Thai Alphabet In Alphabetical Order

[tariq]

Man, i need some help before i go round the twist!

I didn't realise how difficukt it would be to find words in my dictionary if i don't know what order the letters are listed.

any help appreciated.

also.. i thought buying a small pocket size dictionary would be handy but the font is so small i get headaches trying to read it!! my own fault for being a cheap charlie and getting a "smaller size" disctionary.

finally.. i downloaded something a while ago which allowed me to type in thai on my laptop and i'm sure there was a thai keyboard layout that hovered on my screen so i knew which keys represented which letters.. i can't find it now.. did i just dream it?

i'm having a bad day and getting a bit stressed out.. can you tell???

to end on a light note.. I had an operation in a london clinic the other day. when i came out of the anaesthetic effect and woke up i thought for some reason op in a bangkok hospital. " sawatdee krap. sabai dee mai?" i asked... i just got blank looks. "now mahk mahk" i said saying its cold.. still blank looks... "loook khong khun sabai dee mai?"

one of the nurses asked me what language i was talking in. i was too groggy to talk more but i thought to myself "jeez, is my pronounciation that bad that these intelligent thai people can't understad a word I'm saying? impossibble i thought they're probably dum asses" and off I drifted to a deep sleeep... i woke up later and realised who the dumb ass was...

heh heh

taz...

[Rikker]

Here's an idea about how to remember where (most) of the letters are:

I'm not sure exactly how all of the letters came to be in their present order, but much of the Thai alphabet is arranged in homorganic groups, that is, sounds which are made at the same place of the mouth. This follows the tradition of the Indic scripts, I believe. Other languages (genetically unrelated to Thai) with remarkably similar alphabet organization include Khmer, Tibetan, Hindi, Sanskrit, etc. I think I'm right on all those. Richard likely knows more on this topic than I do.

It starts at the back of the mouth and moves forward.

The first group is velar sounds (produced with the back of the tongue raised to the velum, or soft palate):

ก ข ฃ ค ฅ ฆ ง (notice the order: voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, and nasal)

Things get a bit trickier here, but next are sounds produced at the hard palate, or thereabouts (with ซ mixed in, I suspect this was historically an 'sh'-like sound, but I don't know for sure. I'll have to go read up on it):

จ ฉ ช ซ ฌ ญ (the same order: voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, and what used to be a nasal, but is now a palatal glide)

There are two groups of alveolar/dental sounds (these are from Pali/Sanskrit retroflexes, as I understand it):

ฎ ฏ ฐ ฑ ฒ ณ (voiced, voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, nasal)

And then the other set:

ด ต ถ ท ธ น (again: voiced, voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, nasal)

After that come the labial sounds, made with the lips (or lips and teeth):

บ ป ผ ฝ พ ฟ ภ ม (notice: voiced, voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, nasal)

Then things switch away from strict place-of-articulation order, and more by the type of sound they are. I'm kind of making this up as I go along, so somebody help me make more sense of the rest of the alphabetical order of consonants.

ย ร ล ว

These four sounds are all sonorants, in linguistics-speak: sounds without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract. ย ว are glides and ร ล are liquids, to be more specific.

ศ ษ ส ห

These four are all fricative sounds. The last three letters throw me off, though. ฬ อ ฮ. One easy thing to remember about flipping through a Thai dictionary is: ส ห and อ are all at the back, and they all have a ton of words.

As for the rest, imagine it in your mouth: the farther front in your mouth, the farther back in the dictionary it is.

Now wasn't that fun? (I hope I got the letters in the right order. Wouldn't that be embarassing!)

[Mr_Dave]

Rikker -

Wonderful post, really superb.

I've just memorized the Thai alphabet, with a Thai man coaching me thru the tones.

But even he couldn't ascribe any reason for the order of the "ax-on".

Your post is the first explanation I've seen that explains why what is where.

Thank you for taking the time to prepare that message.

.

[Mr_Dave]

I didn't realise how difficukt it would be to find words in my dictionary if i don't know what order the letters are listed.

any help appreciated.

Tariq -

A better dictionary is the one by Benjawan Poomsan Becker. The Thai-to-English section displays the 44 Thai letters in order, at the bottom of every page. Each page shows the letters on that page in bold. But, sorry, the font is very small.

The Becker dictionary is a bit larger than pocket size. About the size of two decks of playing cards. 425 Baht at Asia Books and most other bookstores in Thailand. Or you can order on the web for international delivery.

thai keyboard layout that hovered on my screen so i knew which keys represented which letters.. i can't find it now.. did i just dream it?

It's called the "On-Screen Keyboard". To open, click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, point to Accessibility, and then click On-Screen Keyboard.

[Richard W]

Things get a bit trickier here, but next are sounds produced at the hard palate, or thereabouts (with ซ mixed in, I suspect this was historically an 'sh'-like sound, but I don't know for sure. I'll have to go read up on it):

จ ฉ ช ซ ฌ ญ (the same order: voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, and what used to be a nasal, but is now a palatal glide)

The original sound sequence seems to have been c (unaspirated palatal or affricate, as now), ch, (gap - no voiceless platal fricative in Thai), j (as English & Sanskrit), z, jh (if you could pronounce Pali and Sanskrit), ñ. I don't understand why 'z' should be written as a modified 'j', but modern Devanagari does the same (code numbers U+095b and U+091c)!

After that come the labial sounds, made with the lips (or lips and teeth):

บ ป ผ ฝ พ ฟ ภ ม (notice: voiced, voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, nasal)

The only complete set! Again, note that ฟ is believed to have originally been pronounced /v/.

Then things switch away from strict place-of-articulation order, and more by the type of sound they are. I'm kind of making this up as I go along, so somebody help me make more sense of the rest of the alphabetical order of consonants.

ย ร ล ว

These four sounds are all sonorants, in linguistics-speak: sounds without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract. ย ว are glides and ร ล are liquids, to be more specific.

Curiously, almost the same order again, but just one manner - 'semi-vowel'. There may be put separately because they are not a complete set - there's no velar semi-vowel. But then, and the Indian grammarians knew it, they go palatal, retroflex, dental, labial. All four have matching vowels - writing the consonants with their vowels, we have ยิ รฤ ลฦ วุ.

ศ ษ ส ห

These four are all fricative sounds.

The Thai /s/ sounds are, in Sanskrit, palatal, retroflex, and dental, in that order again. The Indian languages didn't really have velar or labial fricatives, though Vedic Sanskrit visarga comes close.

ห doesn't fit in; it was voiced in Old Indic. That brings us to the end of the Sanskrit consonants.

The last three letters throw me off, though. ฬ อ ฮ.

More miscellaneous sounds that don't fit. ฬ is the retroflex lateral of Pali and Vedic Sanskrit, corresponding to ฑ in Sanskrit, as in Thai กีฬา and กรีฑา 'sport'.

อ is the first of the independent vowel letters. As SE Asian languages have words beginning with glottal stops rather than with vowels, it's been re-interpreted as a consonant. Thai (and Lao) are the only languages to have ditched the independent vowels, though other languages, such as Khmer, Burmese and Northern Thai in Lanna script, tend to reserve the independent vowels for Pali/Sanskrit words. (I know there are exceptions.)

ฮ is the youngest letter. It wasn't needed until after the Great Thai Consonant Shift, when ห and the mid consonants found themselves without partners.

[robitusson]

Excellent post by Rikker. Well done.

[tariq]

Thanks for the help guys.. I'm off to buy a dictionary that I don't need a magnifying glass for.

Cheers

Taz...

[steveromagnino]

Thanks for the help guys.. I'm off to buy a dictionary that I don't need a magnifying glass for.

Cheers

Taz...

that is an awesome explanation, much better than what I could think of!

Other ways...

start texting in Thai with a Thai phone, and you'll fast get used to where the letters are...

Learn the song, and that's in order.

[Hobgoblin]

ก ข ฃ ค ฅ ฆ ง (notice the order: voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, and nasal)

จ ฉ ช ซ ฌ ญ (the same order: voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, and what used to be a nasal, but is now a palatal glide)

ฎ ฏ ฐ ฑ ฒ ณ (voiced, voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, nasal)

ด ต ถ ท ธ น (again: voiced, voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, nasal)

บ ป ผ ฝ พ ฟ ภ ม (notice: voiced, voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, nasal)

What's noteworthy is that each row of these consonants are in order according to consonant class. The first letter (and second for the latter three) are all MIDDLE class. Then they are followed by one or two HIGH class, then LOW class with the respective "N/M" sound at the end. Notice that ง ญ ณ น and ม are always at the end. This followed the old Bhrami rules seen in Devnagri, Sanskrit, etc.

Another thing to note is that the final LOW consonant is always the mose infrequently used (without being obsolete like ฃ and ฅ). ฆ ฌ ฒ ธ adnd ภ are all fairly rare letters (Pho Samphao being the least rare). The retroflex row is the exception where ณ (Nor Nehn) is actually more common than the others.

What I don't know is why some of these "rows" have unequal distribution of MID, HIGH and LOW consonants. Anyone know?

[Richard W]

What I don't know is why some of these "rows" have unequal distribution of MID, HIGH and LOW consonants. Anyone know?

Yes. The Indians didn't like gaps

The explanation goes back to before the great consonant shift. The maximum sequence within each row is:

1) old preglottalised stop -> new voiced stop (M)

2) voiceless stop (M)

3) voiceless aspirate (H)

4) voiceless fricative (H)

5) old voiced stop -> new voiceless aspirate (L)

6) voiced fricative -> voiceless fricative (L)

7) old voiced aspirate -> new voiceless aspirate (L)

8) nasal (L)

(Note that /x/ and /kh/ have merged in Thailand.)

Now the retroflex series only comes from the Indic languages, and the Indic languages had very few fricatives - just ศ ษ ส that would have fitted in. These would have made the stop-based rows (varga) irregular, and so they were moved to after them. That now leaves ugly gaps in the palatal, retroflex and dental rows. Tai did not have a voiced fricative palatal, so that makes one more gap. Curiously, the voiced dental fricative ซ (formarly /z/) is in the palatal row, as it is in modern Devanagari. I don't know why Tai lacked a voiced fricative palatal, but note the sound of -si- in 'vision' is very rare in English - we don't even really have a way to spell it, though 'zh' is often advocated. The role may partly have been filled by ย.

The next gap is that preglottalised stops were missing for the back series - velars and palatals. This is fairly natural (i.e. common across languages), though there is a hint that Proto-Kam-Tai had a preglottalised velar. One might consider อย the preglottalised palatal, but it is not listed as such in alphabetic orders.

Thus:

2 gaps because no pre-glottalised velar or palatal stops.

3 gaps because the modern high /s/ sounds were moved out by the Indians.

1 gap (retroflex) because Indians did not have voiced fricatives.

1 gap (dental) because no 'zh', but /z/ was written as though it were.

Richard.