The official national language, spoken by almost 100 per cent of the population, is Thai, classified by linguists as belonging to a Chinese -Thai branch of the Sino -Tibetan family. It is a tonal language, uninflected, and predominantly monosyllabic. Most polysyllabic words in the vocabulary have been borrowed, mainly from Khmer, Pali, or Sanskrit. Dialects are spoken in rural areas. Principal other languages are Chinese and Malay. English, a mandatory subject in public schools, is widely spoken and understood, particularly in Bangkok and other major cities.
Thai to Speak
 The Thai language is liberally sprinkled with words from Pali and
Sanskrit (the classical languages, respectively, of Theravada Buddhism and
Indian Hinduism). Written Thai employs an alphabet of 44 consonants and 32
vowels that combine to form syllabic sounds.
King Ramkhamhaeng the Great
who ruled the Sukhothai Kingdom from 1279-1298 initiated the Thai inscription in
1292. The inscription is considered to be a seminal source of Sukhothai history
as well as a masterpiece of Thai literature.
Thai is a tonal
monosyllabic language. The same word can be said in five different ways - normal
or middle tone, high, low, rising and falling.
Like English, it is read
from left to right, but that is where the similarities end. Some English sounds
like "th", "v" and "z" do not appear at all, while some Thai sounds are not
commonly used in English either. Further, it should be noted that in
transcribing Thai sounds into English phonetics some consonants (e.g., b, p, l,
n, d, and t) can be used interchangeably.
There are no plurals in Thai,
nor are there tenses as such. A word or two is usually added to determine the
past, present or future.
In Thailand's major cities, the level of
English can be quite good, but visitors will find that the Thais' ability to
speak English diminishes as one moves further away from the population centers.
In Thai there is a "politening" word attached to the end of anything you
say. For men it is "khrap," for women it is
"kha."
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