General
Thai( 泰国语) is spoken by over 85 percent of the population of Thailand, or about 50 million people. It is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages, which means that it is distantly related to Chinese. It is closer, however, to Lao, spoken in Laos, and to the Shan language of northern Burma. Like Chinese, Thai is a tonal language, meaning that different tones, or intonations, distinguish words that would otherwise be homonyms.china3view
The origin of the Thai alphabet is obscure, but it is believed to have had its origin in southern India. It consists of forty-four consonants and thirty-two vowels, the latter consisting not of an individual letter, but of a mark written above, below, before, or after the consonant with which it is pronounced. Of the five tones, four are indicated by signs over the consonants, the absence of a sign indicating that the fifth tone is to be used. Words are not separated from each other and the letters generally flow uninterruptedly until the idea changes.
Thai is spoken/used in the following countries: Thailand, United States of America, Vietnam.
Description above is from: http://www.worldlanguage.com/Languages/Thai.htm
External Links:
All links below are from http://www.yorku.ca/tsa/Links.htm
Thai Students' Association of The University of Toronto.
http://individual.utoronto.ca/boyd/tsa.htm
Schulich School of Business
http://www.schulich.yorku.ca/ssb-extra/ssb.nsf?open
York University Homepage
http://www.yorku.ca/yorkweb/index.htm
York University English Language Institute
http://yueli.yorku.ca/
CEC Thailand Study Canada
http://www.studycanada.ca/thailand/index.htm
Royal Thai Embassy, Ottawa.
http://www.magma.ca/~thaiott/mainpage.htm
The official City of Toronto Website
http://www.city.toronto.on.ca/
Thai Society of Ontario
http://www.thaiontario.com/
TANTHAI
http://www.tanthai.com/index.shtml
Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration of Chulalongkorn University
http://www.sasin.edu/
Office of the Civil Service Commission (OCSC)
http://www.ocsc.go.th/
Tourism Authority of Thailand
http://www.tourismthailand.org/
Pantip.com Thai Web Board
http://www.pantip.com/
Canada International, Government of Canada
http://canadainternational.gc.ca/Going_To_Canada-en.asp
TV4all.com
http://tv4all.com/portal.htm
Thai Student @ Vancouver Board
http://www.pantown.com/board.php?id=10993&name=board1
