Why the alphabet starts with ก
The Thai alphabet keeps the order of the Indian scripts it descends from, which arranged consonants by where the tongue makes them: from the back of the mouth to the lips, then the sonorants, the hissing sounds and h. The first group is made at the back, the velars: ก ข ฃ ค ฅ ฆ ง. ก, the plain k, comes first, just as ka opens the consonants of Sanskrit. Read the consonants in order and you can still see the pattern: velars, then palatals from จ, retroflex letters from ฎ, dentals from ด, labials from บ, and the rest from ย to ฮ.
Thai children learn the order with the name words and a rhyme that begins ก ไก่ ข ไข่ ในเล้า: “ko kai, kho khai in the coop”. ไก่ kài, the chicken, is one of the first Thai words most people learn, so the letter and its name stick together.
How ก is written
Most Thai letters start at a small loop, the head. ก is one of only two that have none (the other is ธ), so it starts at the end of its stroke instead. Begin at the foot of the left side, go up, turn over the top in a smooth arch, and come down the right side to the line. In the looped style taught in schools there is a small notch at the top left where the stroke turns, the nearest thing ก has to a head.
Keep the two sides the same height and the top rounded. Add a loop at the bottom of the left side and you have ถ or ภ, so the plainness of ก is what identifies it. Compare it in a looped face and a loopless one on its letter page, which shows ก in every font in the collection.
How ก sounds
ก is an unaspirated k. In English, a k at the start of a word comes with a puff of air (“kit”), but after s it does not (“skit”). Thai keeps those apart: ก is the k of “skit”, and the k with the puff is written ข or ค.
- Try the paper test. Hold a strip of paper in front of your lips. Say “kit”: the paper moves. Now say กา, aiming for the k of “skit”: it should barely move.
- It is not a g. Many English speakers hear ก as a g, and it is closer to g than to the English k. But a Thai ear hears no voicing in it; if you voice it, you are saying something Thai does not have.
- At the end of a word ก is an unreleased k: the back of the tongue closes and the sound stops there, without the little release English adds. นก nók (bird) ends in a closed throat, not a click.
ก and the tones
ก is a mid-class consonant, which makes it the easiest kind of letter for tones. With no tone mark a syllable is mid if it is live and low if it is dead, and it can take all four tone marks: ไก่ kài has mai ek and a low tone, ก้าว kâao has mai tho and a falling tone, ก๋วย kǔai has mai chattawa and a rising tone. The tone rules explain live and dead syllables.
First words with ก
| Thai | Said | RTGS | Meaning | Tone |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| กา | kaa | ka | crow; kettle | mid |
| กิน | kin | kin | to eat | mid |
| ไกล | klai | klai | far | mid |
| กาแฟ | kaa-fae | kafae | coffee | mid, mid |
| กับ | kàp | kap | with; and | low |
| ไก่ | kài | kai | chicken | low |
| เก่ง | kèng | keng | good at, clever | low |
| ก้าว | kâao | kao | a step; to step | falling |
| ก๋วยเตี๋ยว | kǔai-tǐao | kuaitiao | noodle soup | rising, rising |
The “said” column marks tone and length as learner books do: a doubled vowel is long, and accents show the tone (à low, â falling, á high, ǎ rising, no mark for mid). Look at the RTGS column to see why the official romanisation is no help with pronunciation: กา and ก่า would both be ka, ไก่ and ไกล nearly the same.
Where to go next
ก belongs to the mid class, the nine letters most learners take on first. Learn them with the long vowel า and you can read your first real words in a day. The alphabet page has all 44 consonants, and on a Thai keyboard ก is the D key, so the first word you type will probably be กา.