Thai alphabet

Thai has 44 consonants, around 32 vowel forms, and 4 tone marks. Two consonants (ฃ and ฅ) are no longer used, and the 44 letters map to only 21 distinct initial sounds. Many letters share a sound because of their Sanskrit and Pali origins.

Every consonant belongs to one of three classes: mid (9 letters), high (11 letters), or low (24 letters). The class has nothing to do with the letter's own pitch: it is a historical grouping that, together with the syllable ending and tone mark, determines the tone of a syllable.

Two: ฃ (kho khuat, bottle) and ฅ (kho khon, person). They fell out of use in the early 20th century and were replaced by ข and ค, but they are still counted among the 44 and appear on keyboards and in dictionaries.

Because many letters share the same sound, each letter is named with a common word that contains it: ก is 'ko kai' (chicken), ข is 'kho khai' (egg). Saying the sound plus the word tells a listener exactly which letter you mean, the way English speakers say 'B as in Bravo'.

Start with the everyday letters and leave the twelve Pali/Sanskrit letters for later; they are marked in the chart above. A few of them, such as ณ in คุณ and ศ in ประเทศ, turn up in everyday words, so learn those as you meet them. Learning the 9 mid-class and 11 high-class letters as groups pays off quickly, because everything else is low class and the classes drive the tone rules.