Schemes¶

A scheme in thaiphon is a mapping from the engine's internal phonological representation to a surface notation. The phonological analysis — syllabification, onset resolution, tone calculation, coda collapse — happens once and is scheme-independent. The scheme only controls how phonemes are spelled on output.

Eight schemes ship with the package:

Scheme ID	Name	Character set	Tone notation
`ipa`	International Phonetic Alphabet	IPA Unicode	Chao tone letters (˧ ˨˩ ˥˩ ˦˥ ˩˩˦)
`tlc`	Enhanced Phonemic	ASCII Latin	Bracketed tags (`{M}` … `{R}`) in text mode; `<sup>` elements in html mode
`morev`	Cyrillic (Morev)	Cyrillic	Spacing modifier after coda; mid tone unmarked
`lmt`	LMT (Lipilina-Muzychenko-Thapanosoth)	Cyrillic + Latin IPA letters	Superscript digit at syllable end; 0 = mid, 1–4 = low/falling/high/rising
`rtl`	RTL School	Latin + IPA vowel letters	Combining diacritic on first vowel letter; mid = macron
`paiboon`	Paiboon	Latin + IPA vowel letters	Combining diacritic on first vowel letter; mid unmarked
`paiboon_plus`	Paiboon+	Latin + IPA vowel letters	Combining diacritic on first vowel letter; mid unmarked
`rtgs`	Royal Thai General System	Plain ASCII Latin	No tone marks

Side-by-side comparison¶

The same words rendered through all eight schemes. Verified against the actual module output.

Thai	Gloss	`ipa`	`tlc` (html)	`morev` (html)	`lmt`	`rtl`	`paiboon`	`paiboon_plus`	`rtgs`
สวัสดี	hello	`/sa˨˩.wat̚˨˩.diː˧/`	`sa^L wat^L dee^M`	`саˆ-ватˆ-дӣ`	`са¹ ват¹ ди:⁰`	`sà wàt dīi`	`sà-wàt-dii`	`sà-wàt-dii`	`sawatdi`
น้ำ	water	`/naːm˦˥/`	`naam^H`	`на̄мˇ`	`на:³`	`náam`	`náam`	`náam`	`nam`
ข้าว	rice	`/kʰaːw˥˩/`	`khaao^F`	к^ха̄у</code> \|кха:у²\|khâaw\|kâao\|kâao\|khao`
รัก	love	`/rak̚˦˥/`	`rak^H`	`ракˇ`	`рак³`	`rák`	`rák`	`rák`	`rak`
ปลา	fish	`/plaː˧/`	`bplaa^M`	`пла̄`	`пла:⁰`	`plāa`	`bplaa`	`bplaa`	`pla`
กรุงเทพ	Bangkok	`/kruŋ˧.tʰeːp̚˥˩/`	`groong^M thaehp^F`	крунг-т^хе̄п</code> \|крунг⁰ тхе:п²\|krūŋ thêep\|grung-têep\|grung-têep\|krungthep`
ภาษาไทย	Thai language	`/pʰaː˧.saː˩˩˦.tʰaj˧/`	`phaa^M saa^R thai^M`	`п^ха̄-са̄´-т^хай`	`пха:⁰ са:⁴ тхай⁰`	`phāa sǎa thāy`	`paa-sǎa-tai`	`paa-sǎa-tai`	`phasathai`
ผลไม้	fruit	`/pʰon˩˩˦.la˦˥.maːj˦˥/`	`phohn^R la^H maai^H`	`п^хон´-лаˇ-ма̄йˇ`	`пхон⁴ ла³ ма:й³`	`phǒn lá máay`	`pǒn-lá-máai`	`pǒn-lá-máai`	`phonlamai`
ลิฟต์	elevator	`/lif˦˥/`	`lif^H`	`липˇ`	`лип³`	`líf`	`líf`	`líf`	`lip`
ใส่	to put in	`/saj˨˩/`	`sai^L`	`сайˆ`	`сай¹`	`sày`	`sài`	`sài`	`sai`

Loanword coda

Under the default everyday profile, ลิฟต์ (elevator) preserves its foreign /f/ coda in ipa, tlc, rtl, paiboon, and paiboon_plus. The morev and lmt schemes always collapse foreign codas to the nearest native segment (both output лип regardless of profile), and rtgs always collapses per the official specification. Pass profile="etalon_compat" to force native-coda collapse in all schemes. See Reading profiles.

Choosing a scheme¶

Use ipa when: - You need a linguistically precise, internationally recognised notation. - You are comparing thaiphon output against Wiktionary or other IPA sources. - Your audience can read IPA.

Use tlc when: - You need plain ASCII output that works in any character encoding. - Your audience is familiar with thai-language.com's notation. - You need to copy-paste into contexts that may not support Unicode diacritics.

Use morev when: - Your target audience reads Russian or is familiar with Russian-language Thai teaching materials. - You want tone marks as diacritics rather than Chao tone letters. - You want the canonical dictionary-citation Cyrillic form.

Use lmt when: - Your audience is working from the Lipilina-Muzychenko-Thapanosoth 2018 MSU/ISAA textbook. - You want Cyrillic with ASCII-colon length marking and numeric superscript tones instead of Morev's diacritic conventions.

Use rtgs when: - You need the official Royal Institute form — for place names, geographic references, government documents, or any context where readers expect standard Thai romanization. - Tone and vowel-length information are not required in the output.

Use rtl when: - Your audience is learning Thai through the Rak Thai Language School's materials. - You want mid tone always marked (macron) and IPA vowel letters for precision. - You prefer a space as the syllable separator.

Use paiboon or paiboon_plus when: - Your audience uses Paiboon Publishing's learner books or the Three-Way dictionary. - You want the English-reader onset convention (aspirated stops as bare letters). - Use paiboon_plus if you need the short/long centring diphthong distinction in spelling; use paiboon for compatibility with the original series.

Write your own when none of the above fits — see Write your own scheme.

Scheme pages¶

IPA — full notation reference, tone table, IPA symbol inventory.
TLC (Enhanced Phonemic) — notation reference, ASCII conventions, HTML superscript tone output.
Morev (Cyrillic) — Cyrillic letter table, tone modifier conventions, HTML overlay for aspirated stops.
LMT (Cyrillic — Lipilina-Muzychenko-Thapanosoth) — learner-textbook Cyrillic; colon length, superscript-digit tones, space separator.
RTL School — digraph aspirates, IPA-letter vowels, combining tone diacritics, ʼ vowel-initial marker.
Paiboon and Paiboon+ — English-reader onset digraphs, centring diphthong length contrast, hyphen separator.
RTGS (Royal Thai General System) — official 2002 standard, plain ASCII, no tone marks, no length distinction.
Write your own — the SchemeMapping API and a complete working example.