The Thai alphabet has 44 consonants, 14 vowel symbols, 6 marks (tone etc.) and a few other special symbols.
Three of the consonants (W, Y, and a “glottal stop”) can serve instead as vowels. This doesn’t mean there are “only” 17 (14+3) vowels; vowels occur in combinations, so there are 40-odd distinct vowel/diphthong representations altogether. (Not even multiplying by tone variations).
For example, a very common phrase where I live is to harvest rice, เกี่ยวข้าว (sometimes represented phonetically as “giaao khaao.” Transliterating the Thai spelling letter-by-letter (and ignoring the two tone marks) would produce something like EGIYW KhAW. (Note that the I vowel – English “ee” – appears above the G consonant, with a tone mark yet above that vowel.)
But this just scratches the surface of Thai alphabet weirdness. Another consonant, H, frequently occurs at the beginning of a word, silently, to modify the tone. There is a special vowel which sounds as “am.” There is a consonant symbol in addition to the standard 44 which sounds as “reu.” The consonant for R, when doubled, becomes a vowel. :smack: