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The International Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand

Volume XVI-2024 (Special Issue)

also further assumed that the form of writing in Roman letters could be transliterated back into

Thai and could still preserve the pronunciation of the original Thai letters, but this was found
to be impossible.

However, this system was understood only among Thais who already knew such Thai words
well. Therefore, it was not widely used. Those who wanted to transliterate Thai into Roman letters

had to use other systems. There is one system that still has a lot of influence on transliterating
Thai into Roman letters today. It is the system of King Rama VI, which relied on the principle of
transliteration according to the Pali-Sanskrit language. Initially, this system was used for surnames

granted by King Rama VI, for example:

Thai Roman
ก k

ข kh

ค g

Examples of the system of King Rama VI

In 1931, the Ministry of Education considered it would be very useful if a standardized
principle of transliteration of Thai into Roman script could be found. Therefore, a committee

was appointed to address this matter and the conclusion was that there should be a general
system and a special system.

The general system is based on pronunciation while the special system is based on writing.
The general system is used when pronunciation is more important than writing. The special

system, on the contrary, is used to display the form of writing in detail. The general system does not
have tonal marks or the separation of short and long vowels. These marks are used only in

the special system.
Later, in 1934, this transliteration work was transferred from the Ministry of Education to
the Royal Society. The Royal Society and L’ École française d’Extrême-Orient (the French

Institute of the End of the East) worked together on the general system and the special system.
L’ École française d’Extrême-Orient agreed in principle, but proposed that a distinction should

be made between vowels with a final consonant and those without so that the difference could
be more clearly visible,

The Royal Society slightly modified the system and published the system in the Royal
Gazette on March 26, 1939, as in the following examples:

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