1) you did not mean the Tai-wanese, did you? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan 2) Only those Thai people who are of Chinese ethnicity and culture will speak Chinese and use Chinese characters (漢字)= hanzi: "Thailand's population can be generally categorized into the Central Thai, the Northeastern Thai or Isan (see special section on this region), the Northern Thai, and the Southern Thai. The Central Thai have long dominated the nation politically, economically, and culturally, even though they make up only about one-third of Thailand's population and are slightly outnumbered by the Northeastern Thai. Due to the education system and the forging of a national identity, many people are now able to speak Central Thai as well as their own local dialects. The largest group of non-Thai people are the Chinese who have historically played a disproportionately significant role in the economy. Many have assimilated into mainstream Thai society, and do not live in Bangkok's Chinatown on Yaowarat Road. Other dominant ethnic groups include Malays in the south, Mon, Khmer and various hill tribes. After the end of the Vietnam War, many Vietnamese refugees settled in Thailand, mainly in the northeastern region. The Thai language is Thailand's national language, written in its own alphabet, but many ethnic and regional dialects exist as well as areas where people speak predominantly Isan or Mon-Khmer languages. Although English is widely taught in schools, its use is not widespread throughout the country." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thailand#Language 3) "The Thai alphabet is derived from the Khmer alphabet (อักขระเขมร), which is modeled after the Brahmic script from the Indic family. The language and its alphabet are closely related to the Lao language and alphabet. Most Laotians are able to read and understand Thai, as more than half of the Thai vocabulary, grammar, intonation, vowels and so forth are common with the Lao language. Much like the Burmese adopted the Mon script (which also has Indic origins), the Thais adopted and modified Khmer script to create their own writing system. While the oldest known inscription in the Khmer language dates from 611 CE, inscriptions in Thai writing began to appear around 1292 CE. " Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_language Further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_alphabet

The Thai people use the Thai script, which is derived from Indian scripts. I found this for you: The Thai script is a syllabic alphabet based on the Brahmi script adapted to write the Thai or Siamese language. Its invention is attributed to King Ramkhamhaeng, who reigned from 1275 to 1317. It is also possible that the Khmer alphabet might have had an influence on the Thai alphabet. The oldest Thai inscription dates from 1283. The Thai script has some very complex rules on how letters are pronounced. Often multiple letters represent the same sound. This is partially due to the fact that many sounds found in Indian languages did not exist in the Thai language, so letters representing similar sounds in Indian languages came to represent the same sound in Thai, and also due to phonological changes in the Thai language in the past hundreds of years that have merged different sounds into the a single sound. On the other hand, the sounds of many Thai letters differ depending on whether the letter occurs at the start or the end of a syllable. There are only six consonants that can end a syllable, namely /p/, /t/, /k/, /m/, /n/, and /ng/, but nearly all letters can occur at the end of a syllable (but pronounced as one of these six consonants). You can see the script on this page. http://www.ancientscripts.com/thai.html