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The phonology of Standard Thai reflects the pronunciation patterns of the Thai language found in Thailand's central provinces, including Bangkok. Standard Thai is a tonal language with 5 phonemic tones, consisting of 20 consonant phonemes and 18 simple vowels.

The relationship between modern phonemic values and the writing system is complex. The Thai alphabet reflects an older form of the language that has since undergone sound changes, such as consonant voicing and devoicing, cluster reduction and tone splits and mergers. The Thai alphabet also preserves the original spelling of Sanskrit and Pali loanwords, including differentiating between voiced aspirates and retroflex consonants, but insofar as Thai phonology lacks these consonants, multiple letters may share the same pronunciation.

Syllable structure and phonotactics

A Thai syllable contains an obligatory vowel nucleus and tone. Initial and coda consonants are optional. In addition, Thai permits a second consonant as part of an initial cluster.

Thai syllables have the following structure:

(C₁)(C₂)V^T(/a/)(C₃)

C1 = initial consonant onset C2 = optional second consonant V = vowel nucleus

T = tone /a/ = second element of a lowering diphthong C3 = final consonant coda

C₁: Any consonant may occur in initial position. Words with a null onset are spelled with the placeholder letter อ.

C₂: The second consonant is limited to /w/, /l/ or /r/ with limited distribution. See below.

V: Any monophthong or single vowel.

T: Tone can be mid, low, falling, high, or rising.

/a/: May appear as the second sequence of a lowering diphthong together with /i/, /w/, or /u/.

C₃: The coda consonant is limited to /p/, /t/, /k/, /ʔ/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /j/ or /w/. Diphthongs are analysed as sequences of V+/j/ or V+/w/, with the semivowels serving as the codas. A glottal stop in coda position may follow short vowels. No more than one consonant can occur together as a coda.

Stress falls on the final syllable in polysyllabic words. Stressed syllables are pronounced fully. In unstressed syllables, the vowel may be reduced or shortened. Tone may be neutralised.

Consonants

In each cell below, the first line indicates International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the second indicates the Thai characters in initial position (several letters appearing in the same box have identical pronunciation).

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		/m/ ม	/n/ ณ, น		/ŋ/ ง
Plosive/ Affricate	voiced	/b/ บ	/d/ ฎ, ด
	tenuis	/p/ ป	/t/ ฏ, ต	/tɕ/ จ	/k/ ก	/(ʔ)/ อ
	aspirated	/pʰ/ ผ, พ, ภ	/tʰ/ ฐ, ฑ, ฒ, ถ, ท, ธ	/tɕʰ/ ฉ, ช, ฌ	/kʰ/ ข, ฃ, ค, ฅ, ฆ
Fricative		/f/ ฝ, ฟ	/s/ ซ, ศ, ษ, ส			/h/ ห, ฮ
Approximant		/w/ ว	/l/ ล, ฬ	/j/ ญ, ย
Rhotic/Liquid			/r/ ร

Initials

• A three-way contrast between voiced, voiceless unaspirated, and aspirated is maintained for the labial and alveolar stops.
  • Standard Thai distinguishes between /b/, /p/, and /pʰ/ and between /d/, /t/, and /tʰ/ as independent phonemes;
  • On the other hand, the velar plosives (/k/ and /kʰ/) and palatoalveolar affricates are voiceless (/tɕ/ and /tɕʰ/) and are contrasted by the presence of aspiration;
  • The voiced plosives may be pronounced with creaky or stiff voice or as implosives. The Thai voiced stops were historically implosive consonants;
• According to Harris (1992), initial /t/, and /tʰ/ are denti-alveolar, whereas /d/ is apico-alveolar
• Voiceless unaspirated stops and voiced stops are accompanied with slight larygnealisation or pharyngealisation;
• Initial /r/, written ร, is pronounced either as an alveolar trill or a tap (Panlay, 1997: 40). Many speakers pronounce this consonant as /l/, effectively merging it with the letters ล and ฬ, both currently pronounced as l. This change has been attested as early as the 18th century. The lateral pronunciation, however, is viewed as substandard or even uneducated speech, whereas the rhotic is associated with prestigious or formal speech;
• The phoneme tɕʰ is used to approximate English loanwords that begin with ch or sh. While this is true, Tuaycharoen (2003) writes that younger Thai speakers, influenced by Eurasian or Amerasian entertainment artists, have started to pronounce this phoneme as a postalveolar fricative even in native Thai words. Harris (1992) comments that the fricative allophone is a voiceless "lamino-(fronto-) alveolopalatal narrow grooved fricative" allophone among contemporary speakers;
• A glottal stop may appear as a consonant before stressed syllables. However, status of the glottal stop as the null onset in unstressed syllables is disputed. Harris (1992) believes that an initial glottal stop "does not normally occur" in this environment. Slayden (2009)
• The phoneme /h/, which occurs in syllable position only, may result in slight nasalisation of the following vowel. Perkins (2013) asserts that the phoneme has a breathy articulation because native words beginning with /h/ are restricted from taking high tone.

Clusters

Thai permits a series of two-consonant clusters in onset position. Clusters do not appear as codas. The second member of these clusters is always /l/, /r/, or /w/.

In native Thai words, clusters can only occur with labial, alveolar, and velar stops:

• /kr/ (กร), /kl/ (กล), /kw/ (กว)
• /kʰr/ (ขร, คร), /kʰl/ (ขล, คล), /kʰw/ (ขว, คว)
• /pr/ (ปร), /pl/ (ปล)
• /pʰr/ (พร), /pʰl/ (ผล, พล)
• /tr/ (ตร)

As demonstrated above, the clusters have limited distribution. Only velar stops can form a cluster with any of the three sonorants. In fact, Thai speakers frequently reduce C.r and C.l clusters as part of an ongoing cluster reduction trend. Fully pronounced clusters, on the other hand, typefy formal or prestigious speech. Some speakers in the Bangkok area further reduce the velar-labial clusters (/kw/ and /kʰw/) to /f/.

Other sequences of coronal consonants and ร are not pronounced as clusters. The second element is elided.

Caption text

False cluster	Spelled as	Pronounced as	Example
ทร	th + r	slow (ซ)	ทราบ (sä:p˥˥˧)
ทร	th + r	thlow (ท)	โทร (tʰo:˧)
-ทร	-th + r	-t̚ (ต)	สมุทร (sə.mut̚˨˩ˈ)
สร	s + r	shigh (ส)	สร้าง (sa:ŋ˥˥˧)
ซร-	s + r	slow	ไซร้ (sai˧˧˦)
จร-	ch + r	chmiddle (จ)	จริง (t͡ɕiŋ˧)

In other sequences of two consecutive consonants where there is no apparent intervening vowel, Thai speakers insert an epenthetic vowel. An exception to this occurs in the case of ho nam (ห), where a silent ห is placed before a sonorant (/l/, /r/, /m/, /n/, /ng/, /w/ and /j/) to change its consonant class from low to high for tone purposes.

Borrowing from Sanskrit, and more recently from English, has introduced new two-consonant clusters, such as such as /tʰr/ (ทร) in อินทรา (/ʔīn.tʰrāː/, from Sanskrit indrā) or /fr/ (ฟร) in ฟรี (/frīː/, from English free). Like native clusters, the second element is always either /r/, /l/, or /w/.

Even in loanwords, speakers may eliminate the cluster by eliding the second element or inserting an epenthetic vowel between the two consonants. Thai does not allow for final clusters in loanwords even where the donor language permits them.

Finals

Coda phoneme	Possible spellings with their pronunciations in initial position
/m/	ม (m)
/n/	ญ (y), ณ (n), น (n), ร (r), ล (l), ฬ (l)
/ŋ/	ง (ng)
/p/	บ (b), ป (p), พ (ph), ฟ (f), ภ (ph)
/t/	จ (ch), ช (ch), ซ (s), ฌ (ch) ฎ (d), ฏ (t), ฐ (th), ฑ (th), ฒ (th) ด (d), ต (t), ถ (th), ท (th), ธ (th), ศ (s), ษ (s), ส (s)
/k/	ก (k), ข (kh), ค (kh), ฆ (kh)
/w/	ว (w)
/j/	ย (j)
/ʔ/	-

Contrary to its vast consonant inventory for initial onsets, Thai permits only nine consonants in coda position: /p/, /t/, /k/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /ʔ/, /w/ and /j/. All consonant letters, except for ฉ ผ ฝ ห อ ฮ, and the obsolete letters ฃ ฅ, can be in coda position. However, their pronunciation in coda may vary significantly from onset.

• The plosives /p/, /t/, and /k/ are realised as unreleased stops, p̚, t̚, k̚, similar to Cantonese and Vietnamese. Voicing and aspiration contrasts are neutralised. The final stops occur in three places of articulation: bilabial, alveolar, and velar.
  • Palatal consonants (จ, ช) in orthography are realised as /t/.
  • Orthographic fricatives in coda position are as plosives in the same places of articulation: ฟ as /p/ instead of /f/; ส, ศ, ษ, ซ as /t/ instead of /s/. This is true even for English loanwords;

• Similarly, Thai nasal codas also occur in the same three places of articulation: bilabial, alveolar, and velar;
  • Yo ying /ญ/, pronounced /j/ in onset position, is realised as an alveolar nasal in coda;
  • The rhotic and lateral consonants are realised as /n/. English final /l/ is usually borrowed as /n/. The velarised or dark "l" is realised as /w/, especially before front vowels. บิล (bill) can be pronounced as /bin/ or /biw/.
  • In informal speech, final /ŋ/ may trigger sandhi across word boundaries where the next syllable begins with a sonorant.
• Philologists analyse rising diphthongs as sequences of vowel + /j/ or /w/ where the offglides serve as consonant codas.
  • Regardless of vowel length, a rising diphthong cannot take another consonant in coda position, even the glottal stop.
• Where no other consonant is present, words with short vowels end in a glottal stop.

Vowels

Simple vowel nuclei are compulsory in Thai, that is, each syllable must contain a vowel. Simple vowels come in long-short pairs, for which there are nine such pairs. Each member of a long-short pair exists as an independent phoneme. As such, there are 18 vowel nuclei.

Vowels are divided between three different heights (open, mid, close) and degree of backness (front, central, or back). In the following table demonstrating the Standard Thai vowel nuclei, the top entry in every cell is the symbol from the International Phonetic Alphabet, the second entry gives the spelling in the Thai script, where a dash (–) indicates the position of the initial consonant after which the vowel is pronounced. A second dash indicates that a final consonant follows.

Monophthongs of Thai. From Tingsabadh & Abramson (1993:25)

	Front		Central		Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	/i/  -ิ	/iː/  -ี	/ɯ/  -ึ	/ɯː/  -ื-	/u/  -ุ	/uː/  -ู
Mid	/e/ เ-ะ	/eː/ เ-	/ɤ/ เ-อะ	/ɤː/ เ-อ	/o/ โ-ะ	/oː/ โ-
Open	/ɛ/ แ-ะ	/ɛː/ แ-	/a/ -ะ, -ั-	/aː/ -า	/ɔ/ เ-าะ	/ɔː/ -อ

The long-short pairs are as follows:

Long					Short
Thai	IPA	Example			Thai	IPA	Example
–า	/aː/	ฝาน	/fǎːn/	'to slice'	–ะ	/a/	ฝัน	/fǎn/	'to dream'
–ี	/iː/	กรีด	/krìːt/	'to cut'	–ิ	/i/	กริช	/krìt/	'kris'
–ู	/uː/	สูด	/sùːt/	'to inhale'	–ุ	/u/	สุด	/sùt/	'rearmost'
เ–	/eː/	เอน	/ʔēːn/	'to recline'	เ–ะ	/e/	เอ็น	/ʔēn/	'tendon, ligament'
แ–	/ɛː/	แพ้	/pʰɛ́ː/	'to be defeated'	แ–ะ	/ɛ/	แพะ	/pʰɛ́ʔ/	'goat'
–ื-	/ɯː/	คลื่น	/kʰlɯ̂ːn/	'wave'	–ึ	/ɯ/	ขึ้น	/kʰɯ̂n/	'to go up'
เ–อ	/ɤː/	เดิน	/dɤ̄ːn/	'to walk'	เ–อะ	/ɤ/	เงิน	/ŋɤ̄n/	'silver'
โ–	/oː/	โค่น	/kʰôːn/	'to fell'	โ–ะ	/o/	ข้น	/kʰôn/	'thick (soup)'
–อ	/ɔː/	กลอง	/klɔ̄ːŋ/	'drum'	เ–าะ	/ɔ/	กล่อง	/klɔ̀ŋ/	'box'

• The front open vowel is

• In unstressed positions,

Thai also possesses three centring diphthongs where the second element is /a/:

• [ia̯] เ–ีย ia
• [ɯa̯] เ–ือ uea
• [ua̯] –ัว ua

There are also opening and closing diphthongs in Thai, which Tingsabadh & Abramson (1993) analyse as /Vj/ and /Vw/. Those marked with an asterisk are sometimes classified as long:

Diphthongs of Thai. From Tingsabadh & Abramson (1993:25)

Long		Short
Thai script	IPA	Thai script	IPA
–าย	/aːj/	ไ–*, ใ–*, ไ–ย, -ัย	/aj/
–าว	/aːw/	เ–า*	/aw/
เ–ีย	/ia/	เ–ียะ	/iaʔ/
–	–	–ิว	/iw/
–ัว	/ua/	–ัวะ	/uaʔ/
–ูย	/uːj/	–ุย	/uj/
เ–ว	/eːw/	เ–็ว	/ew/
แ–ว	/ɛːw/	–	–
เ–ือ	/ɯa/	เ–ือะ	/ɯaʔ/
เ–ย	/ɤːj/	–	–
–อย	/ɔːj/	–	–
โ–ย	/oːj/	–	–

The semivowel glides can appear after a centring diphthong, forming triphthongs.

For purposes of determining tone, those marked with an asterisk are sometimes classified as long:

Thai script	IPA
เ–ียว*	/iaw/
–วย*	/uaj/
เ–ือย*	/ɯaj/

Tones

The five phonemic tones of Standard Thai pronounced with the syllable '/naː/':

There are five phonemic tones in Thai, referred to commonly as the mid, low, falling, high, and rising tones. The tones are also classified in literature as T1, T2, T3, T4, and T5, respectively. Tones are marked using diacritics but are also determined by syllable structure and the initial consonants as spelled. According to Zhu (2015), the presence of obstruent codas and variation of vowel length in checked syllables may result in up to four additional allotones or tone variations.

Thai language tone chart

The tone chart shows an example of both the phonemic tones and their phonetic realization, in the IPA. Moren & Zsiga (2006) and Zsiga & Nitisaroj (2007) provide phonetic and phonological analyses of Thai tone realization.

Tone categories

Tones are determined by the class of the initial consonant (high, middle or low), the presence or absence of a plosive coda, vowel length, and tone marks.

Syllables that end in either a long vowel, a semivowel, or a nasal consonant are known as "live syllables" and belong to one of three historical tone categories: A, B, or C, written today with no tone marker, mai ek ◌ ่ or mai tho ◌ ้. As a result of voicing changes, each historic tone was split into two. The initial consonants were placed into three classes:

• High class consonants: original aspirated stops, voiceless fricatives, and historically devoiced or voiceless sonorants;
• Middle class consonants: voiceless stops and former implosive stops that became voiced;
• Low class consonants: original voiced stops, voiced sonorants and fricatives.

Subsequent mergers between the split tones resulted in today's five phonemic tones.

Tone values and distribution

Tone name	Description	Chao Tone Numbers or Tone Letters	Diacritic and Consonant Class	Example
Mid tone	Flat and level	[33] or ˧	Cmiddle or Clow + unmarked	Example
Low tone	Low and falling	[21] or ˨˩	Cmiddle or Chigh + mai ek (◌ ่) or final p/t/k/ʔ	หมาก [mäːk̚˨˩] 'areca nut, areca palm, betel, fruit'
Falling tone	High falling	[52] or ˥˨	Cmiddle or Chigh + mai tho (◌ ้) Clow + mai ek (◌ ่) or Clow + final p/t/k + long vowel	Example
High tone	High rising	[45] or ˦˥	Clow + mai tho (◌ ้) Clow + final p/t/k/ʔ + short vowel Cmiddle + mai tri (◌ ๊)	Example
Rising tone	Falling-rising	[324] or ˧˨˦	Chigh + unmarked Cmiddle + mai chattawa (◌๋)	Example

In contrast, "dead syllables" are those that end in a plosive coda or a short vowel, forming their own tone category akin to the entering tone in Chinese linguistics. Once again, voicing changes that formed the three consonant classes also led to a tone split for dead syllable words. Words beginning with high and middle class consonants are pronounced with low tone. The tone is further split among words that begin with low class consonants based on vowel length: a long vowel results in the word beginning pronounced with falling tone, while a short vowel results in high tone.

Tone	Thai	Example	Phonemic	Phonetic	Gloss
Low (short vowel)	เอก	หมัก	/màk/	[mäk̚˨˩]	'marinate'
Low (long vowel)	เอก		/màːk/
High	ตรี	มัก	/mák/	[mäk̚˦˥]	'habitually, likely to'
Falling	โท	มาก	/mâːk/	[mäːk̚˦˩]	'a lot, abundance, many'

In some English borrowings, closed syllables with a long vowel ending in an obstruent sound have a high tone, and closed syllables with a short vowel ending in an obstruent sound have a falling tone.

Tone	Thai	Example	Phonemic	Phonetic	Gloss
High	ตรี	มาร์ก	/máːk/	[mäːk̚˦˥]	'Marc, Mark'
High	ตรี	ชาร์จ	/tɕʰáːt/	[tɕʰäːt̚˦˥]	'charge'
Falling	โท	เมกอัป	/méːk.ʔâp/	[meːk̚˦˥.ʔäp̚˦˩]	'make-up'
Falling	โท	แร็กเกต	/rɛ́k.kêt/	[rɛk̚˦˥.ket̚˦˩]	'racket'

Tone realisation

Mid tone/Tone 1:
The mid tone is mostly level and starts at the speaker's mid-range. The tone value is usually described as [33]. Some researchers offer different values, describing the tone with a slightly higher onset or having a slight drop. Zhu (2015) assigned a value of [44] to T1. --- gave a value of [32].

The mid tone is not marked and occurs in live syllable words that begin with a mid or low class consonant and which do not end in either a stopped consonant or a short vowel.

Low tone/Tone 2:
The low tone has been described as flat/level and low in pitch relative to the speaker's voice range. Tone values traditionally assigned to the low tone are [22] or [21]. Studies indicate that the low tone is transitioning to a falling-type tone, starting at or near mid-range and dropping low, with tone values reported as [31].

In live syllables (words that do not end in a short vowel or stopped consonant), T2

Falling tone/Tone 3:

The falling tone begins higher in the speaker's voice range before dropping. The drop is optionally preceded by a brief rise in pitch. Researchers have given tone values of [52] or [452]. Among younger speakers, the higher part of the tone is maintained before dropping. This variant of the falling tone is assigned a tone value of [552].

An exception to this is the common realisation of the female polite particle, ค่ะ. The presence of the low consonant ค, together with the mai ek mark, would infer a falling tone pronunciation as in kʰaʔ52. But the particle is usually pronounced in the low tone, kʰa21, as though spelled ขะ.

High tone/Tone 4:

The high tone starts

Rising tone/Tone 5:

The rising tone actually begins near mid-range, but drops below to the lowest last of the speaker's range before rising to just above the mid tone.

Tone shift

Researchers posit that the non-mid tones (low, falling, high, and rising) are undergoing a tone shift where the tone values or shapes are transforming to those of another tone as pronounced decades prior. Zhu (2015) contends that among younger speakers this tone shift is "cyclical": low tone > falling tone > high tone > rising tone, remarking that the rising tone has become flatter and lower in pitch as the low tone has previously been.

A century ago, the low tone was pronounced flat from the speaker's lowest range, whereas the falling tone started from a lower pitch, not unlike today's low tone. Meanwhile, the high tone was pronounced with a slight rise before plateauing at a high pitch before dropping. This description correlates with the current falling tone. The rising pitch was described to start from the speaker's mid voice before rising in pitch, similar to how younger speakers pronounce the high tone today.

Since today's rising tone is flattening in the pitch, Zhu (2015) believes the change in how the rising tone is pronounced would effectively complete a cyclical shift.

Recording of the falling tone as pronounced a century ago suggested that it started from a lower pitch, like the value for today's low tone, before dropping. Contemporary speakers, especially the younger generation, pronounce the falling tone with a higher onset before dropping abruptly.

The high tone rose slightly to a high pitch before dropping, reminiscent of today's falling tone. The high tone today begins with middle pitch before gradually rising.

The rising tone a century ago was pronounced with a gradual rise, like the high tone of today. It currently has a concave contour, dipping low before rising slightly again. Researchers have noticed that the rising tone is flattening in the middle, where it is pronounced with low pitch.

Notes:

1. Five-level tone value: Mid [33], Low [21], Falling [41], High [45], Rising [214]. Traditionally, the high tone was recorded as either [44] or [45]. This remains true for the older generation, but the high tone is changing to [334] among youngsters.
2. For the diachronic changes of tone value, see Pittayaporn (2007).
3. The full complement of tones exists only in so-called "live syllables", those that end in a long vowel or a sonorant (/m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /j/, /w/).
4. For "dead syllables", those that end in a plosive (/p/, /t/, /k/) or in a short vowel, only three tonal distinctions are possible: low, high, and falling. Because syllables analyzed as ending in a short vowel may have a final glottal stop (especially in slower speech), all "dead syllables" are phonetically checked, and have the reduced tonal inventory characteristic of checked syllables.

Tone	Thai	Example	Phonemic	Phonetic	Gloss
Mid	สามัญ	คา	/kʰāː/	[kʰäː˧]	'stick'
Low	เอก	ข่า	/kʰàː/	[kʰäː˨˩] or [kʰäː˩]	'galangal'
Falling	โท	ค่า	/kʰâː/	[kʰäː˦˩]	'value'
High	ตรี	ค้า	/kʰáː/	[kʰäː˦˥] or [kʰäː˥]	'to trade'
Rising	จัตวา	ขา	/kʰǎː/	[kʰäː˨˩˦] or [kʰäː˨˦]	'leg'

Tone sandhi

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Sandbox

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