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Thai

ภาษาไทย

No spaces, five tones

A tonal language written without gaps between words, in a script with no capital letters and no full stops.

FamilyKra-Dai › Thai
ScriptThai
Speakers61M 21M native · 40M second
Weeks to a working level44 Counted from English. It is the Foreign Service Institute's figure for someone starting from English and from nothing.
The first hundred words cover28.8% and the first thousand 54.2%
What sets it apart
  • Words run together with no spaces. Spaces are used the way English uses commas, to break clauses.
  • Five tones, and the tone is part of the word: the same syllable can mean new, wood, burn or a question depending on the pitch.
  • There are no capital letters and no full stops. Reading it means learning to find the word boundaries yourself.
  • The script has more than forty consonant letters, several of which sound identical and exist to show where the word came from.
  • There is a separate royal vocabulary, a set of words used only when speaking about the monarchy.
What it opens

Five tones, its own looping script, and no spaces between words. The menu alone is worth it; the tones teach your ear things it did not know it could do. Street food ordered in Thai tastes different because it is different: the secret menu, the local price and the cook's smile are all language-gated.

Words with no translation

เกรงใจ

greng-JAI

Reluctance to trouble someone, even when they offered.

Kreng jai is the Thai reluctance to impose: you are thirsty and say nothing, because asking would burden your host. A whole social choreography built on sparing other people discomfort.

All the untranslatable words →

Thai in the archive, next to the other sixty-six →