Languages
Native
Thai
90%
Northeastern Thai (Isan)
33%
Secondary languages
English
30%
Malay
11%
Language Samples
สวัสดี คุณเป็นอย่างไรบ้าง?
Sawatdi, khun pen yang rai baang?
Hello, how are you?
ฉันสบายดี ขอบคุณ
Chan sabaai di, khob khun.
I am fine, thank you.
หนึ่ง สอง สาม สี่ ห้า หก เจ็ด แปด เก้า สิบ
Nueng, song, sam, si, ha, hok, chet, paet, kao, sip
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Linguistic History
Thai belongs to the Tai-Kadai language family and is the sole official language of Thailand. The Thai script was invented in 1283 CE by King Ramkhamhaeng, derived from the Old Khmer script, and is an abugida — a writing system where consonants carry an inherent vowel sound that can be modified by additional symbols. Thai is a tonal language with five tones, and words are written without spaces between them. The language has absorbed significant vocabulary from Sanskrit and Pali through the Hindu and Theravada Buddhist traditions, as well as from Khmer, Chinese, and more recently English.
Similar Languages
Lao
85%
Shan
60%
Zhuang
40%
Tai Dam
55%
Media
Wat Phra Kaew (Temple of the Emerald Buddha) in Bangkok, whose inscriptions blend Thai script with Sanskrit and Pali loanwords that permeate the language's religious vocabulary.
Photo: Masgatotkaca · CC BY-SA 3.0
Did You Know
01
Written Thai has no spaces between words — word boundaries must be inferred from context and grammatical knowledge, which makes learning to read Thai a significant challenge even for native speakers.
02
Thai has five tones — mid, low, falling, high, and rising — and the same syllable with different tones can mean completely different things: 'mai' can mean 'new', 'burn', 'wood', 'not', or 'silk' depending on tone.
03
The Thai script was reportedly invented in a single act of royal design by King Ramkhamhaeng in 1283 CE — his stone inscription describing the creation of the script is still preserved and is a UNESCO Memory of the World document.