Consonants & Tones

[OOLEEBER]

There are 11 high class consonants. Three tones are possible (low, falling and rising) and two of the tone marks (mai eak and mai toh) can be used.

There are nine middle class consonants. All five tones are possible and all four tone marks can be used. There are 24 low class consonants. All five tones are possible and two of the tone marks (mai eak and mai toh) can be used.

My question is, if a consonant is standing alone i.e. no vowel and no tone mark, does it have its own specific tone: High, mid or low depending on what class it is in. If so then am I right in thinking that rising or faling can only be instigated with the use of a vowel or a tone mark?

Or am I missunderstanding the 3 class categories all together.

Also can you recommend a system for learning the effects of all these posssible combinations (mind boggling), step by step? It seems like a huge task!

[meadish_sweetball]

Hi Oleeber,

High, Low and Middle class consonants do NOT represent High, Low and Mid tones, respectively. This is important to remember. The system is more complex than that.

When a consonant is read out aloud, for example in an abbreviation, it is read with an added long 'aw' sound at the end, like this

ส ศ ษ These are the high 's' sounds. They all sound like 'saw' with rising tone when read out in abbreviations.

ช This is the low 's' sound. In an abbreviation, it is read out as 'saw' with a mid tone.

The Middle class consonants, such as จ ต ก etc., are read out as 'jaw' 'taw' 'daw' with a mid tone.

[meadish_sweetball]

Do not worry Oleeber,

The task is not as great as it may seem - but I do recommend you to do this in class, with a teacher, because it will probably take some time.

In fact, the knowledge you need to read monosyllabic words (words which consist of one syllable only) can be represented in two tables. First you need to understand the difference between LIVE and DEAD syllables.

A live syllable ends with a sound that can CARRY the tone.

A dead syllable ends with a sound that 'kills' the tone.

Live syllable ending sounds:

n, ng, m, n, y, w PLUS all vowel sounds

Dead syllable ending sounds:

b, p, t (sometimes written as b, d, g) and the glottal stop which is often represented in phonetics by a symbol similar to the question mark, but without the dot underneath. Why can these first three sounds be represented by both b, p, t AND b, d, g? Because the sounds are 'swallowed' at the end of a word - your tongue stops dead before opening the obstruction.

If you have a Thai around, ask him/her to slowly and clearly read out these words to you:

พบ phób OR phóp (meet, encounter, see [as in meet, not the visual act of seeing])

แบบ bàeb OR bàep (style, "like" [as in American bimbo speech]]

แปีบ páeb OR páep (very short interval of time, "blink of an eye")

When you say "pop" in English, the last "p" explodes audibly, whereas a Thai tongue stops before letting out the explosion. Are you with me so far?

[OOLEEBER]

Thanks Meadish, That was the clarification I was looking for but I still have more queries:

High class = Rising Tone

Low Class = Mid Tone

Middle Class = Mid tone

Is this an exclusive rule to all consonants in each class or just the ones you gave examples of.

If it is exclusive then a consonant in abbreviation could never be High Tone, Falling Tone or Low Tone. Is this correct?

Also if this is the case there must be other reasons for low and mid class otherwise there is no reason to distinguish the two.

Thanks for your patience on this.

[meadish_sweetball]

1. You are 100% correct that falling, rising and high tone do not occur in abbreviations. Well done!

2. The rule IS exclusive to all consonants within each class.

BUT, the actual tone of any entire syllable in Thai depends on 4 things:

1. Initial consonant class

2. Absence/presence of tone marker

3. Length of syllable

4. Final sound of syllable

[OOLEEBER]

BUT, the actual tone of any entire syllable in Thai depends on 4 things:

1. Initial consonant class

2. Absence/presence of tone marker

3. Length of syllable

4. Final sound of syllable

Thanks Meadish,

I get 1 & 2 and sort of 3 because the longer the syllable the more chance of variable tones of consonants, markers etc correct?

But 4. hmmmm

Do you mean that the particular consonant or vowel at the end can change the tone from the start of the word or at the end?

Which leads me to another supposition. Am i right in thinking that a vowel has a neutral tone until it is affected by a consonant or a marker. If thats the case then the overall task of learning has just become a little bit easier to grasp (just a little).

[meadish_sweetball]

I hate to sound like the evil teacher from 'The Wall', but in order to get things straight:

Please remember:

1. EVERY syllable in Thai carries a tone - most word consist of one syllable, but a word and a syllable are not the same thing. Thai has borrowed words from Sanskrit, Khmer and Pali which have more than one syllable and in such words, each syllable has its own distinct tone.

2. There is no such thing as a 'neutral' tone... The mid tone should always be called the mid tone to avoid confusion.

When you read out a consonant in an abbreviation, you have already added the vowel sound necessary to make it a syllable. In other words, the following abbreviation

ร ป ภ is read out as รอ ปอ ภอ (รอปอภอ) raw paw phaw (all three syllables take mid tones)

In order to represent a vowel sound in Thai script, it needs a supporting consonant sign. It differs from alphabetic languages in that respect. The type of script is because of this called consonant-based.

It is more difficult when you type on the computer, because you cannot use a hyphen ro represent 'any consonant sign' when you write....

Do you mean that the particular consonant or vowel at the end can change the tone from the start of the word or at the end?

The tone shape is for all intents and purposes always the same - there are ONLY five tones (in this forum, we have discussed percieved variations of the high tone depending on the environment it occurs in, but this defeats our purpose here - it is better to concentrate on learning how to read first, and then look at exceptions)

In order to get the correct tone of a syllable, you need to analyze the WHOLE syllable first, you cannot look at only the beginning, because the tone should start already when you open your mouth to utter the syllable. The tone does not change gradually with your perception of the different letters in the word.

To answer your question with your own words - The particular consonant or vowel at the end changes the tone from the start of the word, because the tone always starts from the very beginning of each syllable.

[Richard W]

The representation of Thai tones in Thai spelling is complicated because the system of tones has changes since Thai was first written. I think that knowing a simple historical outline helps. The key points, which (apart from number 2), apply to all Tai languages, are as follows:

1. Syllables in the Tai languages are of two types - 'dead' syllables, which end in a stop consonant (k, p, t), and those that end in a vowel (, semivowel) or nasal (m, n, ng). In some languages, such as Thai and Lao, dead syllables can also end in a glottal stop, or even, nowadays, a fricative (s, f). (The glottal stop is the sound that replaces 't' in Cockney "wa'er" for Standard English "water").

2. (This key point may not be universal.) Thai syllables do not, strictly speaking, end in short vowels. Those that are described as ending in a short vowel strictly speaking end in a glottal stop. However, the glottal stop is usually dropped before another syllable in the same word.

3. In the beginning, a live syllable could have any one of three tones. There was no choice of tone for dead syllables.

4. The great Thai consonant shift (actually pan-Tai and also affecting Chinese, Khmer and Mon) caused every previously voiced consonant to be pronounced the same as a previously unvoiced consonant. Words that were distinguished by the voicing of the initial consonant came to be distinguished by the tone. The old voiced consonants are now called 'low' consonants; the old voiceless consonants are now called 'high' consonants.

5. In dead syllables, the length of the vowel could also affect the tone.

6. Not all new consonants came from two old consonants. In these words, depending on the original tone, the new tone could be as the low consonants, as the high consonants, or even be different. Consonants that behave in some old tones as low consonants and in other old tones as high consonants are called middle consonants.

7. Tones have merged. Thus live syllables in Central Thai dialects can have four (TBC), five or six different tones.

8. For new words, the old, often chaotic, relationship between initial consonant and vowel length need not apply. However, the possible tones are limited by the type of syllable - dead or live. Thus in Standard Thai a live syllable has one of five tones and a dead syllable has one of three tones.

The old Thai writing system did not use a tone mark for dead syllables or live syllables with the commonest tone. For live syllables with the second commonest tone it used mai ek, and for live syllables with the third and least common tone it used mai tho. This was nice and simple - all you needed was the tone mark, or if none, the class of syllable.

For the Tai languages that retain the old spelling system, foreigners now need to learn a table relating (a) the class of the initial consonant (low, middle or high) and ( the tone mark (or live / dead with short vowel / dead with long vowel distinction if no mark) to the tone. Remember that in Thai an 'open' syllable with a short vowel is a dead syllable. It may help to think of the vowel symbol sara a (ะ) as representing the glottal stop, especially in compound vowel symbols. (I don't think that is far from its actual origin!) The old spelling system is no longer adequate on its own, and may be fixed by adding new letters and new tone marks, e.g. ho hip (ฮ) and mai tri and mai chattawa in Thai. Note that many high consonants have been provided naturally by combinations such as หง, the high class 'consonant' corresponding to low class ง. In many Tai languages (but not Thai) these combinations are written as though they were a single letter.

One mnemonic I used when learning the meaning of Thai tone marks was, 'A high class consonant does not occur with a high tone; a low class consonant does not occur with a low tone'.

[OOLEEBER]

Meadish, you are not the "evil teacher" and indeed your patience has taught me much already.

Richard, phew... You are obviously a genius in linguistics and your depth of knowlege leaves me fathoms behind. Even though I don't understand some of what you say I do my best to decipher it and when I do understand something I get a huge buzz.

So thanks guys. It is appreciated.

[Richard W]

Even though I don't understand some of what you say I do my best to decipher it

If you don't understand, ask and ye shall receive an explanation.

[OOLEEBER]

If you don't understand, ask and ye shall receive an explanation

Thanks for that Richard but what I meant was... the language you use is sometimes outside of my basic education level from a scientific, terminoligy (howjaspellit) of linguistics point of view and I see some words you use as 'blanks' in my mind, that I have to fill in through learning the definitions of those words. When I do, that's when things "click" and I say to my self "yessss, now I get it" and it's a good feelling.

All my dictionaries (+ 10cbm of stuff) are in a mates garage in the UK waiting for me to get my S@@T together and get them shipped here. Now that I've joined this forum and developed such an interest I never realised how much I missed my dictionaries and other reference books.

In short, I could ask you "whaddya mean"? but your answer might protract from my understanding even further from the original explanation with even more complex terminoligy.

Sorry - had a few beers and not sure I've expressed what I really mean here but I hope you get the point, sort of.

How about this: I like it when someone holds my hand and shows me the way but there are times that I like to walk alone and do my own exploring.

However

Since we're on the subject. Please advise the meanings of the following words from your website:

Velars

Palatials

Retroflexes

Dentals

Labials

See, I really miss my dictionaries.

Sorry if this post comes across as cheeky. I nearly deleted it 3 times so far. Must be the beer.

I really do appreciate the time everyone on this forum has taken to respond.

[meadish_sweetball]

The terms you ask about all signify place of articulation in the mouth.

My simplistic take on these terms:

Velars - pronounced with the tongue against the velum (soft palate)

Palatials - pronounced with the tongue against the palate

Retroflexes - pronounced with the tip of the tongue bent backwards, as some sounds in many Indian (not Native American) languages and some sounds in Swedish and Norwegian.

Dentals - pronounced with the tongue against the teeth (think initial sound of 'think')

Labials - pronounced (formed) with the lips, such as "p" "b". Think of the labia of the vagina if you forget... they are lips as well. ;-)

Richard will be able to expand on this, no doubt. His last piece was seriously high quality, and ensured that I learned something new today as well. Thank you very much for that, Richard! :-)

[Richard W]

The terms you ask about all signify place of articulation in the mouth.

My simplistic take on these terms:

Velars - pronounced with the tongue against the velum (soft palate)

Palatials - pronounced with the tongue against the palate

Retroflexes - pronounced with the tip of the tongue bent backwards, as some sounds in many Indian (not Native American) languages and some sounds in Swedish and Norwegian.

Dentals - pronounced with the tongue against the teeth (think initial sound of 'think')

Labials - pronounced (formed) with the lips, such as "p" "b". Think of the labia of the vagina if you forget... they are lips as well. ;-)

Richard will be able to expand on this, no doubt. His last piece was seriously high quality, and ensured that I learned something new today as well. Thank you very much for that, Richard! :-)

'Palatal' is also used loosely to include the very similar sounding two-part sounds such as English 'ch' (in 'church') and 'j' (in 'judge').

'Retroflex' consonants are also common in Australian languages. They also occur in the Dentdale dialect of Yorkshire. As in Swedish, the Dentdale retroflexes arise from the combination of 'r' + dental, e.g. the retroflex 'n' in harns 'brains'.

(North) Indians typically hear English 'dentals' (/t/, /d/, /n/, /s/), which are articulated at the back of the teeth (down as far as the gum ridge) and can be classified as alveolars, as retroflexes. For most purposes of discussing Thai, it suffices to think of retroflexes as a funny sort of Indian dental, as opposed to the normal sort. There is an association with /r/ - in particular, in a Sanskrit derived word, -rn- is -รณ-, not -รน-.

For quick definitions of phonetic terms, try Wikipedia on phonetics. It has been worked on by a professional phonetician who teaches Poles to speak English like Englishmen - I sometimes wonder if he used to train Polish spies.

[OOLEEBER]

Thanks for the definitions and explanations guys,

Even when learning the Thai alphabet I was completely unaware of the grouping pattern of articulation. It really is quite organised. I always thought that these things just HAPPENED to be as they are. I guess I'd forgotten that humans created language and now that I think about it monks and other religeous orders worked hard to develop it. A nice little wake up to reality for me there.

I was showing my Thai wife the slightly different tounge positions for ฎ chaw chada ด daw dek and producing the d sound (as per your website link Richard) for daw for each one but she insisted it should be chaw for ฎ. Is this correct? We're near Sukhothai but I don't know if that would make any difference.

Thus in Standard Thai a live syllable has one of five tones and a dead syllable has one of three tones

What are the three possible tones? I'm guessing high med and low because its hard to raise or fall a sound that's 'stuck in yer throat'?

Cheers

[Richard W]

I was showing my Thai wife the slightly different tounge positions for ฎ chaw chada ด daw dek and producing the d sound (as per your website link Richard) for daw for each one but she insisted it should be chaw for ฎ.

Chaw chada? You mean do chada /[M]dor [H/M]cha[M]daa/!

The distinction between dental and retroflex is, phonetically, an Indian distinction. Although Thai keeps the two sets of letters, they are pronounced the same. (In my chart, you will note that the phonetic transcriptions - using the thai-language.com scheme current at the time - are identical for dentals and retroflexes. What's I've put back on the web is my draft with some errors corrected - Glenn Slayden added some notes on Pali, but the final version is lost.) Similarly, the three high /s/ letters (ศ ษ ส) are pronounced the same - indeed in Pali, they are all written ส.

To emphasis the sameness, note how related alphabets have treated the need to make the distinction /t/ v. /d/ (or similar). The Khmer and Lanna alphabets use consonants from the retroflex series for the /d/ sound rather than create a fresh letter. (The Khmer equivalents of Thai /d/ and /b/ are actually implosive.)

The retroflex letters were abolished during the Second World War, but soon re-introduced.

Thus in Standard Thai a live syllable has one of five tones and a dead syllable has one of three tones

What are the three possible tones? I'm guessing high med and low because its hard to raise or fall a sound that's 'stuck in yer throat'?

• Low, which occurs with a high or mid consonant, e.g. เด็ก [L]dek 'child' ขวด [L]khuat 'bottle'
  
• Falling, which occurs with a low consonant and a long vowel, e.g. พูด [F]phuut 'talk'
  
• High, which occurs with a low consonant and a short vowel, e.g. นก [H]nok 'bird'.
  

Most words borrowed from English consisting of a single, dead syllable are pronounced with the high tone, regardless of length, e.g. ก๊าซ [H]gaas 'gas'.

[OOLEEBER]

Chaw chada? You mean do chada /[M]dor [H/M]cha[M]daa/!

I'm not sure what I mean because I have been taught the alphabet by my wife and extended family and there have been conflicts of what is the correct name or pronunciation for some letters.

I had problems with ฏ. AT first I was told it was baw batak then I was told that the new pronunciation is Taw batak.

But to answer your question I mean the letter that comes after Yaw Ying and before Taw batak.

High, which occurs with a low consonant and a short vowel, e.g. นก [H]nok 'bird'.

In the last couple of days I feel I've learned alot thanks to this forum and my understanding is getting better but the above quote was curve ball for me. If a low consonant is a mid tone and a vowel is also a mid tone how can this word (with 2 mid tone consonants) or syllable be High Tone when it has no influence from a tone marker. Or was there meant to be a tone marker in นก

[OOLEEBER]

Also where does the 'O' come from in 'nok' when there is no vowel present?

Is it assumed as is often the case in hebrew? Learned that 20 odd years ago and forgotten most of now. I do recall there are only 4 or 5 vowels in hebrew. If only thai was that easy!

[Richard W]

Also where does the 'O' come from in 'nok' when there is no vowel present?

Is it assumed as is often the case in hebrew? Learned that 20 odd years ago and forgotten most of now. I do recall there are only 4 or 5 vowels in hebrew. If only thai was that easy!

Basically, yes.

Thai would be even easier if it were written the way Thais write Pali in Thai letters. When writing Pali, each consonant has one of the following:

• A vowel associated with it, with may be before, above, below or to the right of it.
  
• A phinthu (พินฺทุ) below it, which indicates that it has no vowel. I wrote a phinthu under the น; it is on the same computer key as 'b' if you use the Kedmanee keyboard layout.
  
• Neither of the above, in which case it has the vowel /a/. This is the 'inherent vowel'. Having an 'inherent' vowel makes the Thai writing system techically an 'abugida', as opposed to a pointed abjad (Hebrew and Arabic are abjads if vowel pointing is not used). The Indian scripts are almost all abugidas, though Lao script is not - it requires all vowels to be marked.
  

Thai differs from this in three ways:

• It does not use phinthu.
  
• It has silent letters, generally marked by thanthakhat.
  
• The inherent vowel can be /a/, /o/ or /or/.
  

In closed syllables, the inherent vowel is /o/ except before ร, when it is /or/, e.g. นคร [M/H]na[L]khorn. /or/ also occurs in a few groups of initial consonants, such as บร-, as in บริการ [MS]bor[H]ri[M]gaan 'service'.

[bina]

ooleeber,

in hebrew we still vowelize words that are 'stolen' from other languages;

and also words that are written the same way but mean some thing different and it cannot be deducted from the context; and there are more then a few, just depending on if you're reading newspaper/book hebrew or biblical/religious hebrew and then we have all the rest of the vowels that are even more invisible in every day writing.

i also thought if i can read a language that is totally different than english including getting used to the reverse direction, thai should be easy to read; have given up hope so far (sigh);

but u can write to me if you want to re--remember a language from 20 yrs ago.

[meadish_sweetball]

Chaw chada? You mean do chada /[M]dor [H/M]cha[M]daa/!

I'm not sure what I mean because I have been taught the alphabet by my wife and extended family and there have been conflicts of what is the correct name or pronunciation for some letters.

I had problems with ฏ. AT first I was told it was baw batak then I was told that the new pronunciation is Taw batak.

But to answer your question I mean the letter that comes after Yaw Ying and before Taw batak.

High, which occurs with a low consonant and a short vowel, e.g. นก [H]nok 'bird'.

In the last couple of days I feel I've learned alot thanks to this forum and my understanding is getting better but the above quote was curve ball for me. If a low consonant is a mid tone and a vowel is also a mid tone how can this word (with 2 mid tone consonants) or syllable be High Tone when it has no influence from a tone marker. Or was there meant to be a tone marker in นก

You have to look at ALL the relevant component parts of each whole syllable before you decide which tone it takes.

The word นก 'nok' has the following relevant properties for tone determination:

1. Initial consonant: Low Class.

2. Vowel length: Short

3. Final consonant: Middle Class.

4. Syllable type (Live syllable or Dead syllable, called {คำเป็น[/size=14] and คำตาย[/size=14] in Thai} can be determined by seeing what the final sound of the syllable is. In this case, it is a stop. All stops are Middle Class consonants.

Dead syllable with initial Low class consonant and short vowel sound = High tone.

It is the combination of initial consonant, final sound and vowel length and tone marker that determines the syllable's tone.

These syllables (some actual words, some only sounds without meaning used to illustrate the rule) also take the high tone, because they share the same combination of relevant attributes: มัก มิตร์ มุด มึจ มะ เมาะ โมะ เมะ เมอะ แมะ เมียะ [/size=14]

In the series above, you could replace the maw maa ม[/size=14] with ANY low class consonant, and the tone would remain high. If you changed it into a High class consonant or a Middle class consonant on the other hand, the tone would be LOW.

Are you with me?

[OOLEEBER]

Thnaks Meadish,

Yes I'm with you to a certain extent but I can see I still have a long way to go. I get the principle of what you have said but I will have to read a few more times and do some of my own excercises before it is ingrained in my mind. But let me try some things here:

The word นก 'nok' has the following relevant properties for tone determination:

1. Initial consonant: Low Class.

2. Vowel length: Short (as per Richards post the 'assumed' vowel by default in this case is a short 'O')?

3. Final consonant: Middle Class.

4. Syllable type (Live syllable or Dead syllable, called {คำเป็น and คำตาย in Thai} can be determined by seeing what the final sound of the syllable is. In this case, it is a stop. All stops are Middle Class consonants. (this is another pattern I was not previously aware of - Thanks)

Dead syllable with initial Low class consonant and short vowel sound = High tone.

(Again a rule that I was unaware of and without this knowlege I would have been messing up forever).

It is the combination of initial consonant, final sound and vowel length and tone marker that determines the syllable's tone. (There was no tone marker in นก. I'm assuming that it inclusion, if there was one. would be after the fact and therefore only there as a polite and proper way of fully expressing the word in writing. A bit like making sure you've crossed the T's and dotted the i's)?

In the series above, you could replace the maw maa ม with ANY low class consonant, and the tone would remain high. If you changed it into a High class consonant or a Middle class consonant on the other hand, the tone would be LOW.

Are you with me?

I think so:

Consonants and Class

Low + Mid (stop) = High tone

High or Mid + Mod = Low tone

So I guess If I remember it as ascending (example 1) I'll end up with a high tone. If I think of it as decending or level in mid class then I'll end up with a low tone.

Provided the vowel is short and it's a dead syllable. Right? It these instances can the inclusion of a rogue tone marker spoil this assumption?

Richard. Thanks for the rule about the 'assumed' short 'O' vowel. That fills in a lot of gaps.

bina, thanks also. I have enough trouble learning Thai without the confusion for ressurecting the hebrew from my memory. I used to speak ok French but now when I meet a French person here and try to talk in french my brain wants to talk in Thai. Maybe I just dont have the capacity for multiple languages or maybe I just dont have enough experience in dealing with the different compartments in my brain. Or maybe it's the Chaing!

Any confirmation on wheather its Chaw Chadda or Daw Chadda? ฏ ?

And finally for this post. Do you think I'm going about this learning process the wrong way? Running before i can walk? I dont have the time to go to a school in BKK which must be the best way to learn. I ask because I'm learning all these rules and they just keep building up and up. I'm still having trouble with the whole syllable thing despite meadish's most patient advice.

[Richard W]

The word นก 'nok' has the following relevant properties for tone determination:

1. Initial consonant: Low Class.

2. Vowel length: Short (as per Richards post the 'assumed' vowel by default in this case is a short 'O')?

3. Final consonant: Middle Class.

4. Syllable type (Live syllable or Dead syllable, called {คำเป็น and คำตาย in Thai} can be determined by seeing what the final sound of the syllable is. In this case, it is a stop.

The approach you're taking is too complicated. Having isolated the syllable (which is not always easy ), the process is:

1. Determine class of initial consonant: In this case น, so low class.

2. Look for the tone mark. นก has no tone mark.

3. If there is no tone mark, decide which of the following three types of syllable it is:

• Live syllable.
  
• Dead syllable with short vowel. นก is of this type.
  
• dead syllable with long vowel. (For Standard Thai, this is equivalent to having mai ek.)
  

Note that if there is a tone mark, it does not matter what the type of syllable is.

All stops are Middle Class consonants. (this is another pattern I was not previously aware of - Thanks)

You probably weren't aware of it because it isn't true! Consider the dead syllables รถ [H]rot 'car' and บาท [L]baat 'baht', whose final consonants are high class and low class respectiviely. What matters in the final (pronounced) position is the difference between sonorant and obstruent (= stop or fricative). It is true that all sonorant consonants are low class.

Dead syllable with initial Low class consonant and short vowel sound = High tone.

(Again a rule that I was unaware of and without this knowlege I would have been messing up forever).

It sounds as though you don't have access to a tone chart. The one I've linked to minimises the number of cells in the decision, while tolerating various phonetic analyses.

It is the combination of initial consonant, final sound and vowel length and tone marker that determines the syllable's tone. (There was no tone marker in นก. I'm assuming that it inclusion, if there was one.  would be after the fact and therefore only there as a polite and proper way of fully expressing the word in writing. A bit like making sure you've crossed the T's and dotted the i's)?

Only in so far as you cross 't's to distinguish then from 'l's. The tone mark is a necessary part of the spelling; it is in not normally optional. (Confusingly, it is optional in foreign words, but I don't know if forum rules permit that decision to be condemned.)

Provided the vowel is short and it's a dead syllable. Right? It these instances can the inclusion of a rogue tone marker spoil this assumption?

A 'rogue' tone marker causes only the initial consonant to be relevant.

I used to speak ok French but now when I meet a French person here and try to talk in french my brain wants to talk in Thai. Maybe I just dont have the capacity for multiple languages or maybe I just dont have enough experience in dealing with the different compartments in my brain. Or maybe it's the Chaing!

My French was never good but I now have the same problem. I suspect our brains have a compartment simply labelled 'foreign'.

Any confirmation on wheather its Chaw Chadda or Daw Chadda? ฏ  ?

I have a school exercise book in front of me that teaches how to write the letter. The page teaching the writing of ฎ is headed ฎ ชฎา an the page that teaches the writing of ฏ is headed ฏ ปฏัก. Admittedly the letter on its own is white on green while the example word is white on blue. However, if the titles are to be pronounced, they will be [M]dor [H]cha[M]daa and [M]tor [L]pa[L]tak respectively.

The rule for the names of the letter is to choose a word in which the letter starts a syllable. (Initial ห is ignored, as in ญ หญิง, and also in abbreviations.) There are very few words starting with the retroflex examples, and several of the name words chosen probably shouldn't have retroflex consonants!

And finally for this post. Do you think I'm going about this learning process the wrong way? Running before i can walk? I dont have the time to go to a school in BKK which must be the best way to learn. I ask because I'm learning all these rules and they just keep building up and up. I'm still having trouble with the whole syllable thing despite meadish's most patient advice.

There's a lot to be said for having a textbook to work from. Also bear in mind, mutatis mutandis, the maxim that if you learn Thai from bargirls, you will talk like a bargirl. I notice that you've accepted that ร is pronounced /l/. I think a Scottish /r/ would probably be far better.

[meadish_sweetball]

Regarding your final question about the best method:

I think the very best bet would be for you to take a proper course in reading and writing with an experienced teacher. You are in fact the first person I try to teach Thai to, and I do not have that much experience of teaching, which means the teaching will be very much improvised, and I may forget to add important information. The very nature of the forum also ensures that we cannot have an actual discussion where you can have your questions and assumptions confirmed or refuted instantly.

But for me personally, it makes for great brain excercise to conjure up the rules I now apply unconsciously when I read Thai.

As you may understand, it is possible to summarize the tone a syllable takes through a number of tables, and I have been looking for the tables I prepared myself when I studied reading and writing. Sadly enough they are gone. I'll try and prepare new ones for you when I have the time.

As for your other questions:

2. Vowel length: Short (as per Richards post the 'assumed' vowel by default in this case is a short 'O')?

Yes, correct.

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Dead syllable with initial Low class consonant and short vowel sound = High tone.

(Again a rule that I was unaware of and without this knowlege I would have been messing up forever).

Yes, I think you need these rules in a neat table, and then you need to memorize that table. When you have memorized the table, you should find simple words to read out and try to determine tone on.

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It is the combination of initial consonant, final sound and vowel length and tone marker that determines the syllable's tone. (There was no tone marker in นก. I'm assuming that it inclusion, if there was one. would be after the fact and therefore only there as a polite and proper way of fully expressing the word in writing. A bit like making sure you've crossed the T's and dotted the i's)?

I wasn't making myself clear there, sorry. I should have written "and vowel length and ABSENCE/PRESENCE of tone marker. In this particular case, no tone marker is necessary, as short dead syllables cannot take any other tones than high and low. The low tone we can represent by adding a silent ห in front of the word: หนก . That probably sounds confusing to you and brings up another piece of knowledge you need to grasp reading Thai: The Low class consonants have a special group called the "sonorants".

These are ม น ง ล ว ย ญ maw maa, naw nuu, ngaw nguu, law ling, raw reua,

Since the sonorants do not have equivalents in the High Class, they need "haw nam" to convert them into High class letters. It should be understood that in this case, the "haw" is silent and only serves to convert the sonorant Low class vowel into a High class vowel. The sound quality is not affected, and no 'h" is heard.

หมา 'dog' is one example. If you want to write the syllable "maa" with a rising tone, what do you do? There is no high 'm' consonant. You could of course write it like ม๋า but you don't, and that is where the example proves to be "not the best"... And why it is not written with mai jattawa I am not sure, but I guess it has to do with the development of the script - the symbol "mai jattawa" (the "plus sign") was not used in the past.

Richard might know?

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Consonants and Class

Low + Mid (stop) = High tone

High or Mid + Mod ( you mean MID here, right?) = Low tone

So I guess If I remember it as ascending (example 1) I'll end up with a high tone. If I think of it as decending or level in mid class then I'll end up with a low tone.

- Yes, good on ya! But remember, only for SHORT dead syllables. As soon as you have a long dead syllable you have to revise the scheme again. That is why I think you need a table that you just learn by heart. Will try to prepare one.

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Provided the vowel is short and it's a dead syllable. Right? It these instances can the inclusion of a rogue tone marker spoil this assumption?

Yes, it could, but does not in reality as far as I know and can remember. (I cannot remember seeing any tone markers over short dead syllables). *Maybe* some English loan words have them though - but I don't think so, at least.

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Any confirmation on wheather its Chaw Chadda or Daw Chadda? ฏ ?

It is definitely, and without hesitation Daw Chaddaa. Why? It represents a "'d" sound in writing, and not a "ch" sound.

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Cheers,

Meadish

[meadish_sweetball]

All stops are Middle Class consonants. (this is another pattern I was not previously aware of - Thanks)

You probably weren't aware of it because it isn't true! Consider the dead syllables รถ [H]rot 'car' and บาท [L]baat 'baht', whose final consonants are high class and low class respectiviely. What matters in the final (pronounced) position is the difference between sonorant and obstruent (= stop or fricative). It is true that all sonorant consonants are low class.

That's a serious mistake by me. Sorry, I think I have muddled up the terms since I was taught Thai one third in Swedish one third in English and one third in Thai.

The confusion stems from the fact that the sound value of a Thai consonant sign depends on its position in the syllable, and just like Richard points out, both Low and High class consonants are pronounced exactly the same as some stops when they occur in the final position of a syllable (i.e. they are "not realized", your tongue stops dead in your mouth just before you would have let out the air when speaking English.)

The tables provided by Richard's link are more or less the same ones I was meaning to draw you.

One comment regarding the very first table on that page - Richard, I think you should add the category "long vowel sounds" to the endings of live syllables.

Personally, I think the "Overall summary of tone rules" table is a bit too condensed to make for good learning material without a live teacher, but if you can make sense of it Oliver, that is the most efficient summary you can get... so print it out and ponder over it for a while and then come back and ask us what it is you don't understand.

[Richard W]

The Low class consonants have a special group called the "sonorants".

These are ม น ง ล ว ย ญ  maw maa, naw nuu, ngaw nguu, law ling, raw reua,

Some dotting of the i's and crossing of the t's needed here.

The complete list of sonorants is ง ญ ณ น ม ย ร ล ว ฬ.

Since the sonorants do not have equivalents in the High Class, they need "haw nam" to convert them into High class letters. It should be understood that in this case, the "haw" is silent and only serves to convert the sonorant Low class vowel into a High class vowel. The sound quality is not affected, and no 'h" is heard.

As ณ and ฬ should only appear in Indian loan words, 'haw nam' does not occur before them. I've not met this term - how does one spell 'haw nam'? Is it ห นำ?

หมา 'dog' is one example. If you want to write the syllable "maa" with a rising tone, what do you do? There is no high 'm' consonant. You could of course write it like ม๋า but you don't, and that is where the example proves to be "not the best"... And why it is not written with mai jattawa I am not sure, but I guess it has to do with the development of the script - the symbol "mai jattawa" (the "plus sign") was not used in the past.

Richard might know? 

'Haw nam' is very similar to the use of 'h' in Old English and Old Norse - OE hnutu, Old Norse hnot 'nut'; OE hwæt, Old Norse hvat 'what'; OE hlu:d 'loud'; Old Norse hross 'horse'. Presumed loans from Tai dialects into Mon-Khmer languages suggest that these Thai combinations were voiceless (as RP 'wh' when distinguished from 'w'); cognates in Sui dialects suggest that หม derives both from [hm] (cf. Scottish pronunciation of 'wh' [hw] and the old Scottish spelling 'quh', e.g. Colquhoun) and [?m]. Thus haw nam was not invented to shown tone differences - it was part of an original and possibly entirely logical spelling. It just came to show tone differences, like the difference between ผ (always /ph/) and พ (once /b/, now /ph/).

Mai tri and mai chattawa are only needed where there is no pair of high and low consonants, which is why they are (or at least should) only be used with middle consonants.

An interesting example of what happens in practice is the spelling of the English loan word 'cake'. See Thai Dictionary With Accurate Pronunciation.

Actually, 'haw nam' is artificial in หย (but not หญ). Thai originally had both ย- (becoming a low constant) and อย- (becoming a middle constant), but not หย-. After the great consonant shift had happened and the tones had split, the preglottalisation of อย- was lost and both were pronounced the same. The อ was largely replaced, with the following pattern:

• In live syllables with no tone mark, the tone was the middle tone, so the words are now spelt ย-.
  
• In syllables with mai ek (low tone), อย่- remained or became หย่-.
  
• In syllables with mai tho (falling tone), อย้- became ย่- or หย้-
  
• In dead syllables, อย- remained or became หย-.
  

When the sounds /y/ and /ñ/ merged, initial ญ- generally became ย-, but หญ- has generally remained in the spelling.

The mergers were different in Lao, whose /y/ letter derives phonetically from อย. While the Lao letter looks like a stretched ย, it is very like the corresponding new Lanna letter, which appears to be derived from the digraph อย. (In the Lanna example, the อ represents the independent 'a' vowel. Siamese has abolished the concept of independent vowel letters, apart from the anomaly of ฤ not needing a preceding consonant. Siamese อ descends from the independent 'a' vowel.)

Edited September 5, 2004 by Richard W

[Richard W]

Provided the vowel is short and it's a dead syllable. Right? It these instances can the inclusion of a rogue tone marker spoil this assumption?

Yes, it could, but does not in reality as far as I know and can remember. (I cannot remember seeing any tone markers over short dead syllables). *Maybe* some English loan words have them though - but I don't think so, at least.

Falling tone: ค่ะ, จ้ะ, น่ะ, ย่ะ, ล่ะ, อั้ก (ๆ)

High tone: จ๊ะ, บ๊ะ, อ๊ะ, โต๊ะ

I also found ฮั่ก [F]hak, ฮั่ก ๆ 'sharply, bitterly, quickly' in Nit Tongsopit's New Standard Thai-English Dictionary, but the RID doesn't allow the tone mark. There does seem to be some bias against tone marks with a following consonant - [F]phruk 'tomorrow' is recorded in the RID as พรุก as though it were *[H]phruk, when the phonetically and etymologically correct spelling is พรุ่ก. It's a half-way house between *พรูก [F]phruuk, which one would expect on the basis of other S.W. Tai languages and dialects, and พรุ่ง [F]phrung. The shortening and nasalisation have occurred in the context of the phrase พรุ่งนี้ [F]phrung[H]nii 'tomorrow'.

I can remember one well-educated Thai (he had a degree from a French University) struggling to work out how to spell [F]phruk 'tomorrow', which he admitted to having heard in the phrase [F]phruk[H]nii.

On the other hand, the RID does record อั้ก (ๆ).

Apropos the suggestion of English loanwords, does แก๊ส / แก๊ซ have a long vowel or a short vowel?

Edited September 5, 2004 by Richard W

[Richard W]

The tables provided by Richard's link are more or less the same ones I was meaning to draw you.

One comment regarding the very first table on that page - Richard, I think you should add the category "long vowel sounds" to the endings of live syllables.

That's not the only deficiency - at least one of the consonant lists is wrong (slightly). I just re-organised the table to bring out the points that high and mid consonants give the same tone except in the commonest case, and that dead syllables with long vowels behave like syllables with mai ek. It would seem that the original version is still in the custody of the FBI.

When I do revise the table, I think I should list the other final short vowels (อิ, อุ and อึ) for completeness.

Personally, I think the "Overall summary of tone rules" table is a bit too condensed to make for good learning material without a live teacher.

It was re-organised in response to the complaint that other tables made things more complicated than they are! The complainant called himself 'Gwindor', and I've not seen any sign of him since the feds seized Thai-language.com.

[OOLEEBER]

Thanks again guys.

Theres a heck of a lot of information for me to digest above so it's getting printed and all comming with me to Sydney this week. Along with the brilliant file you sent me Richard. Thanks so much for that. I've been reading it for 3 hours today and cant stop. I'll be away for 3 months and probably not on line much unless I gat something set up. So I'll have time to study all the info insteady of messing around on a PC. Not a bad thing but I'mgetting withdrawl symptoms just thinking about it

There's a lot to be said for having a textbook to work from. Also bear in mind, mutatis mutandis, the maxim that if you learn Thai from bargirls, you will talk like a bargirl. I notice that you've accepted that ร is pronounced /l/. I think a Scottish /r/ would probably be far better.

Very true. I use R when I'm on the phone or in BKK but up here in the middle of the rice fields I use L. similarly with words like aharn and gin respectively. I guess I don't want the locals thinking I'm talking down to them. I'd rather do the best I can to blend in and it makes me feel more comfortable. The same applies on my occasional visits back to Scotland where it's not long before my accent gets stronger again.

[OOLEEBER]

Please ignore this post. I was going to ask a question then realsed I'd got mixed up with อ้ & อู marker & vowel.

Now I cant figure out how to cancel the post.

[meadish_sweetball]

As ณ and ฬ should only appear in Indian loan words, 'haw nam' does not occur before them. I've not met this term - how does one spell 'haw nam'? Is it ห นำ?

Yes, 'นำ' as in lead - "leading ห". I think I picked up the term from either the AUA books on reading and writing or the Thai course by Tony Diller and Preechaa Juntamalaga from Australian National University. The AUA books are more likely.