The TaiTham script, also known as Lanna script or Tua Mueang, is a writing system used for Northern Thai, Tai Lü, and Khün, all three belonging to the group of Southwestern Tai languages. In addition, the Lanna script is used for Lao Tham and other dialect variants in Buddhistpalm-leaf manuscripts and notebooks. The script is also known as Tham or Yuan script. The Northern Thai language is a close relative of Thai. It is spoken by nearly 6 million people in Northern Thailand and several thousand in Laos of whom few are literate in Lanna script. The script is still read by older monks. Northern Thai has six linguistic tones and Thai only five, making transcription into the Thai alphabet problematic. There is some resurgent interest in the script among younger people, but an added complication is that the modern spoken form, called Kammuang, differs in pronunciation from the older form. There are 670,000 speakers of Tai Lü, some of those born before 1950 are literate in Tham, also known as Old Tai Lue. The script has also continued to be taught in the monasteries. The New Tai Lue script is derived from Tham. There are 120,000 speakers of Khün for which Lanna is the only script.
Consonants
Consonants are divided into two groups: main consonants and added consonants. There are 33 main consonants, and there are 15 added consonants. The main consonants are those from Pali. The main consonant group is further divided into two groups: categorized and uncategorized consonants. There are 25 categorized consonants, and there are 8 uncategorized consonants. The added consonant group consists of consonants that have been added to write Tai sounds that do not occur in Pali.
lu᷇e /lɯ᷇ʔ/
lūe /lɯ̄ː/
Vowels
Vowels are written at various locations around their consonant, like Thai. There are special letters for initial vowels, and many vowel combinations.
Pali vowels
Tonal markers
Tai Tham and Other Scripts
Consonants in Lanna have two sets of glyphs: the base form and the subjoined form. The sakot is used to trigger the subjoined forms.
Categorized letters
Uncategorized letters
Numerals
Lanna has two sets of numerals. The first set, Lek Nai Tam, is reserved for liturgical purposes. The other set, Lek Hora, is used in everyday life.
Tai Tham script was added to the Unicode Standard in October, 2009 with the release of version 5.2.
Block
The Unicode block for Tai Tham is U+1A20-U+1AAF:
Fonts
There are currently a few fonts that support this range. Thai people are used to typing the Thai script by placing a front vowel before a consonant; this might cause incorrect input method for Tai Tham script because the consonant must be always typed before the associated vowel, regardless of the relative written position of the vowel, similar to typing the Khmer, Myanmar or Tamil script.
