you” is the most common, this vowel is pronounced short as though it were the same as -ั.

Note.
In two syllable words where the first syllable ends with the short “a” (-ะ) or the inherent “a” and the second starts with the Thai consonant ห (H), the “A” and the “H” will be separated by a hyphen to avoid confusion with the AH sound mentioned above.

	e.g.	ทหาร	TA-HAHN	Soldier.
		มหา	MA-HA	Great.

There are only a few of these words.

-ำ	This has the sound somewhere between the “um” in “number” and the “am” in “amount”. It is represented in the transliteration by “UM”.

Note.
There are about 50 words in the language where the Thai consonant ม (M) follows the vowel -ั (MYHUNAHGAHT).
This combination (-ัม) would also appear in the transliteration as “um” but as most of the words are fairly uncommon ones it has not been thought necessary to try and make any differentiation. Probably the most common word of this type is

อัมพร

UMPORN

The Sky.

-ิ	This is the very short “i” as in “hit”. It is represented in the transliteration by “I”.
-ี	This is the long “ee” as in “see”. It is represented in the transliteration by “EE”.

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

Copyright remains with the original authors.