tonal marks and consonant classes and...

[BananaBandit]

if you take a low consonant  ว  and pair it with a  ห  to make  หว  does it then become a high consonant?

 

And if such is the case, does the  หว่าง  part of the word   ระหว่าง   have a low tone ( as a high consonant with a ไม้ เอก ) ?

[tgeezer]

On 9/5/2020 at 7:24 AM, tgeezer said:

. Deadwords are words with short vowels without a closing consonant and words ending in k,t or p 
 

Every other syllable(word) which are not in these forms is live, they are common tone unless there is a high class initial consonant. 

กา คา are common tone because they are live หา is fourth tone because it is live with a high class initial, หาก is a deadword (ending in ก) so first tone, หัก similarly. 

คะ is high because it is a deadword with a short vowel. มาก is a deadword with a long vowel so first tone.   
 

 

14 hours ago, BananaBandit said:

If a low consonant like  ร  has a short vowel with a dead consonant ending like  ก   ...as in the word  รัก  ...then there is a high tone, correct?

Yes. Final letter ก = deadword initial letter low, short vowel = high tone.  ราด final letter ด = dead word, ร+long vowel = falling tone. 
It all seems difficult if you can't instantly identify the class of the consonant which is why learning the "alphabet" is so important, here, you only need to recognize low class consonants. If a dead word does not have a low class consonant the tone is low. 

[tgeezer]

15 hours ago, BananaBandit said:

if you take a low consonant  ว  and pair it with a  ห  to make  หว  does it then become a high consonant?

 

And if such is the case, does the  หว่าง  part of the word   ระหว่าง   have a low tone ( as a high consonant with a ไม้ เอก ) ?

Please excuse me if I don't use the same terminology as English books but I found that their charts and tables don't suit me, they make simple things difficult because they often ignore the basics. 

วรรณยุกต์/วรรณยุต  means tone mark but in the nature of Thai, if this appears เสียงวรรณยุก it means เสียงสูงต่ำ =tone. . The tones are common/normal (สามัญ) one (เอก) two(โท) three (ตรี) and four(จัตวา).  Common doesn't need a tone mark but the others are numbered to match their tone.  The only anomaly which has to be accepted is that where low class consonants are concerned, one = two!  (Thai is way ahead of its time- 1984) 

when ห is placed before a low class consonants it is called leading h ( หอนำ)  it is silent but means that one =one. So you are correct in ระหว่าง . 

Leading h is used where the low class consonant does not have a high or mid class consonant of the same sound, these consonants mostly appear in the "alphabet" where the patterns seem to break down, ง,ญ,ณ,น,ย,ร,ล,ว and ฬ but there are no words starting หฬ. These are called unpaired letters (อักศรเดียว) Sometimes อ is used to show first tone, อร่อย I don't remember that being given a name but ออนำ would probably do. 
Most Thais have forgotten things like this but you may encounter a teacher who doesn't teach foreigners.  

 

[JHicks]

There's nothing wrong with memorising the consonant classes as if they were arbitrary, but it's not the only way to skin this cat. See here for an alternative.

[Oxx]

50 minutes ago, JHicks said:

There's nothing wrong with memorising the consonant classes as if they were arbitrary, but it's not the only way to skin this cat. See here for an alternative.

 

However, that doesn't provide any logical distinction between high and low class aspirates and fricatives, so you're back to memorising consonant classes.

[JHicks]

Yes, that's true - for some consonants you can only tell from the sound that it will have both high and low versions, and you basically have to remember which is which. If you also know how the alphabet is put together you can tell based on alphabetical order, but then of course you have to remember alphabetical order, so you can't take rote learning out of the equation completely.

[Oxx]

An alternative for these consonants is that if you know the letter name, then the first part will have rising tone for high class consonants, e.g. for ข ไข่, ข is rising so ข must be high class, ค ควาย is mid tone, so ค is low class.

[JHicks]

Absolutely. Also, if the exemplar of one of these high/low consonants (there's probably a better word for that, but I mean e.g. ควาย for ค) has a mid or high tone then the consonant has to be low class, whereas if it has a low or rising tone it has to be high class. That only leaves a few (the ones that have a falling tone) that could be either. I think it's about learning styles and would never criticise someone for learning the consonant classes or live / dead endings as lists, but I don't regret the time I put into the phonological side one iota.

[tgeezer]

1 hour ago, JHicks said:

Absolutely. Also, if the exemplar of one of these high/low consonants (there's probably a better word for that, but I mean e.g. ควาย for ค) has a mid or high tone then the consonant has to be low class, whereas if it has a low or rising tone it has to be high class. That only leaves a few (the ones that have a falling tone) that could be either. I think it's about learning styles and would never criticise someone for learning the consonant classes or live / dead endings as lists, but I don't regret the time I put into the phonological side one iota.

I presume that you are still talking about tones!  If so, I am intrigued.
You wrote;   " ....Also, if the exemplar of one of these high/low consonants (there's probably a better word for that, but I mean e.g. ควาย for ค) has a mid or high tone then the consonant has to be low class,".  
Does this mean that you are interesting in identifying the class of a consonant when you already know the word? 

 

[JHicks]

I think we’ve gone down a bit of a rabbit hole here. I'd prefer to say that the phonemic approach to the consonant classes will tell you which consonants have to be low, which have to be mid, and which come in both high and low versions, but for that last set, you basically have to remember which versions are high and which are low. There are ways to work it out, but they all depend on having some kind of knowledge that you probably wouldn’t have if you hadn’t already got the consonant classes down pat. In other words, by the time you're in a position to work out which is which, you don’t need to.

I don’t want to make the approach described in the thai-language link sound more complicated than it really is – it's the bolt-ons we're discussing that are complicated.

7 hours ago, tgeezer said:

I presume that you are still talking about tones!  If so, I am intrigued.
You wrote;   " ....Also, if the exemplar of one of these high/low consonants (there's probably a better word for that, but I mean e.g. ควาย for ค) has a mid or high tone then the consonant has to be low class,".  
Does this mean that you are interesting in identifying the class of a consonant when you already know the word? 

 

I would have thought most people learn the names of the consonants before the classes, or at least find that the names stick more easily than the classes, so yes, I think there could be situations where it would help to work backwards from the name to the class – it's just that in reality, by the time you can see that ค has to be low because khwaai is mid, you already know by heart that ค is low.

 

[BananaBandit]

On 9/9/2020 at 1:30 AM, tgeezer said:

It all seems difficult if you can't instantly identify the class of the consonant which is why learning the "alphabet" is so important

When first learning to read, I encountered this stuff about consonant classes...didn't seem like "much fun"  ...so i put it out of sight, out of mind...forgot it even existed actually...until a few weeks ago.

 

I now realize I've been either missing the mark or else just butchering the pronunciation of at least 50 percent of my Thai vocabulary.  I do recall having a few semi-conversations with Thai/Lao people...I'm surprised at how well they were able to understand my attempt to speak. 

[tgeezer]

On 9/10/2020 at 12:36 PM, JHicks said:

I think we’ve gone down a bit of a rabbit hole here. I'd prefer to say that the phonemic approach to the consonant classes will tell you which consonants have to be low, which have to be mid, and which come in both high and low versions, but for that last set, you basically have to remember which versions are high and which are low. There are ways to work it out, but they all depend on having some kind of knowledge that you probably wouldn’t have if you hadn’t already got the consonant classes down pat. In other words, by the time you're in a position to work out which is which, you don’t need to.

I don’t want to make the approach described in the thai-language link sound more complicated than it really is – it's the bolt-ons we're discussing that are complicated.

I would have thought most people learn the names of the consonants before the classes, or at least find that the names stick more easily than the classes, so yes, I think there could be situations where it would help to work backwards from the name to the class – it's just that in reality, by the time you can see that ค has to be low because khwaai is mid, you already know by heart that ค is low." 

by tgeezer:

 I suppose this will appear in the quote box, apologies. 
I see what you mean but it is what might be described nowadays as "aftermarket". 

I learned the "alphabet" first using the correct tones so had only to separate the mid class consonants from the low class consonants, the high being in the fourth tone. 

12 hours ago, BananaBandit said:

When first learning to read, I encountered this stuff about consonant classes...didn't seem like "much fun"  ...so i put it out of sight, out of mind...forgot it even existed actually...until a few weeks ago.

 

I now realize I've been either missing the mark or else just butchering the pronunciation of at least 50 percent of my Thai vocabulary.  I do recall having a few semi-conversations with Thai/Lao people...I'm surprised at how well they were able to understand my attempt to speak. 

Can I recommend the "alphabet" not only for the consonants but also for the number of words which it teaches, all of them in context. Every consonant comes with a little story eg.  ก เอ๋ย ก ไก่ ออกไปหากิน เขี่ยไต่ดินกินหนอนกับแมลง, that may be missing something but you get the idea. หากิน is an interesting word. It says look for food here but from that it can also stand for work:  ผู้หญิงหากิน says a lot or little. 

As I say above, of the first six consonants, two of them are said in the fourth tone, the others are common so you need to learn only that ก is mid class. So the pattern continues with only one fourth tone consonant cropping up before one or two mid so that by the time you get to บ you have learnt six Mid class consonants leaving only บ ป and อ as mid class.  This process of elimination teaches all of which consonants are of which class.  
I have a chart on the back of my bathroom door and have just been to check it, the high class consonants are in red the mid in yellow and the low in green. Be strict with yourself never say ขอ as คอ.

[BananaBandit]

On 9/9/2020 at 2:51 AM, tgeezer said:

when ห is placed before a low class consonants it is called leading h ( หอนำ)  it is silent but means that one =one. So you are correct in ระหว่าง . 

Leading h is used where the low class consonant does not have a high or mid class consonant of the same sound, these consonants mostly appear in the "alphabet" where the patterns seem to break down, ง,ญ,ณ,น,ย,ร,ล,ว and ฬ but there are no words starting หฬ. These are called unpaired letters (อักศรเดียว) Sometimes อ is used to show first tone, อร่อย I don't remember that being given a name but ออนำ would probably do. 

 

So, with the word   กว่า   does   ว  take on the mid-consonant properties of  ก  ?

How about a word like  กล่าว   ?

 

With the word  สร้าง   ...Does the  ร   take on the high-consonant properties of  ส   and therefore mean that one should speak the word with a falling tone?

...Or does the consonant cross-dressing take place only when a low consonant is paired with a   ห

(or, less commonly, in cases with a อ such as อร่อย ......i believe  อย่าง  would fall under this category also, แม่น บ่อ นะครับ)

[tgeezer]

42 minutes ago, BananaBandit said:

 

So, with the word   กว่า   does   ว  take on the mid-consonant properties of  ก  ?

How about a word like  กล่าว   ?

 

With the word  สร้าง   ...Does the  ร   take on the high-consonant properties of  ส   and therefore mean that one should speak the word with a falling tone?

...Or does the consonant cross-dressing take place only when a low consonant is paired with a   ห

(or, less commonly, in cases with a อ such as อร่อย ......i believe  อย่าง  would fall under this category also, แม่น บ่อ นะครับ)

Quite correct, The leading consonant governs the tone, but since it is possible to say กว (gwa)  together the tone mark is placed above the second consonant.  
กล่าว is in the same boat (gla) .  ThIs are just like us, only throat made sounds and tongue made sounds can be said together. คร คล คว , We think that we say slant, black etc, but there is a little'a' between the two consonants.   
สร้าง is completely different because สร can not be said together so one would think สะร้าง 1st 3rd tones but in this word ร is silent so ส้าง 2nd tone. 
You will discover that ส seems a lawless character best dealt with as individual words.

 Oxx and JHicks know more than I about these things. 

[JHicks]

47 minutes ago, tgeezer said:

I suppose this will appear in the quote box, apologies. 
I see what you mean but it is what might be described nowadays as "aftermarket". 

I learned the "alphabet" first using the correct tones so had only to separate the mid class consonants from the low class consonants, the high being in the fourth tone. 

Did you do that by rote? It's the same issue as before really, just in relation to a smaller set of letters. The phonemic method would have been a fairly simple alternative to memorising which were mid and which low. The classes stick after a while so you end up knowing them by heart. In some cases you could also have got there by working backwards from the name, and then there's alphabetical order. Still, these methods are too complicated to be worthwhile IMO - that's the rabbit hole again.

 

[tgeezer]

40 minutes ago, JHicks said:

Did you do that by rote? It's the same issue as before really, just in relation to a smaller set of letters. The phonemic method would have been a fairly simple alternative to memorising which were mid and which low. The classes stick after a while so you end up knowing them by heart. In some cases you could also have got there by working backwards from the name, and then there's alphabetical order. Still, these methods are too complicated to be worthwhile IMO - that's the rabbit hole again.

 

My introduction to Thai was at the AUA but I was only visiting for a few months and I worked with Thais in AbuDhabi, so I simply bought children's school books. Naturally I learned กอ ไก่ ขอ ไข่ by rote but since a story comes with each letter I wasn't only learning the letters. I don't remember the stories but I remember ไข่ในเล้า ขวดอยู่ราว, they rhyme you see, I am not sure that อยู่ราว is correct it it rhymes and makes sense so why not? 

I am afraid that I have never heard of the phonemic method so can't comment, but all roads lead to Rome. 
 

 

[JHicks]

I linked to the explanation on thai-language a few posts back, but it's basically "if you can can hum it or carry a tune with it (the way you can with m or l or r) then it has to be low class; if you can't and there's no escape of air then it's mid class, and otherwise it has both low and high class versions". I like this approach because it makes you focus on the pronunciation, and it helps with things like which consonant endings are live and which of the low class consonants can take ห.

[rumak]

thanks guys .  i never learnt those lessons .  

when I form a Ministry of Linguistics y'all gonna be on a committee.  

[nrasmussen]

When I started learning Thai I made a stack of flash cards (see attached PDF). I spent an hour with that every day and after 2-3 weeks I knew the alphabet by heart.

flashcards-A4-9-t2e.pdf

[tgeezer]

On 9/9/2020 at 2:12 PM, JHicks said:

There's nothing wrong with memorising the consonant classes as if they were arbitrary, but it's not the only way to skin this cat. See here for an alternative.

Sorry about that but as you see, no link appeared and since Oxx commented with fricatives and aspirants I assumed that it was not something that I could help with. 
It sounds good and perhaps BananaBandit finds it useful.

21 minutes ago, nrasmussen said:

When I started learning Thai I made a stack of flash cards (see attached PDF). I spent an hour with that every day and after 2-3 weeks I knew the alphabet by heart.

flashcards-A4-9-t2e.pdf 3.25 MB · 0 downloads

I tried that too.  
 

[Oxx]

40 minutes ago, tgeezer said:

On 9/9/2020 at 8:12 PM, JHicks said:

There's nothing wrong with memorising the consonant classes as if they were arbitrary, but it's not the only way to skin this cat. See here for an alternative.

Sorry about that but as you see, no link appeared

The link is the word "here".  (It's in purple showing it's a link.  Life was much easier when all links were underlined.)  In full http://thai-language.com/id/841623

[tgeezer]

2 hours ago, Oxx said:

The link is the word "here".  (It's in purple showing it's a link.  Life was much easier when all links were underlined.)  In full http://thai-language.com/id/841623

Ha ha, I have just checked and so it is, but it isn’t obvious on either my iPhone or iPad at a range of two feet! Thanks for that Oxx. 

[BananaBandit]

On 9/11/2020 at 1:18 PM, tgeezer said:

You will discover that ส seems a lawless character best dealt with as individual words

ส is probably my favorite ตัวหนังสือ -- largely owing to how pretty one can make her when writing in fancy script -- so it's unsettling to hear her described this way, though it'll probably help me remember. 

[tgeezer]

14 hours ago, BananaBandit said:

ส is probably my favorite ตัวหนังสือ -- largely owing to how pretty one can make her when writing in fancy script -- so it's unsettling to hear her described this way, though it'll probably help me remember. 

Calligraphy is what attracted me to Thai in the first place, perhaps we have that in common. 

[BananaBandit]

On 9/14/2020 at 1:22 AM, tgeezer said:

Calligraphy is what attracted me to Thai in the first place, perhaps we have that in common. 

Earlier is this thread, you mentioned having worked in the UAE.  Have you also partaken in Arabic calligraphy?   That script looks congenial to fancy writing as well. 

 

Despite all the similarities between Lao and Thai, I find Lao script - with its roundish characters - rather more difficult for fancy writing. Of course, I know no nothing about formal calligraphy and perhaps such a script is no obstacle to the trained practitioner. 

 

When the pen's in your hand, what are your favorite ตัว หนัง สือ to play with?

[BananaBandit]

I notice that if ป is next to ฏ  then it produces a  ะ sound (even though no vowel is written)

 

ex:   ปฏิวัติ

But with the word   ปกติ   the ป  next to  ก  produces a short "o" (โ x ะ) sound. 

 

Are there any rules (and corresponding chart / webpage) that govern this situation ?      Or is it something that varies from from one word to another, and you just have to remember as you go along ?

[4reaL]

 

2 hours ago, BananaBandit said:

 

When the pen's in your hand, what are your favorite ตัว หนัง สือ to play with?

 

ลึงค์

[EricTh]

Frankly, all these overly complicated rules just to know the tone is unnecessarily complicated. They should really revamp the writing system and use something like the Vietnamese with just five tones.

 

Some of the Thai schools already used the Latin phonetics with tone markers and it's much easier.

 

In real life, you have to read and speak fast to be able to be understood, you can't ask is this high consonant, is this low consonant, is this short for every word.

[tgeezer]

On 9/15/2020 at 3:39 PM, BananaBandit said:

I notice that if ป is next to ฏ  then it produces a  ะ sound (even though no vowel is written)

 

ex:   ปฏิวัติ

But with the word   ปกติ   the ป  next to  ก  produces a short "o" (โ x ะ) sound. 

 

Are there any rules (and corresponding chart / webpage) that govern this situation ?      Or is it something that varies from from one word to another, and you just have to remember as you go along ?

I was hoping that someone who used English books would provide some reference material but since not.... from what I can remember; 

The inherent vowel between consonants is always โ-ะ รถ หมด บท etc.
ปกตี can be ปกกะติ  or ปะกะติ 

I thought of Thursday วันพฤหัสบดี pronounced พะรึหัดสะบอดี or พรึหัดสะบอดี. -บอดี not -บะดี you notice so I suppose one just needs to know the word. 

 

Incidentally I don’t do calligraphy now, only doodle, but my โ ไ ใ are done with a flourish in handwriting then of course, ส can be interesting.