Writing the Thai Language

Thai writing covers a large amount of letters: 44 consonants, 21 vowels, 10 double and triple vowels, 4 tone marks and 4 special marks. Some vowels are written before the consonant, some behind and some over, under or around. Experts disagree as to the exact origins of the script, but it was apparently developed around 700 years ago (fairly recent in comparison to the spoken language) from the South Indian, Mon and Khmer models. Like these language models, written Thai proceeds from the left to the right. Learning the Thai alphabet is not difficult but the writing system is complex.