Learn Ahom
Note: I believe this lesson is a bit too detailed, if you want to learn the script fast then just see the tables, skip anything you don't understand and one thing I really recommend doing is just skip this page entirely and go take the quiz even if you don't know the script. Make mistakes, learn from your mistakes and then return to this page when you are confused about something.
That will save a lot of your time hopefully. But if you are a Dai Ahom enthusiast with lot of free time then read the whole thing
Consonants
There are 20 consonants in Dai Ahom language called to māe līk tái or the “main body of Tai Alphabet,” as the below table lists out in detail.
| Consonant | Example | |
|---|---|---|
 |
k (g) | gài (kj!) - chicken |
|
x (x) | xài (xj!) - egg |
|
[ (ng) | ngú ([U#) - snake |
|
n (n) | nûk (nukq$) - bird |
|
t (t) | tào (tw!) - tortoise |
|
p (p) | pa (pa) - fish |
|
f (ph) | phērng (fE[q@) - bee |
|
B (b) | bāan (B,nq@) - village |
|
b (w) | wán (bnq#) - sun |
|
m (m) | ma (ma) - dog |
|
y (y) | yúng (yu[q#) - mosquito |
|
c (ts) | tsâang (c,[q$) - elephant |
|
v (th) | thai (vj) - plough |
|
r (r) | rérn (rEnq#) - house |
|
l (l) | líng (li[q#) - monkey |
|
s (s) | saeng (sV[q) - diamond |
|
N (ny) | nyā (Na@) - grass |
|
h (h) | hàan (h,nq!) - goose |
|
A (a) | òi (Aoj!) - sugarcane |
|
d (d) | doi (doj) - hill |
If you still haven't memorized them, then you can take short quiz. Since this is also
an academic article here is a classification of the consonants based on their places of articulation
A lot of Tai people confuse between k and kha, hence distinction is made by written them as 'g' and 'x', infact
[g] and [k] are the same sounds in Tai language which is why you must have heard Tai people pronouncing 'dog' as 'dok'.
But anyways the focus here shouldn't be on romanization but learning the script itself. Cause once you learn script
you can adapt to any romanization thrown at you. Also an important thing to note is that of the 20 consonants
only eight consonants can be in the ending position namely - k, ng, n, t, p, w, m, ny. Any other consonant in ending should
be read as approximate of these eight finals. For eg., làed should be read as làet, káb should be read as káp ,
râx as râk and so on.. Just consider this as fancy writing and move on.
Vowels
There are 11 “pure vowels” in Ahom called māe káp ngāo or literally meaning “body-meet-foundation”
as consonants are the main body of Tai Alphabet while Vowels are the foundation that only make sense when they meet with the body.
We here use the Ahom consonant (māe) ‘𑜒’ to read them all
| Vowel | Example | |
|---|---|---|
|
A (a) | râk (rkq$) - love |
|
Aa (aa) | ga (ka) - crow |
|
Ai (i) | mīt (mitq@) - knife |
|
AI (ii) | dii (dI) - good |
|
Au (u) | qún (kunq#) - person |
|
AU (uu) | muu (mU) - pig |
|
eA (e) | mé (em#) - wife |
|
eA] (ae) | māe (em]@) - mother |
|
AUw (o) | ho (hUw) - head |
|
eAa (aw) | haw (eha) - palace |
|
AEw (er) | ser (sEw) - tiger |
The er (𑜒𑜢𑜤𑜈𑜫) sound is same as ‘er’ in cheater with r-silent, we call it the schwa /ǝ/ sound.
If you know Hindi language you might already be familiar with this vowel.
Next comes the ‘o’ vs ‘aw’, the former o (𑜒𑜥𑜈𑜫) sound is more like the Hindi
o (or ‘o’ as in go, so, etc) while the aw (𑜒𑜦𑜡) sound is more like the Assamese o
(‘aw’ as in saw, awesome, etc). It is also the same ‘aw’ in Aizawl.
We can also write ‘aw’ as ‘or’ as some Thai people actually do (khorp, norng, etc)
Finally the most complex still is the ‘e’ vs ‘ae’ vowel which might sound the same to you but are different.
‘e’ is the sound of e as in bed while ‘ae’ is the sound of a as in ham. But in actual
spoken language we often just say ‘ae’ as ‘ie’ (like lieng, sieng, etc)
Here is the Dai Ahom Vowel Trapezium for linguistics-nerds
Now comes the very important part. As you can see all vowels use different graphemes when in final and
medial position for example gin (𑜀𑜢𑜃𑜫) and di (𑜓𑜣) both use different
graphemes for ‘i’. Now one is short ‘i’ (medial) and one is long ‘ii’ (final) and long vowels cannot be in
medial position except for ‘aa’ where we use a different vowel to represent it along with ‘e’, ‘ae’, ‘o’, ‘aw’, and ‘er.’
The following table will make it clear
