I have just received a PM which indicates that not everone understands what I mean when I write [ML] in a Thai transcription. When using the notation such as [ML]hawo, one of the letters insided the square brackets has to be one of the five tone indicators, M for mid, L for low, F for falling, H for high and R for rising. The tone indicator may also be accompanied by a length marker when there are two vowel letters (counting 'aw' as two vowel letters), or even three in rare cases, because the vowel length is not obvious. The length markers are L for long and S for short. The system may seem ambiguous, but it is not. Matters do get more complicated for dialects - I don't think we have notation schemes for the dialects.

The transcription scheme I use is based on the Royal Thai General System, a scheme everyone will meet on road signs (even though it is not the only one used). The extensions are meant to be intuitive, e.g. doubling single vowel symbols to indicate long vowels, and using 'j' to distinguish the sound of จ from the common sound of the other letters transliterated as 'ch'. The combination 'aw' is written for the vowel quality of ออก - the vowel is normally long, but sometimes short, and is rarely marked as short in the Thai script even when it is a short vowel. (We initially experimentally allowed both 'or' - common in Thai use - and 'aw' for this vowel.)

As in the RTGS, the final semivowels are written 'i' and 'o'.

Therefore [ML]hawo represents the monosyllable Thais would write ฮอว if they could pronounce it. [MS]hawo would represent the unThai monosyllable that would be written ฮ็อว.

Edited September 28, 200718 yr by Richard W

Richard,

Thank you for that posting; that certainly helps me understand. Still one question, however. You say "[MS]hawo would represent the unThai monosyllable that would be written ฮ็อว." If the sound is "mid tone, short sound, what would be the transcription of "เฮา"? Thanks.

[MS]hao

Once it is clear that 'aw' without exception stands for อ syllables like [ML]hawo for ฮอว are not hard to distinguish even if we would intuitively want to parse it ha-wo.

"[MS]hawo would represent the unThai monosyllable that would be written ฮ็อว."

For "ฮ็อว" with a ไม้ตรี and อ, would that not resolve into "[HL]"?

"[MS]hawo would represent the unThai monosyllable that would be written ฮ็อว."

For "ฮ็อว" with a ไม้ตรี and อ, would that not resolve into "[HL]"?

Yes, but I wrote ฮ็อว with maitaikhu, not mai tri.