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Thai language, or Phasa
Thai, basically consists of monosyllable words, whose
meanings are complete by themselves. Its alphabet was
created by King Ramkhamhaeng, the Great, in 1283, by
modeling it on the ancient Indian alphabets of Sanskrit
and Pali through the medium of the old Khmer characters.
After a history of over 700 years, Thai alphabet today
comprises 44 letters (including 2 obsolete ones),
representing 20 consonant phonemes, 15 vowel signs,
denoting 22 vowels, diphthongs and trip thongs.
As Thai is tonal language, with 5 different tones, it
often confuses foreigners who are unused to this kind of
language.
Like most languages of the world, Thai language is
complicated mixture of several sources. Many Thai words,
used today, were derived from Pali, Sanskrit, Khmer,
Malay, Chinese and English.
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