Hi all,

This is probably a very simple question for someone who knows his Thai. I've been trying to learn to read Thai by using certain online resources. Things are going great, and I seem to be able to read some simple words already. Anyhow, there is one thing that I don't really understand.

For example the following word นม (milk = "nom"):

I know that น is basically N and ม is M. So, this would be NM. So where is the vocal O?

This same problems is with word ฅน (person = "khon"). Where is the vocal O?

What is the rule behind these invisible/missing vocals? If you know some resource in internet that explains this, that would be great too. My Thai friends cannot explain this to me. Either they don't know the rule (hopefully there is one) or just cannot explain it in English.

The missing vowels are called 'implicit vowels'. Simplifying a lot, the original logic for them goes as follows:

1) The language for which the writing system developed did not have closed syllables, and the vowel /a/ was extremely common. (Actually, it did have some final consonants, but no more than Japanese.)

2) Therefore, it made sense not to use a symbol for the vowel /a/.

3) Final vowels were dropped, and /a/ in a closed syllable become /o/.

4) This system, used by most languages of India, was taken over by Thai and other SE Asian nations.

The key items to google for should be: Thai implicit vowels, but nothing good leapt out at me.

Many languages using versions of this system have good ways of handling consonant clusters and final consonants, but, alas, Thai doesn't use them for Thai. (It does use them in the traditional spelling of Pali!) Thai just writes the two (or more) consonants for a cluster together with almost nothing to indicate that there is no vowel between them. (Final clusters are indicated by thanthakhat, but that's another complication rather than a help.)

Wow, no wonder that I didn't get an explanation from friends. Seems to be a complicated issue. Many thanks for the answer.

Maybe this issue will appear in the following "lessons" in the resources that i am studying. I was just annoyed that even I started to be able to slowly read words, I could not understand the logic behind these missing vowels.

Now I was actually able to find quite nice thread about this topic. I think that this case can be closed then...

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/29928-the-vowels-seem-to-out-of-control/