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Low class consonant · letter 32 of 44

ภ pho samphao

ภ (pho samphao) is a low-class consonant named after สำเภา, “junk”. At the start of a syllable it is /pʰ/, written ph in RTGS; at the end of one it is /p̚/ (p).

See it in 61 fontsAll 44 consonants
ภภ สำเภาpho samphao · junk (sailing ship)
Thai name
ภ สำเภา · pho samphao
Name word
สำเภา, junk (sailing ship)
Class
Low class
At the start of a syllable
/pʰ/ · RTGS ph
At the end of a syllable
/p̚/ · RTGS p
Unicode
U+0E20 · THAI CHARACTER PHO SAMPHAO
In HTML
ภ or ภ
Kedmanee key
4
Pattachote key
Shift + V

How it sounds

Another low-class ph, with the sound of พ. It is found mostly in words that came into Thai from Pali and Sanskrit.

2 other letters have the same sound at the start of a syllable: ผ pho phueng (high), พ pho phan (low).

Easy to mistake for ถ tho thung and ก ko kai: compare them at a large size in the grid below.

Class and tone

With no mark, a low-class letter gives the mid tone in a live syllable; in a dead one the tone is high when the vowel is short and falling when it is long. Mai ek gives falling and mai tho high.

Syllables with ภ and the vowel า
SpellingSyllableTone
No mark, live syllable (long vowel)ภาMid
No mark, dead syllable, short vowelภะHigh
No mark, dead syllable, long vowelภากFalling
Mai ekภ่าFalling
Mai thoภ้าHigh
Mai tri–not used with this class
Mai chattawa–not used with this class

The syllables show the rule, not words to learn. The tone rules explain live and dead syllables.

Words with ภ

ThaiRTGSMeaning
ภาษาphasalanguage
ภาพphappicture
ภูเขาphukhaomountain
ภาคphakregion; part
ลาภlapfortune, windfall

RTGS shows neither tone nor vowel length; type a word into the font tester to see it in every font.

ภ in every font

The letter in each of the 61 families you can download here, in its regular style. Looped faces start the stroke from a small circle; loopless ones leave it out. Each card opens the family’s page.