Thai language, or Phasa Thai, basically consists of monosyllable words, whose meanings are complete by themselves. Its alphabet was created by King Ramkhamhaeng, the Great, in 1283, by modeling it on the ancient Indian alphabets of Sanskrit and Pali through the medium of the old Khmer characters.

After a history of over 700 years, Thai alphabet today comprises 44 letters (including 2 obsolete ones), representing 20 consonant phonemes, 15 vowel signs, denoting 22 vowels, diphthongs and trip thongs.

As Thai is tonal language, with 5 different tones, it often confuses foreigners who are unused to this kind of language.

Like most languages of the world, Thai language is complicated mixture of several sources. Many Thai words, used today, were derived from Pali, Sanskrit, Khmer, Malay, Chinese and English.