while reading a short story i came across this word in a context like this:

...his foot fell off ผลัวะ into a jar....

i'm reading it as plua. seems to be onomatapaeic (onomatapoeic?) but i'm wondering whether this ัวะ thing is actually part of the thai vowel system or whether the extra ะ is there for emphasis? i'm thinking this would be read like ผลั่ว (ok i'm making words up) whereas without the extra ะ it would be short and rising, much like ผัว? the vowel sound of ผลัวะ couldn't be any shorter than ผลั่ว, could it?

one comes across some questionable spelling from thai writers, especially regarding tone markers, but is this one of those cases or not?

thanks for your help

อัวะ is a short vowel so it would be a low tone, I think.

อัวะ is a short vowel so it would be a low tone, I think.

You are right. "ะ" makes it sound shorter than "mai ekk" in "ผลั่ว". In fact, "mai ekk" doesn't shorten the vowel sound. It just changes the tone. And aanon, you are right. ผลัวะ is onomatopoeic.

Yes, just checked. Spelling is correct and it's a short vowel with a low tone. The key to pronunciation will be to get the glottal stop in. Write the two words ผลั่ว and ผลัวะ and get a Thai to pronounce them.

อัวะ is a short vowel so it would be a low tone, I think.

hey briggsy, yes i am thinking the same as far as tones go. i was saying that in my original post, but i mightn't have said it clearly enough.

maybe i got confused in thinking that อัว is already a short vowel, because i 'hear' it that way in terms of duration. at the same time, i know not to treat it like a short vowel for the purpose of tones, so for example ผัว is rising (so to speak).

so can i say (roughly) อัว = long oo, short a & อัวะ = short oo, short a ?

i guess it's one of those things i've missed by being self-taught and which doesn't come up that much. like the fact that i read thai literature ok but still don't know the names of the letters . thanks for helping to fill a gap.

hey, do you have any other อัวะ words that come up in common usage?

thanks again.

Yes, just checked. Spelling is correct and it's a short vowel with a low tone. The key to pronunciation will be to get the glottal stop in. Write the two words ผลั่ว and ผลัวะ and get a Thai to pronounce them.

glottal stop? at the end to emphasise the shorter vowel, whereas อัว could just flow onto the next word without a stop? is that it?

glottal stop? at the end to emphasise the shorter vowel, whereas อัว could just flow onto the next word without a stop? is that it?

Yes, pretty much. Close the glottis at the end. The word should sound decisive, short and end abruptly... The glottal stop at the end means we have a dead syllable, and dead syllables generally don't (never?) take any other tone than high or low. Since we have a high class initial consonant, the tone has to be low.

Other words? Err, no, not off the top of my head. This is a rarely used vowel but I'm sure there are others. There's another vowel which is similar in that you rarely see it and it's a glottal stopped long vowel combination which is made short or 'into a dead syllable' as Meadish correctly said. That is เอียะ as in ปอเปี้ยะ meaning spring roll. I think this is from Chinese or Cantonese.

The glottal stop at the end means we have a dead syllable, and dead syllables generally don't (never?) take any other tone than high or low.

Well, high, low and falling are the standard list. I'm not sure what to make of spellings like จ๋ะ, though. It's notable that I've only noticed mai chattawa in final particles nominally ending in glottal stops, so maybe it's just that its a genuinely live syllable with a short vowel. It's also conceivable that it's a dialect or Chinese thing.

You're right Richard, I should have written 'short dead syllables' above.

But even so, you have a point with จ๋ะ - then again I have never heard anything pronounced like that in real life, only seen it in writing. The actual pronunciation of that particle sounds like จ๋า to me... Without the extra vowel length I have a hard time seeing how you would be able to fit in a rising tone...

It turns out the female polite particle in Khmer has a similar sound to จ้ะ (I briefly checked out the free FSI introductory course in spoken Khmer available here: http://www.fsi-language-courses.com/Cambodian.aspx)

The actual pronunciation of that particle sounds like จ๋า to me... Without the extra vowel length I have a hard time seeing how you would be able to fit in a rising tone...

... in Siamese, I presume you mean. Kam Nuea has it as an extra tone for dead syllables, so the 'name' of the first of the tua mueang is written ก๋ะ, and opening a Kam Mueang dictionary at random, I find the pronunciation of what is transliterated as ตุด 'stop' given as ตุ๋ด, a rising tone by the frequency chart given in the dictionary.