Tai Tham Letter Ba

ᨷ is Tai Tham’s ba consonant letter.

Read it as part of a syllable, not as a standalone word: the language and the surrounding vowel or marks supply the rest. If a message contains only ᨷ, the letter alone cannot tell you which word was intended.

The earliest surviving Tai Tham records come from Buddhist manuscript settings, including Pali copied on palm leaves and mulberry paper. A bilingual gold-folio inscription dated 1376 is the earliest dated Tham document in the record. By the 15th century, the script had been adapted for local languages, probably in Chiang Mai; the oldest dated manuscript listed is a Pali copy from Wat Lai Hin dated 1471.

How did Tai Tham use change by place?

Its use varied with the place and the text.

In Laos, Tham was mainly reserved for religious writing. Across the wider Tai Tham tradition, manuscripts also held chronicles, legal, astrological, medical, and poetic works. The same letter could appear in liturgical Pali or in a local-language text.

Tai Tham strongly resembles the Mon script used at Haripuñjaya in the 13th century. New Tai Lue is a simplified form of Tai Tham. In Thailand, Lanna and Tua Mueang are regional names for the script.

How do I type ᨷ in Tai Tham?

Build the syllable by adding the signs its spelling needs.

Tai Tham consonants carry a built-in a vowel; a dependent vowel sign replaces it. For a consonant cluster, type the sakot mark ᩠ before the next consonant to make that consonant subjoined, written below or in a joined form. Subjoining does not automatically remove the first consonant’s built-in vowel, so the order matters.

Choose a Tai Tham input method and a font with complex-text shaping. Without them, vowel signs or subjoined consonants may be positioned incorrectly.