Thai has 44 consonant letters, 32 vowel markers and combinations, and 4 tone markers. This makes the total amount of letters in Thai 80, one of the largest out of any sound-based writing system used for a living language. Despite having so many consonant letters, the number of consonant sounds is actually far fewer, with 21 consonant sounds. For example, the "th" digraph used in RTGS, which would be the aspirated alveolar stop (written as [tʰ] in IPA), can be written in six different ways: ฐ,ฑ,ฒ,ถ,ท, or ธ. This is because the letters used in the word will decide what tone a word has and whether or not the words are loanwords. 