ISO INTERNATIONAL STANDARD 11940 First edition 1998-06-01 Information and documentation - Transliteration of Thai InformationetdocumentationTranslitterationduthai ISO Reference number ISO 11940:1998(E) ISO11940:1998(E) Foreword ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide preparing International Standards is normally carried out through Iso technicalcommittees.Eachmemberbodyinterestedinasubjectforwhich a technical committee has been established has the right to be represented onthat committee.Internationalorganizations,governmental andnon- governmental, in liaison with isO, also take part in the work. sO collaborates closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (lEC)onallmattersofelectrotechnicalstandardization. Draft International Standards adopted by the technical committees are circulated to the member bodies for voting. Publication as an International Standard requires approval by at least 75 % of the member bodies casting a vote. International Standard ISO 11940 was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 46, Information and documentation, Subcommittee SC 2, Conver- sion of written languages Annex A forms an integral part of this International Standard. Annexes B andCareforinformationonly ISO 1998 All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, no part of this publication may be reproduced microfilm, without permission in writing from the publisher. International Organization for Standardization Case postale 56:CH-1211Geneve20.Switzerland Internet [email protected] X.400 C=ch; a=40Onet; p=iso; o=isocs; S=central Printed in Switzerland ii ISO 11940:1998(E) INTERNATIONALSTANDARD ISO Information and documentation - Transliteration of Thai 1 Scope This International Standard establishes a system for the transliterationl) of Thai characters into Roman characters. One set of rules is provided for a completely reversible stringent conversion where principles of transliteration are applied without exception. This Romanized transliteration system is a means of converting the Thai writing system into a Roman alphabet writing system. Since there are fewer Roman characters than Thai characters, diacritical marks, punctuation marks, and a combination of two Romancharacters,oradigraph,areneededtorepresentoneThaicharacter.Theaimof thissystemistoprovideameansof internationalcommunicationofwrittenmessagesinaformwhichpermitstheautomatictransmissionorreconstitutionofthese by men or machines. This system of conversion is intended to provide complete and unambiguous reversibility. It is possible that the results obtained from this system will not provide for correct pronunciation of the original Thai text. However, they will serve as a means of finding the Thai graphisms automatically and thus to allow anyone with a knowledge of Thai to pronounce the Thai text correctly. An attempt to transpose a preposed vowel after an initial consonant may comfort those who areusedtotheRomanwritingsystemwhereavowelalwaysfollowsaconsonanttoformasyllable,unlessitisasyllable without an initial. It is best to leave the preposed vowel in the Thai transliteration system where it is, because a transliteration system is not a transcription system. Capital letters are reserved for writing the initial in proper nouns. It is unwise to make use of capital letters in the transliterationsystemforcertaincharacters,otherwisecommonnounsandpropernounscannotbedistinguishedfromone another. This system is based on phonetic logic in the selection of transliterated representations, as much as possible, in order to lessen theburdenonthosewhowishtolearnthesystem. 2 Normative reference The following standard contains provisions which, through reference in this text, constitute provisions of this International Standard.Atthetimeofpublication,theeditionindicatedwasvalid.Allstandardsaresubjecttorevision,andpartiesto agreements based on this International Standard are encouraged to investigate the possibility of applying the most recent edition of t