ot to be confused with Thai languages or Central Tai languages.
Thai
Siamese
ภาษาไทย phasa thai
Pronunciation [pʰāːsǎː tʰāj]
Native to Thailand
Ethnicity Central Thai and Thai Chinese
Native speakers
20 million (2000)[1]
40 million L2 speakers with Lanna, Isan, Southern Thai or Northern Khmer (2001)[1]
Language family
Tai–Kadai
Tai
Southwestern (Thai)
Chiang Saen
Thai
Writing system
Thai script
Thai Braille
Official status
Official language in
Thailand
Regulated by Royal Society of Thailand
Language codes
ISO 639-1 th
ISO 639-2 tha
ISO 639-3 tha
Glottolog thai1261[2]
Linguasphere 47-AAA-b
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Thai,[3] or more precisely Siamese[4] or Central Thai,[5] is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people and the vast majority of Thai Chinese. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Over half of the words in Thai are borrowed from Pali, Sanskrit and Old Khmer. It is a tonal and analytic language. Thai also has a complex orthography and relational markers.[citation needed] Spoken Thai is mutually intelligible with Lao; the two languages are written with slightly different scripts, but linguistically similar.[6]
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