Royal Thai General System of Transcription

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Royal Thai General System of Transcription

The Royal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGS) is the official system for rendering Thai language

Thai language

Thai , is the national language and official language language of Thailand and the mother tongue of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group....
words in the Latin alphabet

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
, published by The Royal Institute of Thailand

The Royal Institute of Thailand

The Royal Institute of Thailand or RIT is a Thailand Government agency with a threefold mission:#To undertake and encourage research in every branch of knowledge beneficial to the nation and the people....
. It is used in road signs and government publications, and is the closest thing to a standard of transcription

Transcription (linguistics)

Transcription is the conversion into written, typewritten or printed form, of a spoken language source, such as the proceedings of a court hearing....
for Thai, though its use by even the government is inconsistent.

inent features of the Royal Thai General System include:

Royal Thai General System has been criticized as inadequate for learners of Thai, particularly because of the following shortcomings:

Transcription table
For consonants, the transcription is different depending on the location in the syllable.

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Encyclopedia

The Royal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGS) is the official system for rendering Thai language

Thai language

Thai , is the national language and official language language of Thailand and the mother tongue of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group....
words in the Latin alphabet

Latin alphabet

The Royal Institute of Thailand

Transcription (linguistics)

Features

Prominent features of the Royal Thai General System include:

uses only unmodified letters from the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
; no diacritic
Diacritic

A diacritic is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. The term derives from the Greek language d?a???t???? ....
s
spells all vowel
Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis....
s and diphthong
Diphthong

In phonetics, a diphthong, or , is a contour vowel?that is, a unitary vowel that changes vowel quality during its pronunciation, or "glides", with a glissando of the tongue from one articulation to another, as in the English words eye, boy, and cow. This contrasts with "pure" vowels, or monophthongs, where the tongue is held s...
s using only vowel letters: a, e, i, o, u

simple letters "a", "e", "i", "o", "u" are simple vowels, having the same value as in the International Phonetic Alphabet
International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic....
, IPA
combinations with "e" second as "ae", "oe", "ue", are simple vowels, similar to respective ligatures in IPA
combinations with trailing "a", "i", "o" (or several) are diphthongs, indicated by [a, j, w] respectively in IPA

uses consonant
Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx....
s as in IPA, except:

combinations with "h" as "ph", "th", "kh" are used for aspirated
Aspiration (phonetics)

In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of Earth's atmosphere that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents....
p, t, k, similar to IPA , to distinguish them from the separate unaspirated "p", "t", "k"
uses "ng" for engma as in English, IPA
uses "ch" for IPA and
uses "y" for IPA
note that transcription of consonants in final position is according to pronunciation, not spelling

Criticism

The Royal Thai General System has been criticized as inadequate for learners of Thai, particularly because of the following shortcomings:

it does not record tone
Tone (linguistics)

Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning?that is, to distinguish or inflection words. All languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called intonation , but not all languages use tones to distingu...
s
it does not differentiate between short and long vowels
Vowel length

In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one such as in Australian English....
notation "ch" does not differentiate between IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic....
and IPA (see table below)
notation "o" does not differentiate between IPA and IPA (see table below)

	Letter 1				Letter 2
RTGS	Thai	IPA	Description	English	Thai	IPA	Description	English
ch	?		alveo-palatal affricate	as "ty" in "let you"	?, ?, ?		aspirated alveo- palatal affricate	as "ch" in "check"
o	?–?, –		close-mid back short rounded	like "oa" in "boat"	?–??		open-mid back short rounded	like "aw" in "raw", but shorter
	?–		close-mid back long rounded	like "oa" in "moan"	–?		open-mid back long rounded	like "aw" in "raw"

Transcription table

For consonants, the transcription is different depending on the location in the syllable. In the section on vowels a dash ("–") indicates the relative position of the initial consonant belonging to the vowel.

Consonants

Vowels

Letter	Initial position	Final position
?	k	k
?	kh	k
?	kh	k
?	kh	k
?	kh	k
?	kh	k
?	ng	ng
?	ch	t
?	ch	-
?	ch	t
?	s	t
?	ch	-
?	y	n
?	d	t
?	t	t
?	th	t
?	th	t
?	th	t
?	n	n
?	d	t
?	t	t
?	th	t
?	th	t
?	th	t
?	n	n
?	b	p
?	p	p
?	ph	-
?	f	-
?	ph	p
?	f	p
?	ph	p
?	m	m
?	y	-
?	r	n
?	rue, ri, roe	-
??	rue	-
?	l	n
?	lue	-
??	lue	-
?	w	-
?	s	t
?	s	t
?	s	t
?	h	-
?	l	n
?	h	-

Letter	Romanisation
–?, –?, ?? (with final), –?	a
?? (without final)	an
–?	am
–?, –?	i
–?, –?	ue
–?, –?	u
?–?, ?–?, ?–	e
?–?, ?–	ae
?–?, –, ?–, ?–??, –?	o
?–??, ?–?, ?–?	oe
?–???, ?–??	ia
?–???, ?–??	uea
–???, –??, –?–	ua
?–, ?–, –??, ?–?, –??	ai
?–?, –??	ao
–??	ui
?–?, –??	oi
?–?	oei
?–???	ueai
–??	uai
–??	io
?–??, ?–?	eo
?–??, ?–?	aeo
?–???	iao

External links

(Microsoft Word document)
ALA-LC:

Royal Thai General System of Transcription

Features

Criticism

Transcription table

See also

External links