Why Are Low Class Consonants Called Low Class?

[kriswillems]

Does anyone know the historical or linguistic reason why low class consonants are called "low" class.

Why not just call them consonants of "group 1" or so. Who invented this (rather confusing) name?

(Same question could be asked for the high and middle class consonants)

[huma79]

I've often wondered the same thing.. anybody?

[DavidHouston]

I've got this little book here titled "ภาษาไทยให้ลุ่มลึก", "Deep Down into the Thai Language" or "Delving the Depths of the Thai Language" or "Getting to Know Thai more Deeply." The book is by มัณฑนา เกียรติพงษ์ and is published by The Knowledge Center, Chiengmai. Pages 18 and 19 explain these appellations you question. (BTW, Kumchai Thonglaw also attempts to explain the same elements on page 75 of his book.)

The distinction of Thai consonants into three classes is called "ไตรยางศ์" or, "the three-fold classification". Here is my translation of Manthana's explanation:

". . . mid-class consonants are called this because when the sounds of "koh" "joh" or "doh" are pronounced they are pronounced with a mid tone, that is, they are neither high or low. In addition, these mid-class consonants can be associated with all of the tone marks. that is, when you see a syllable spelled with one of the other consonant groups which does not have a tone mark, the [tone] of this syllable can be compared to the tone of a syllable spelled with a mid-class consonant and a tone mark . . . [examples provided]"

" . . . [with respect to the] high class consonants when you utter their sound, such as koh[R], choh[R], [etc.] you will observe that every syllable results in a high [i.e., rising] sound and these letters have a more limited set of tone marks associated with them when compared to mid-class consonants."

". . . these consonants are called low-class consonants which means that the level of their syllable sounds is lower than the consonants with a leading high-class [or rising-class] consonant which are cognates [to these low-class consonants]. [Examples are low class ค compared to rising-class ข) . . . "

Simple, no? Like Yogi Berra would say, "You can look it up."

Edited February 18, 2008 by DavidHouston

[tgeezer]

I've often wondered the same thing.. anybody?

Could it be that the language has tones which are numbered and they didn't want to number the consonents as well so they took the tones which do have names สูงต่ำ found that they had three groups and called the last one กลาง (what we call mid is called 'normal' in Thai สามัณ) high class cannot produce 'normal' tone and low class cannot produce 'rising' tone, so in a way กลาง is well, กลาง We shall probably never know.

[tgeezer]

I've often wondered the same thing.. anybody?

Could it be that the language has tones which are numbered and they didn't want to number the consonents as well so they took the tones which do have names สูงต่ำ found that they had three groups and called the last one กลาง (what we call mid is called 'normal' in Thai สามัณ) high class cannot produce 'normal' tone and low class cannot produce 'rising' tone, so in a way กลาง is well, กลาง We shall probably never know.

Oh I see that someone had a book while I wrote this, much better.

[Richard W]

I've got this little book here titled "ภาษาไทยให้ลุ่มลึก", "Deep Down into the Thai Language" or "Delving the Depths of the Thai Language" or "Getting to Know Thai more Deeply."

" . . . [with respect to the] high class consonants when you utter their sound, such as koh[R], choh[R], [etc.] you will observe that every syllable results in a high [i.e., rising] sound and these letters have a more limited set of tone marks associated with them when compared to mid-class consonants."

But is this the original reason or merely a modern rationalisation?

". . . these consonants are called low-class consonants which means that the level of their syllable sounds is lower than the consonants with a leading high-class [or rising-class] consonant which are cognates [to these low-class consonants]."

This sounds rather desperate.

There is some evidence that live syllables with no tonemark were once pronounced with three different tones, as apparently in U Thong and in the six-tone accent of Vientiane.

Interestingly, the terminology of the Tai languages of Vietnam has high and low classes the other way round to the Thai scheme, comparing the cognate letters for cognate words.

Richard.

[mangkorn]

" . . . [with respect to the] high class consonants when you utter their sound, such as koh[R], choh[R], [etc.] you will observe that every syllable results in a high [i.e., rising] sound and these letters have a more limited set of tone marks associated with them when compared to mid-class consonants."

". . . these consonants are called low-class consonants which means that the level of their syllable sounds is lower than the consonants with a leading high-class [or rising-class] consonant which are cognates [to these low-class consonants]. [Examples are low class ค compared to rising-class ข) . . . "

What a bunch of gobbleydegook nonsense.

You can't get a high tone from a "high-class" consonant, nor a low tone from a "low-class" consonant, so the classifications seem pretty clearly arbitrary.

[meadish_sweetball]

You can't get a high tone from a "high-class" consonant, nor a low tone from a "low-class" consonant, so the classifications seem pretty clearly arbitrary.

I agree the explanation seems contrived; but as far as I know, the tone designation high/rising/mid/low/falling does not exist in Thai terminology (at least I have never heard a Thai speak of siang dtok or anything along those lines), so your reasoning is based on the terminology used in English and therefore not very relevant in the Thai context.

[Rikker]

Yet another voice chiming in to say that explanation sounds like a recent justification, and rather bogus.

It makes more sense to me to say that it's a logical hierarchy of influence/influencability.

Low-class consonants are the lowest, because their pronunciations rules can be subverted by อักษรนำ 'leading consonants' that are either mid- or high-class.

Mid-class consonants are the next set because they still maintain the mid-tone, and so they only alter the low class in certain cases (like ปรัก = [ปะหฺรัก]). So the syllable วี by itself is a middle tone, and it's also a middle tone when led by a mid-consonant, like กวี, but when led by a high-consonant its tone changes, like ฉวี.

High-class consonants are the highest because it (almost) always changes the tone of a low-class consonant (with rare exceptions like สภา).

That's just my take on it, though. I've never heard anyone else explain it that way.

Edited February 19, 2008 by Rikker

[DavidHouston]

How does one pronounce "gobbleydegook" in Thai? Are the syllables high or low?

How do Thai people refer to their tones which we call mid, low, falling, high, and rising? Answer: they number non-normal tones ordinally: first: เอก (low tone), second: โธ (low tone), third: ตรี (high); fourth, จัตวา (rising). These terms and their interface with the tone marks explain how each tone mark affects the sound of a mid tone consonant and a live ending.

At first blush that the tripartite division of consonants into the mid, high, and low categories seems of a different type of designation than the tone designations. It could be that the notion of mid, high, and low is like terming the elements alpha beta gamma, i.e., merely an alternative designation. The book's explanantion requires a connection of "rising" tone with "high" consonant, perhaps a bridge too far.

I agree with Richard W that the explanation offered by the book is a bit too glib. I offer that the objective of the book's explanation is to provide mnemonic to aid the learner's memory, rather than to offer a historical or linguistic based explanation. Try not to take the book too seriously.

Edited February 19, 2008 by DavidHouston

[kriswillems]

The explanations of Rikker and DavidHouston seem very logical and acceptable to me. The explanation of the book looks rather strange. I guess there are many possible explanations, but nobody really knows the (historical) background.

[tgeezer]

The distinction of Thai consonants into three classes is called "ไตรยางศ์" or, "the three-fold classification". Here is my translation of Manthana's explanation:

An archaic translation of ไตรยางศ์ isn't it? almost 'Mony Python biblical' not your fault if you read it in a book, the modern way is 'three groups'.

[mangkorn]

You can't get a high tone from a "high-class" consonant, nor a low tone from a "low-class" consonant, so the classifications seem pretty clearly arbitrary.

I agree the explanation seems contrived; but as far as I know, the tone designation high/rising/mid/low/falling does not exist in Thai terminology (at least I have never heard a Thai speak of siang dtok or anything along those lines), so your reasoning is based on the terminology used in English and therefore not very relevant in the Thai context.

Well, exactly. It is not relevant in the Thai context: Thai doesn't classify by "high" and "low" - ergo: those classifications in English are arbitrary. Offering a purely contrived explanation in English makes no sense. I was not referring at all to the Thai context, and the OP did not ask about the Thai context, nor did any previous poster ever postulate about it in the Thai context. Thus, neither did I. My post was merely about the English "explanation" offered for the benefit, or rather, abject confusion, of foreign learners. (Consonants in and of themselves don't have tones; their tones depend wholly upon the accompanying vowels - and tone markers, if any.)

The point was that is it preposterous to post-date a justification for an unfortunate method of terminology for foreign learners. And it is in fact quite unfortunate, because it confuses (and intimidates) foreign students right at the very beginning, vis-a-vis tones that are classified as mid, high and low also. Clearly, we're not going to change it now, but it would have been just as good, nay, far better, if the English terminology for the consonant classes were green, red, yellow - or one, two, three - or whatever.

We are not talking about native Thai students here on this forum, nor in this thread. It's about the way that foreign learners are taught to classify the consonants, and the OP was specifically tyring to deal with that confusion (as I'm sure we all have at one time).

Why would I, or anyone, respond to the OP in the Thai context? If he had understood the Thai context and terminology, he wouldn't have asked the question in the first place.

Some of us have come to learn and accept it the strange English terminology; but others are still struggling. I, for one, do recall how maddening it was at first to try to comprehend those terminologies for consonants and tones - which use the same English words, but are as alike as durians and mangos.

It is quite simply an historical defect in translation of the pedagogy into English.

Cheers.

[Richard W]

Consonants in and of themselves don't have tones; their tones depend wholly upon the accompanying vowels - and tone markers, if any.

Well there's an interesting historical point. The high consonants and low consonants originally did have intriniscally different pitches - the high consonants were higher pitched than the low consonants. Note that this is before the Great Tai Consonant Shift, so we're talking of when initial ค represented /g/, not /kh/.

[Rikker]

Wait--Mangkorn, the OP was asking about consonant class names, not tone names.

Thais do use the classification of high, middle, low for consonants. That's the ไตรยางศ์ tripartite system: อักษรสูง อักษรกลาง อักษรต่ำ.

They don't use it for tones. As has been pointed out, the Thai way of classifying tones is completely arbitrary: regular tone, tone 1, tone 2, tone 3, tone 4.

So it seems your comments apply to tones, but not to consonants, which is what the OP asked about.

[kriswillems]

Well, exactly. It is not relevant in the Thai context: Thai doesn't classify by "high" and "low" - ergo: those classifications in English are arbitrary. Offering a purely contrived explanation in English makes no sense.

.....

Why would I, or anyone, respond to the OP in the Thai context? If he had understood the Thai context and terminology, he wouldn't have asked the question in the first place.

I understood and understand the Thai context. And I agree that for a Thai person these names are not or less confusing, because the tones in Thai are not called "low", "high", "falling", "rising", "middle" .

The consonant classes in Thai are called "low", "middle" and "high", so I believe asked a valid question: "why are they called like that?".

I also mentioned in the thread title that the consonant classes are called like this in Thai (and not only in English).

Edit : Rikker, you're faster than my shadow

Edited February 20, 2008 by kriswillems

[tgeezer]

Does anyone know the historical or linguistic reason why low class consonants are called "low" class.

Why not just call them consonants of "group 1" or so. Who invented this (rather confusing) name?

(Same question could be asked for the high and middle class consonants)

I think I have it. the low class was originally a low tone. the mid was the only common tone, and the high is high tone. Two pieces of evidence. The name of the consonent gives the basic tone พื้นเสียง in two, why not in all three? Secondly the tone marks indicate a shift up in tone one shift, two, three, or four, in mid and high but two shifts up in low class, I suspect the consonent has moved one tone back to join the mid.

Edited February 20, 2008 by tgeezer

[DavidHouston]

For those of you who are interested in this topic, please see "หลักภาษาไทย", กำชัย ทองหล่อ, พ.ศ. 2537, หน้า ๗๕, "ไตรยางศ์"

[tgeezer]

For those of you who are interested in this topic, please see "หลักภาษาไทย", กำชัย ทองหล่อ, พ.ศ. 2537, หน้า ๗๕, "ไตรยางศ์"

Over half a dozen people have contributed thus far with no explanation, now noone is interested and the question unanswered. I have given an explanation which you obviously feel is not the right one and you presumably have a book so where are your arguments to shoot me down. I have a long attention span in spite of my age and I want to know the answer.

[DavidHouston]

For those of you who are interested in this topic, please see "หลักภาษาไทย", กำชัย ทองหล่อ, พ.ศ. 2537, หน้า ๗๕, "ไตรยางศ์"

Over half a dozen people have contributed thus far with no explanation, now noone is interested and the question unanswered. I have given an explanation which you obviously feel is not the right one and you presumably have a book so where are your arguments to shoot me down. I have a long attention span in spite of my age and I want to know the answer.

Mr. Geezer. My profound apologies. I am a non-combatant and I do not argue. I don't shoot missiles and I don't shoot arguments. I am very impressed by both the length of your attention span and your devotion to knowledge. Inquiring minds with to know the answers to life's important questions. And, this is surely one of those.

In addition to my other significant personal deficiencies, my Thai typing is extraordinarily slow. For most questions regarding Thai language กำชัย ทองหล่อ is my lodestar. I have read his paragraphs set out on page 75 of his book and, frankly, I am not smart enough to understand what he is saying. Kumchai speaks about "low", "mid" and "high" sounds in the context of low mid and high consonants. To date, I have not figured out what he means. I was hoping that by making reference to this commonly available text, other minds more superior to mine and those of you with a greater knowledge of the Thai language would be able to explain his points to us.

If I get sufficiently energetic I will type the relevant paragraphs for your edification and analysis. I hope to gain knowledge through your expertise and serious consideration of what this highly-respected Thai professor is trying to tell us.

Thank you so much for continuing to pursue this very interesting area.

[tgeezer]

For those of you who are interested in this topic, please see "หลักภาษาไทย", กำชัย ทองหล่อ, พ.ศ. 2537, หน้า ๗๕, "ไตรยางศ์"

Over half a dozen people have contributed thus far with no explanation, now noone is interested and the question unanswered. I have given an explanation which you obviously feel is not the right one and you presumably have a book so where are your arguments to shoot me down. I have a long attention span in spite of my age and I want to know the answer.

Mr. Geezer. My profound apologies. I am a non-combatant and I do not argue. I don't shoot missiles and I don't shoot arguments. I am very impressed by both the length of your attention span and your devotion to knowledge. Inquiring minds with to know the answers to life's important questions. And, this is surely one of those.

In addition to my other significant personal deficiencies, my Thai typing is extraordinarily slow. For most questions regarding Thai language กำชัย ทองหล่อ is my lodestar. I have read his paragraphs set out on page 75 of his book and, frankly, I am not smart enough to understand what he is saying. Kumchai speaks about "low", "mid" and "high" sounds in the context of low mid and high consonants. To date, I have not figured out what he means. I was hoping that by making reference to this commonly available text, other minds more superior to mine and those of you with a greater knowledge of the Thai language would be able to explain his points to us.

If I get sufficiently energetic I will type the relevant paragraphs for your edification and analysis. I hope to gain knowledge through your expertise and serious consideration of what this highly-respected Thai professor is trying to tell us.

Thank you so much for continuing to pursue this very interesting area.

Thank you for your promp reply, and I am sorry if I misunderstood but having been thinking about it and re-reading my books I was rather thrilled to come up with this. It needs criticism and eventually the real answer will come from elsewhere I am sure but it has revealed some interesting misinterpretations which we have.

You must have noticed that the tones falling and rising are not mentioned and now the tone marks are assumed to be the tone values, even though we say ไม้เอก on a low class consonent is เสียงโท. In practise I have observed that the tones are remembered by the thumb and fingers of the hand, the first and second digits of the other hand are used delicately pinch the tip of the tone finger which corresponds to the tone required. Grown up Thais do this too. You can only get to the tone by counting from the base tone of the relevent consonent which has to be learned and I believe was remembered by the name of the consonent at one time. This is in the case for live words. Dead words have a different base tone= one level up with both high and mid consonents. but two! levels up in the case of low class consonents with long vowels and three! levels up for short vowels. My dictionary then says that tone marks can then be applied but I think they never are, are they? Logically it would be a more reasonable one and two levels increase if the base tone of low class were low. Now I don't know of your book but if you believe it explains the system historically I am sure that many would be interested.

[Richard W]

Dead words have a different base tone= one level up with both high and mid consonents. but two! levels up in the case of low class consonents with long vowels and three! levels up for short vowels. My dictionary then says that tone marks can then be applied but I think they never are, are they?

Yes, because Modern Thai has three dead tones instead of the original single tone, and the three tones are not constrained by vowel length or initial consonant. For example, from the front covers of two issues of 'Phaphayon Banthoeng' (a.k.a. 'Papayon Bunterng')

ไขก๊อก

เอ๊ะ

แพนเค้ก

จ๊ะจ๋า

[tgeezer]

Yes, because Modern Thai has three dead tones instead of the original single tone, and the three tones are not constrained by vowel length or initial consonant. For example, from the front covers of two issues of 'Phaphayon Banthoeng' (a.k.a. 'Papayon Bunterng')

ไขก๊อก

เอ๊ะ

แพนเค้ก

จ๊ะจ๋า

The tone marks in these cases indicate the actual level of tone not the number of steps off base tone, I thought this would come up later, this is why I didn't want to mention them. High consonents are changed with ไม้โท and it becomes เสียงโท mid changed with the remaining three as you would expect and 'low short' changed with เอก จัตวา and 'low long' changed with โท จัตวา. This doesn't help my argument which is that the tone marks used not to indicate the tone, only the shift in tone. I need these marks to postdate the move of low class base from low to normal. There is the flaw, possible flaw.

[kriswillems]

I got a similar reply (as tgeezer) as from somebody that studied major Thai. Also a remark from Richard comes back in this reply.

First of all we've to forget about high and low or middle referring to the physical tone height.

The Thai person pronounced the Thai letters for me without the "oh aang", which made them sound like a dead syllable. She said they if you study Thai at a higher level (masters) they will teach you to leave out the "oh aang".

She started with the mid class consonants. She said these consonants are made with the front of your mouth. They don't come from deep in your body.

Then she went to the high class consonants. She said they have a "bigger" sound. They sound like a "drum", they come from deeper in your body. Today we call this a low tone. This bigger sound was called "high" because around the time the classes got a name people didn't know about tone the physical tone height. They felt a "big"-sound of "drum" sound should be called high. Here she gave one example: she said ไข่ sounds "bigger" than ไก่ because it comes from deeper in the body.

Then she went to the low class consonants. When pronounced them as a dead syllable (without oh aang), the tones sounded rather light. Today we call this a high tone, but around time it was considered to be a "small sound", even smaller than the sound of the mid class consonant. So they called it low.

I don't know if she's correct. But it sounds logical.

summary:

pronounce letter without oh aang (which makes them sound like a dead syllable).

1. high class - big/drum sound (from deep in your throat), bigger than mid class consonants, so "high" class (but low physical tone height)

2. low class - light sound, lighter than mid class consonants, so "low" class (but high physical tone high height)

3. mid class - in between

So, what she said is that the class names are called after the place in your body where the "base sound" of the consonant is made.

Edited February 21, 2008 by kriswillems

[DavidHouston]

The following is Kumchai's discussion of the tripartite consonant division and my attempt at translation:

________________________________

การที่จัดแยกพยัญชนะออกเป็นอักษร ๓ หมู่ (ไตรยางศ์) นั้น ก็โดยถือเอาเสียงเป็นสำคัญ

Consonants are divided into three groups (three-fold division) because we believe that sounds are important.

คือพยัญชนะตัวใดพื้นเสียงที่ยังมิได้ผันด้วยรูปวรรณยุกต์ มีสำเนียงอยู่ในระดับสูง ก็จัดเป็นอักษรอักษรสูง

That is, any given consonant with a base sound which, when not affected by a tone marker, has a tone with a high level , is arrayed with the high consonants.

พยัญชนะตัวใดพื้นเสียงที่ยังมิได้ผันด้วยรูปวรรณยุกต์ มีสำเนียงอยู่ในระดับกลาง ก็จัดเป็นพวกอักษรกลาง

Any given consonant with a base sound which, when not affected by a tone marker, has a tone with a mid level, is arrayed with the mid-level consonants.

พยัญชนะตัวใดพื้นเสียงที่ยังมิได้ผันด้วยรูปวรรณยุกต์ มีสำเนียงอยู่ในระดับต่ำ ก็จัดเป็นพวกอักษรต่ำ

Any given consonant with a base sound which, when not affected by a tone marker, has a tone with a low level, is arrayed with the low-level consonants.

ที่เรียกว่าอักษรต่ำน่าจะหมายถึงเสียงต่ำกว่าอักษร ๒ พวกข้างต้น ลองว่าอักษรกลางกับอักษรต่ำเทียบกันดูจะรู้สึกในข้อนี้ เพราะลิ้นทำหน้าที่ต่างกัน

The reason that we term low level consonants that way is likely because their sounds are lower than [consonants] in the other two classes above. Try to pronounce both mid-class consonants and low class consonants to compare them. You will perceive this [difference] because the tongue performs different functions.

____________________________

This explanation is also unlikely to satisfy you but I wanted to add Kumchai's piece to round out the discussion. Any corrections to my attempt at translation are welcome.

Edited February 21, 2008 by DavidHouston

[kriswillems]

Interesting David! That is more or less in line with I was told.

[Richard W]

summary:

pronounce letter without oh aang (which makes them sound like a dead syllable).

1. high class - big/drum sound (from deep in your throat), bigger than mid class consonants, so "high" class (but low physical tone height)

2. low class - light sound, lighter than mid class consonants, so "low" class (but high physical tone high height)

3. mid class - in between

So, what she said is that the class names are called after the place in your body where the "base sound" of the consonant is made.

As there is now no phonetic difference betwen high and low consonants, this can only be based on the historically based tone rules. However, it makes a lot of sense for the designations of high and low to be based on the tones when followed with sara a. The mid consonants may once had a different tone with sara a to the high and low, as in many varieties of Southern Thai (Songkhla to give a concrete example).

The following is Kumchai's discussion of the tripartite consonant division and my attempt at translation:

________________________________

การที่จัดแยกพยัญชนะออกเป็นอักษร ๓ หมู่ (ไตรยางศ์) นั้น ก็โดยถือเอาเสียงเป็นสำคัญ

Consonants are divided into three groups (three-fold division) because we believe that sounds are important.

คือพยัญชนะตัวใดพื้นเสียงที่ยังมิได้ผันด้วยรูปวรรณยุกต์ มีสำเนียงอยู่ในระดับสูง ก็จัดเป็นอักษรอักษรสูง

That is, any given consonant with a base sound which, when not affected by a tone marker, has a tone with a high level , is arrayed with the high consonants.

[And so on]

This is mere tautology.

[kriswillems]

Thanks Richard, I think that's the most logical explanation I have seen until now.

Still, it's a bit strange that Thai people decided to call a low-sound (high class consonant followed by ะ) "high class".

The person that explained me talked Thai.

She used the word "เสียง ใหญ่" for the low-tone, somehow Thai people experience a low-tone as a "big sound" and that might be why they call it high.

I believe you made a remark that in other languages low and high are swapped, which seems more logical in this context.

[meadish_sweetball]

This is a bit of a side track, but to avoid confusion, this is how Thais describe people's voices:

เสียง ใหญ่ siang yai = 'large voice' which means a voice rich in bass (as that of a large person)

เสียง เล็ก siang lek = 'small voice' which means a voice rich in treble (as that of a small person)

[tgeezer]

พยัญชนะตัวใดพื้นเสียงที่ยังมิได้ผันด้วยรูปวรรณยุกต์ มีสำเนียงอยู่ในระดับต่ำ ก็จัดเป็นพวกอักษรต่ำ

Well done, bit of a chore I know, but it says that any consonent base sound before a tone mark is applied has a sound in the low level is called low consonent. Unfortunaltely there arn't any of those are there? don't we pronounce low consonents in the normal tone? That was the reason for the question I thought. It does say that doesn't it? Most books then go on to say which of the consonents these are, like ได้แก่ ค,พ,ย,น, (in the right order of course but I can't find) The question is if the high and mid consonents have high and mid base tones why doesn't the low have a low tone? I wish someone would say what the answer is or why it is unlikely to be that the low consonents have changed to normal tone.