ISO 20674-1:2019

INTERNATIONAL ISO
STANDARD 20674-1
First edition
2019-10
Information and documentation —
Transliteration of scripts in use in
Thailand —
Part 1:
Transliteration of Akson-Thai-Noi
Information et documentation — Translittération des scripts utilisés
en Thaïlande —
Partie 1: Translittération du Akson-Thaï-Noï
Reference number
©
ISO 2019
© ISO 2019
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ii © ISO 2019 – All rights reserved

Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 1
4 General principles of conversion of writing systems . 2
5 Principles of conversion for alphabetical writing systems . 3
6 Akson-Thai-Noi orthographic rules and features . 4
6.1 General . 4
6.2 Consonants . 4
6.3 Vowels and special markers . 6
6.4 Akson-Thai-Noi list of digits . 7
6.5 Special symbols . 7
6.5.1 General. 7
6.5.2 Combining diacritical markers . 7
6.5.3 Combining characters . . 7
7 Arrangement of character sequence . 7
8 Typing sequence . 8
9 Romanization table . 9
Annex A (informative) Akson-Thai-Noi script .13
Bibliography .14
Foreword
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A list of all parts in the ISO 20674 series can be found on the ISO website.
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iv © ISO 2019 – All rights reserved

Introduction
The Akson-Thai-Noi characters of this document have been developed as modern representations
of scripts found in inscriptions and palm leaf religious texts which have been adapted by the Royal
1)
Institute of Thailand .
The selection of Romanized characters follows, to the extent possible, the phonemic/phonetic
representations used in the transliteration of Standard Thai as described in ISO 11940, thus enabling
consistency of system and economy of codes.
In this system, transliteration principles are applied stringently to enable complete unambiguous
reversibility in the conversion of characters. Although accurate pronunciation may not always result
in the application of this system, because the original Akson-Thai-Noi characters can be regenerated
automatically from the Romanized representation, those with knowledge of the languages will be able
to correctly pronounce the Romanized graphemes.
This document is one of a series of International Standards, dealing with the conversion of systems
of writing. The aim of this document and others in the series is to provide a means for international
communication of written messages in a form which permits the automatic transmission and
reconstitution of these by men or machines. The system of conversion, in this case, is univocal and
entirely reversible.
This means that no consideration should be given to phonetic and aesthetic matters nor to certain
national customs: all these considerations are, indeed, ignored by the machine performing the function.
The adoption of this document for international communication leaves every country free to adopt for
its own use a national standard which may be different, on condition that it be compatible with the
document. The system proposed herein should make this possible and be acceptable to international
use if the graphisms it creates are such that they may be converted automatically into the graphisms
used in any strict national system.
The adoption of national standards compatible with this document will permit the representation, in an
international publication, of the morphemes of each language according to the customs of the country
where it is spoken. It will be possible to simplify this representation in order to take into account the
number of the character sets available on different kinds of machines.
1) The “Royal Institute of Thailand” underwent a name change to the “Royal Society of Thailand” in accordance
with the Royal Society Act, BE 2558 (14 February 2015).
INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO 20674-1:2019(E)
Information and documentation — Transliteration of
scripts in use in Thailand —
Part 1:
Transliteration of Akson-Thai-Noi
1 Scope
This document describes the orthographic system of the Akson-Thai-Noi script using Romanized
characters.
This document can be used by anyone who has a clear understanding of the system and is certain
that it can be applied without ambiguity. The result obtained will not give a correct pronunciation of
the original text in a person's own language, but it will serve as a means of finding automatically the
original graphism and thus allow anyone who has a knowledge of the original language to pronounce it
correctly.
NOTE Similarly, one can only pronounce correctly a text written in, for example, English or Polish, if one has
a knowledge of English or Polish.
2 Normative references
There are no normative references in this document.
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
ISO and IEC maintain terminological databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:
— ISO Online browsing platform: available at https: //www .iso .org/obp
— IEC Electropedia: available at http: //www .electropedia .org/
3.1
character
element of an alphabetical or other type of writing system that graphically represents a phoneme,
a syllable, a word or even a prosodical characteristic of a given language; it is used either alone
(for example, a letter, a syllabic sign, an ideographical character, a digit, a punctuation mark) or in
combination (such as an accent or a diacritical mark)
Note 1 to entry: A letter having an accent or a diacritical mark, for example â, è, ö, is therefore a character in the
same way as a basic letter.
3.2
Akson
letter of the alphabet
3.2.1
Akson-Thai-Noi
script used in religious and secular communities of the Isan Region of Thailand
Note 1 to entry: See Annex A.
3.2.2
Akson-Tham-Isan
script used in the north eastern region of Thailand suitable for writing Pali-Sanskrit texts
3.2.3
Akson-Thai-Noi characters
Akson-Thai-Noi (3.2.1) alphabetic letters, special markers, and Akson-Thai-Noi digits
3.3
vowel
letter that represents a sound produced by humans when the breath flows out through the mount
without being blocked by the teeth, tongue or lips
3.4
consonant
one of the speech sounds or letters of the alphabet which is not a vowel (3.3)
3.5
tone marker
sign which shows a sound that represents different meaning, depending on how high or low it is spoken
3.6
transliteration
process which consists of representing the characters (3.1) of an alphabetical or syllabic system of
writing by the characters of a conversion alphabet
3.7
retransliteration
process whereby the characters (3.1) of a conversion alphabet are transformed back into those of the
converted writing system
3.8
transcription
process whereby the sounds of a given language are noted by the system of signs of a conversion
language
3.9
romanization
conversion of non-Latin writing systems to the Latin alphabet
4 General principles of conversion of writing systems
4.1 The words in a language, which are written according to a given script (the converted system),
sometimes have to be rendered according to a different system (the conversion system) normally used
for a different language. The procedure is often used for historical or geographical texts, cartographical
documents and in particular bibliographical work where characters shall be converted from different
writing systems into a single alphabet to allow for alphabetical intercalation in bibliographies, catalogues,
indexes, toponymic lists, etc. It is indispensable in that it permits the univocal transmission of a written
message between two countries using different writing systems or exchanging a message the writing of
which is different from their own.
It thereby permits transmission by manual, mechanical as well as electronic means.
The two basic methods of conversion of a system of writing are transliteration and transcription.
2 © ISO 2019 – All rights reserved

4.2 Transliteration is the easiest way to ensure the complete and unambiguous reversibility of the
conversion alphabet in the converted system.
In exceptional cases, su
...