The Thai language contains many vocabulary words which come from Sanskrit. But Thai is not a language that evolved from Sanskrit. Thai and Sanskrit belong to entirely different language families: Sanskrit is an Indo-European language, whereas Thai belongs to the Kra–Dai language family.
The Sanskrit words in the Thai language are loanwords. These Sanskrit words were incorporated into the Thai language.
In a way, the connection between Thai and Sanskrit resembles the relationship between English and Latin. The English language did not evolve from Latin, but many English vocabulary words have Latin roots.
Here is a list of Thai words which come from Sanskrit. Note that in some cases, some of the Thai words originating from Sanskrit may be somewhat literary, and there may exist synonyms that are more commonly used.
| English | Thai | Sanskrit |
|---|---|---|
| happiness | สุขี (sukhi) | सुख (sukha) |
| snow | หิมะ (hima) | हिम (hima) |
| life | ชีวิต (chīwit) | जीवित (jīvita) |
| man | บุรุษ (burus) | पुरुष (puruṣa) |
| king | ราชัน (rāchan) | राजन् (rājan) |
| compassion | กรุณา (garunā) | करुणा (karuṇā) |
| angry | โกรธ (korth) | क्रोध (krodha) |
| sensuality | ราคะ (rākha) | राग (rāga) |
| animal | สัตว์ (satw) | सत्त्व (sattva) |
| victory | ชัย (chay) | जय (jaya) |
| cloud | เมฆ (mekh) | मेघ (megha) |
| affection | เสน่หา (senha) | स्नेह (sneha) |
| woman | นารี (nārī) | नारी (nārī) |
| cause | เหตุ (hetu) | हेतु (hetu) |
| envy | ริษยา (risyā) | ईर्ष्या (īrṣyā) |
| greed | โลภ (loph) | लोभ (lobha) |
| sin | บาป (bāp) | पाप (pāpa) |
| noble | อารยะ (āraya) | आर्य (ārya) |
| lion | สิงห์ (singh) | सिंह (simha) |
| metal | โลหะ (loha) | लोह (loha) |
| flavor | รส (rs) | रस (rasa) |
| all | สรรพ (sarph) | सर्व (sarva) |
| logic | ตรรกะ (trrka) | तर्क (tarka) |
| feeling | เวทนา (wethanā) | वेदना (vedanā) |
| trust | ศรัทธา (sraththā) | श्रद्धा (śraddhā) |
| junction | สนธิ (snthi) | सन्धि (sandhi) |
| chief | ประมุข (pramukh) | प्रमुख (pramukha) |
| worship | บูชา (būchā) | पूजा (pūjā) |
| country | ประเทศ (prathes) | प्रदेश (pradeśa) |
It is not uncommon for Sanskrit vocabulary words to lose a final short vowel when they are assimilated into the Thai language, a phenomenon called truncation.
For more extensive vocabulary lists, refer to these lists of the thousand most common words in Thai and Sanskrit.
Some of the Sanskrit words which have entered the Thai language have had their meaning changed a bit.
The spread of Buddhism to Thailand starting in the 3rd century BCE brought vocabulary words from Sanskrit and Pali into the Thai language. Pali is a language that is closely related to Sanskrit, and it is the language in which the Theravāda Buddhist scriptures are written.
Some of the Thai vocabulary words which come from Sanskrit are words that went from Sanskrit to the Pali language and then to the Thai language.
Sanskrit and Thai are both languages that distinguish between short and long vowels.
Thai is a tonal language (with 5 different tones), whereas Sanskrit is not a tonal language.
The word order in Thai is subject-verb-object (SOV), whereas in Sanskrit the word order is fairly flexible with subject-object-verb (SOV) being the most common.
In Sanskrit, each noun has one of three possible grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter). Thai nouns don't have grammatical genders.
In Sanskrit, nouns are declined according to 8 grammatical cases, whereas the Thai language does not use noun declensions.
The Thai script and the Devanagari script (which is commonly used for Sanskrit) are not really alphabets but rather they are syllabic alphabets or what linguists call “abugida”. In such a writing system the main characters are consonants, and vowels are added as extra symbols, often as diacritics.