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Thai Orthography @ World's Writing System

Thai Script @ Wikipedia

Apart from Burmese & Sinhalese, Thai is a principal script used to record the Pali Tripitaka. Contrary to Khmer & Buremse which stayed faithful to the original Indic consonants, Thai has expanded its consonats to include many other consonants to render the native sounds. As in the case of Khmer/Buemse, Thai has also developed many more signs for Vowel sounds and Tones. 

Characteristic of the East Asian Brahmic Scripts, the pronunciation of the letters have been completely nativized.

When writing Sanskrit/Pali the following Characters are used:

Vowels

a          ā        i        ī       u     ū      ṛ        ṝ           ḷ       ḹ          e         ai          o        au     aṁ     aḥ

The Visarga in Thai has got transformed to the vowel sign for 'a' ะ. I have used a colon to denote the true Visarga 

Consonants

  ka          kha       ga       gha        ṅa

   ca      cha       ja        jha          ña

   ṭa       ṭha     ḍa        ḍha        ṇa

  ta         tha       da        dha      na

  pa         pha      ba       bha       ma

  ya        ra      la        va

  śa         ṣa        sa       ha         ḽa(ळ)

Thai ṭa

Cambridge Library reference cites ฎ U+0E0E as equivalent to ṭa. There are quite some sources in the internet which do use this ฎ. However, on researching the printed Thai Script editions of the Tripitaka (see: http://hall.worldtipitaka.org/node/240199) ฏ U+0E0F seems to be the character which is used in the various Thai Tripitaka Editions for ṭa.

Consonant-Vowel Combinations

   ka         kā             ki         kī          ku        kū             kṛ                    kṝ 

    kḷ                  kḹ                 ke           kai             ko            kau           kaṁ     kaḥ

Thai also has lost the vowel signs for the Vocalic Letters. I have represented them as a combination of Virama and the Independent Vowel, which is valid Grammatically. [Actually, Say कृ is just a orthographic convention for क्‌ऋ. The Vowel signs are nothing but allographs of the Vowel]

Thai vowel sign /i/ forms a ligature with the Anusvara. It has been encoded as ึ U+0E36. 

Thai Virama (Phinthu < Skt. Bindu [Dot] )

Thai Script does not have complex Conjuncts. Similar to the Tamil Scrpt, it uses a visible Virama to display consonant clusters.

Thai Conjuncts

The Thai Script has a peculiar way for representing certain Conjuncts wih the vowel signs that are placed before the Consonants i.e /e/, /o/ /au/ /ai/.  For some clusters these vowels signs are placed before the consonantal clusters themselve. For eample, /dve/ is written as เทฺว as opposed to the usual ทฺเว. (i.e) In Essence - ทฺว is considered as a digraph, and treated as such with the vowel signs, thus the cluster is not split.

This digraph convention is followed for:

• Any Consonantal cluster that is word-initial.
• Conjuncts with the semi-vowels ( /ya/, /va/, /ra/, /la/   ) in post-consonantal positions (like /kye/, /dve/, /tro/ )
• Conjuncts of h in both post-consonantal (like /mhe/ ) and pre-consonantal (like /hmo/ ) positions.
• Conjuncts of s in pre-consonantal postions (like /ste/ )

(See: http://www.thai-language.com/forums/t/linguistics/writing/t5913 )

Thai Transcription

In Thai (Similar to that of Bengali & Oriya), the inherent vowel in the letters has shifted from 'a' to 'o'. Therefore Thai developed a special sign to denoted this short 'a' ะ U+0E30 (derived from the historic Visarga). When short 'a' appears before doubled Consonants & the nasalized Anusavara ั U+0E31 is used. Also, Anusvara is replaced by the Nasal ṅ ง

While writing Pali Proper, the inherent vowel is assumed to be 'a'. But in various pali chanting books printed in Thai Script, this short-a is shown explicitly for ease of pronunciation and the Anusvara replaced by the Nasal sound.  

namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammāsambuddhassa 

นโม ตสฺส ภควโต อรหโต สมฺมาสมฺพุทฺธสฺส  (Thai Transliteration) 

buddhaṁ saraṇaṁ gacchāmi  

พุทฺธํ สรณํ คจฺฉามิ (Thai Transliteration)

พุทธัง สะระณัง คัจฉามิ (Thai Transcription)

Select "Transcribe into Thai" to enable Transcription of the source Text into Thai Script.

Transliteration from Thai Transcription

When Transliterating from a Thai Transcribed text in Source,select "Transcribed Thai" option

กาเยนะ วาจายะ วะ เจตะสา วา

ธัมเม กุกัมมัง ปะกะตัง มะยา ยัง

ธัมเม ปะฏิคคัณหะตุ อัจจะ ยันตัง

กาลันตะเร สังวะริตุง วะ ธัมเม 

kāyena vācāya va cetasā vā

dhamme kukammaṅ pakataṅ mayā yaṅ

dhamme paṭiggaṇhatu acca yantaṅ

kālantare saṅvarituṅ va dhamme   

(Note that Anusvara is replaced by the Nasal ṅ)

Thai Fonts

Windows comes with several fonts for Thai. Hence the Display of Thai Script isn't much of an Issue.

Thai Unicode

Thai (and Lao) do not follow the logical arrangement of the Vowel Signs. They follow the visual model. That is, the Vowel Sign 'e' encoded before the consonant. But in other Script, it follows the consonant i.e the placement of vowel sign is left to the font rendering. This discrepancy is due to the fact that Thai Unicode is based on the Legacy Thai National Standard.

Sample Sanskrit Text 

अनिरोधम् अनुत्पादम् अनुच्छेदम् अशाश्वतम् ।

अनेकार्थम् अनानार्थम् अनागमम् अनिर्गमम् ॥

यः प्रतीत्यसमुत्पादं प्रपञ्चोपशमं शिवम् ।

देशयामास संबुद्धस्तं वन्दे वदतां वरम् ॥

Transliteration

อนิโรธมฺ อนุตฺปาทมฺ อนุจฺเฉทมฺ อศาศฺวตมฺ ฯ  

อเนการฺถมฺ อนานารฺถมฺ อนาคมมฺ อนิรฺคมมฺ ๚  

ย: ปฺรตีตฺยสมุตฺปาทํ ปฺรปญฺโจปศมํ ศิวมฺ ฯ  

เทศยามาส สํพุทฺธสฺตํ วนฺเท วทตำ วรมฺ ๚   

Transcription

อะนิโรธะม อะนุตปาทะม อะนุจเฉทะม อะศาศวะตะม ฯ 

อะเนการถะม อะนานารถะม อะนาคะมะม อะนิรคะมะม ๚ 

ยะ: ประตีตยะสะมุตปาทัง ประปัญโจปะศะมัง ศิวะม ฯ 

เทศะยามาสะ สังพุทธัสตัง วันเท วะทะตาง วะระม ๚

Further Reading

1. Pali in Thai Script - http://paliinthaiscript.blogspot.com/ (Pali Transcribed in Thai - not Transliterated)

2. http://watbowon.com/schedual/bun/bun5.html - Pali in Thai Script with some admixture of Native Thai Elements

3. Pali Tripitaka in Thai Script - http://www.tipitaka.org/thai/ - Uses the alternate ฎ. Also has some issues with vowel sign placement.