Thai Language

Thai language is tonal,uninflected and predominanatly momosyllabic, the exception being compound words derived from Khmer, pali or Sanskrit. These latter words are often specialized vocabulary dealing with religion,philosophy and science There are five tones in standard Thai neutral,high,low,rising,and falling which function to differentiate words having similar sounds, Thus ma neutral means ‘come’ ma high means ‘horse’ ma rising means ‘dog’.and so on.
The grammar is very simple and the lack of inflection leads to compound words to transform verbs and adjectives into nouns and gerunds. Thus suk meaning happy is transformed into the attachment of the prefix kwam to frome kwan suk – happiness. Verbs are modified by prefixing garn. Thus doen the verb to walk becomes the gerund garn doen meaning walking.
Thai is a melodious,expressive language in which euphony is hightly regarded. There are many word pairs in which one does not contribute to the meaning but they are combined to produce an euphonic result. An example is sanuk sanan meaning fun (from sanuk,meaning fun,and sanan,meaning to bathe and added merely for euphony).
Central Thai spoken in Bangkok is the official language but there are many dialects. That of the northeast is closely akin to Lao, that of the north has its own charm, while that of the sount is often incomprehensible to people of the central region having, among other things, a sixth tone.
Sukhothai is properly considered the cradle of the Thai nation as that is where the written Thai language was developed. King Ramkanhaeng is credited with the creation of the Thai script based on the Khmer model,itself derived from the ancient alphabets of India. The present Thai alphabet has 44 consonants and 21 vowels together with five tone marks and others diacritical marks that indicate abbreviation and other functions. Thai is written from left to write with the words generally unseparated. This lack of punctuation can make it difficult to learn at the offset.
The first primer of the Thai language,known as the Chinda Manee was prepared during the reign of King Narai in the Ayutthaya era.