A comparative table of Sukhothai-era scripts

Following up on last week's post, in which I took a cursory look at the script inscribed on the Ramkhamhaeng stele of Sukhothai, today I've got another couple charts to share.

These charts compare different scrips during the Sukhothai period. Naturally, different inscriptions had different variations.

In the charts below, the Ramkhamhaeng inscription is the leftmost example. I am not sure exactly which inscriptions the other two come from.

First, the consonants:

[Click on a chart for a larger version]

And the vowels:

Take note of the little plus sign (+), indicating where the consonant goes in relation to the vowel. As I mentioned before, one reason the authenticity of the Ramkhamhaeng inscription was questioned is that the script puts all vowels on a single line with the consonants, which was unheard of in the region at the time.

As you can see on this chart, other inscriptions of the Sukhothai era use the expected superscript and subscript vowels, as was and is the norm in all of Southeast Asia's Indic-derived scripts (Mon, Burmese, Khmer, Lao, Thai, etc).

In the text of the Ramkhamhaeng inscription, it states that there was no Thai writing before it. If this is true, and if modern script is descended from it, we would expect to see other inscriptions using this same vowel layout, and yet we don't.

[Tables are from Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre's inscription website, scanned from an unidentified book. Maybe the Fine Arts Department's จารึกในประเทศไทย series.]

A look at the Ramkhamhaeng script

Old Tai scripts are fascinating. The script traditionally considered to be the first Thai script, adapted from Khmer, is known as Ramkhamhaeng script, because it is found on the stone inscription of King Ramkhamhaeng (พ่อขุนรามคำแหง) of Sukhothai.

[Click on an image for a larger version]

A photograph of the first several characters of the inscription.

A tracing of the same characters.

A handwritten rendering in modern script, but with original ordering.

And finally, the same phrase in modern script and spelling.

This section translates as 'My father's name is Sri Indraditya', the opening words of line 1, face 1 of the Ramkhamhaeng stele. If you say this to virtually any Thai person, they can continue where you left off: แม่กูชื่อนางเสือง 'My mother's name is Nang Sueang' (and probably much further).

Perhaps the most notable aspect of Ramkhamhaeng script, which also turn out to be a feature that brought its authenticity into question, is that all vowels are on the same line as consonants. It is not disputed that Thai script is adapted from Khmer, but in all of the common regional scripts of that time (13th Century A.D.), superscript and subscript vowels were the norm.

Those who believe the stone is authentic cite this as an example of Ramkhamhaeng's genius. Those on the other side of the issue cite it as an indicator of possible European influence, and thus the stone is likely to be a 19th Century forgery. (This is but one of a number of issues that critics have with the stele.)

The Ramkhamhaeng stele includes a date in the text, 1835 B.E., corresponding to 1292 A.D. Whether this inscription is authentic or not, other inscriptions also date to roughly this period, meaning Thai writing has been around for around 700 years.

Here are a couple of tables showing all the characters of the Ramkhamhaeng script, with the modern Thai equivalent given for reference.

 Charts courtesy of SAC, but I'm not sure exactly which book 

they scanned them from (similar charts exist in many).

Some characters that don't appear in the text were not invented yet, such as ฮ. นกฮูก.

Notice that there were only two tone marks in this script, shaped like modern ไม้เอก and ไม้จัตวา. Most vowels are remarkably similar to modern Thai, even the complex ones.

Differences to take note of:

• The equivalents of modern เ-ือ and เีย have an extra อ and ย, respectively.
  
• No อ is necessary for the vowel -ื in an open vowel. So ชื่อ was written ชื่ (this can be seen until very recently, in fact).
• Modern -ัว is written -วว. There was no -ั (ไม้หันอากาศ) at this time, so this fits in with the larger pattern of simply reduplicating a consonant to indicate the short /a/ vowel followed by that consonant. So -งง would equal -ัง (e.g. Ramkhamhaeng ญงง = modern ยัง). Thus, -วว = -ัว. This may tell us something about the pronunciation of this vowel at that time, too, but that's just conjecture on my part.