The story of the obsolete
letters in the Thai alphabet - November
8, 2001
Two Thai letters in the Thai alphabet are obsolete. How did that
happen? In the late 1800s, Thailand was looking to create the first
Thai typewriters. It was found that the Thai alphabet had too many
characters to fit on a standard keyboard layout. Khor khoat
and khor koh, the most rarely used, were declared obsolete
and not put on the typewriter. The modified Smith Premier typewriter
was presented to King Rama V sometime in 1892. The whole story is
on the Origins
of the Thai Typewriter website (offsite). There is also a section
on Antique phonographs
and gramophones in Thailand (offsite). We here at 2Bangkok.com
live for this kind of stuff! Thanks to Don Entz for pointing out
this excellent site.
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