Thai alphabet (ตัวอักษรไทย)

Origin

The Thai alphabet was probably derived from, or at least influenced by, the Old Khmer alphabet. According to tradition it was created in 1283 by King Ramkhamhaeng (พ่อขุนรามคำแหงมหาราช).

Notable features

This is a syllabic alphabet consisting of 44 basic consonants, each with an inherent vowel: [o] in medial position and [a] in final position. The [a] is usually found in words of Sanskrit, Pali or Khmer origin while the [o] is found native Thai words. The 18 other vowels and 6 diphthongs are indicated using diacritics which appear in front of, above, below of after the consonants they modify.
8 of the letters are used only for writing words of Pali and Sanskrit origin.
For some consonants there are multiple letters. Originally they represented separate sounds, but over the years the distinction between those sounds was lost and the letters were used instead to indicate tones.
Thai is a tonal language with 5 tones. The tone of a syllable is determined by a combination of the class of consonant, the type of syllable (open or closed), the tone marker and the length of the vowel.
There are no spaces between words, instead spaces in a Thai text indicate the end of a clause or sentence.

Used to write

Thai (ภาษาไทย), a Tai-Kadai language spoken by about 65 million people mainly in Thailand (ประเทศไทย), and also in the Midway Islands, Singapore, the UAE and the USA
Thai is closely related to Lao, and northern dialects of Thai are more or less mutually intelligible with Lao, particularly the Lao spoken in northern Thailand. Thai vocabulary includes many words from Pali, Sanskrit and Old Khmer.
The Thai alphabet can also be used to write Sanskrit, Pali and a number of related languages.