พ And ผ

[stonybonytony]

I am unable to hear any difference between the characters ผ and พ (other than the tone difference as they are in different classes). My Thai teacher claims they are different sounds - any hints on toungue placement/mouth shape or something to enable me to pronounce these so that they sound different from each other?

While I'm on the subject, am I right in thinking that ซ,ศ,ส, and ษ are inditinguishable by ear (except for tone differences) from each other?

ta.

[5tash]

I am unable to hear any difference between the characters ผ and พ (other than the tone difference as they are in different classes). My Thai teacher claims they are different sounds - any hints on toungue placement/mouth shape or something to enable me to pronounce these so that they sound different from each other?

While I'm on the subject, am I right in thinking that ซ,ศ,ส, and ษ are inditinguishable by ear (except for tone differences) from each other?

ta.

As far as i'm concerned the only difference between ผ znd พ is, as you mentioned, the tone as they are different classes. As for ซ,ศ,ส and ษ the distinction between the consonants has been lost through time and now have the same sound.

[meadish_sweetball]

There is no difference in terms of the sound, your teacher probably thinks the sounds are different because he/she associates the sounds with the different looking letters, or with the following pitch changes (tone) that are affected by the letter.

The same thing goes for the /s/ characters.

I am sure Richard will be able to explain what difference there may have been in a historical context.

Obviously, if your teacher has already told you there is a difference, chances are he or she will not be able to concede that he or she is wrong even if you can prove it, and for you to push the point would be to make the teacher lose face. Better to drop it.

[Jay_Jay]

is your teacher from the north? If he / she is, maybe he/she pronounces the พ more like a middle class ป ... but this would be very strange coming from someone teaching standard Thai. In the past these were different sounds - which led to the need to break the consonants into 3 classes. Nowadays in standard central Thai, the sound quality of the high and low class versions of ph, th, kh, ch, f, s, h are the same.

If you're interested in why... I've touched on it a little in a blog article I put together for some of my Indian students of Thai.

http://stujay.blogspot.com/2006/12/learnin...-of-indian.html

[wasabi]

There is no difference in terms of the sound, your teacher probably thinks the sounds are different because he/she associates the sounds with the different looking letters, or with the following pitch changes (tone) that are affected by the letter.

The same thing goes for the /s/ characters.

I am sure Richard will be able to explain what difference there may have been in a historical context.

Obviously, if your teacher has already told you there is a difference, chances are he or she will not be able to concede that he or she is wrong even if you can prove it, and for you to push the point would be to make the teacher lose face. Better to drop it.

This is an excellent point that I encountered in my Thai class once. The teacher had a similar argument that some consonants such as ผ พ have different sounds. Everyone except her, that I've asked said no it's only the tone so I think your explanation is correct. I went back to tell her this and she got offended and said Farang's don't understand Thai. I won't make that mistake again.

[withnail]

Don't you think it's partially just an error in communication? If a Thai teacher were to say "ผอ ผึ่ง กับ พอ พาน ออกเสียงไม่เหมือนกัน" Wouldn't she technically be correct because he or she considers the tonal qualities of the letter as an intrinsic part of it. Rather than a foreigner who looks as ผ and พ as two different Ps which can produce the same words but with different tones.

[meadish_sweetball]

Yes, if one views the letters themselves as being the 'words' พอ and ผอ or as symbols (as soon as they are in initial position of a syllable followed by a vowel they do have a pitch determining function.) rather than the phonemes (sounds) /ph/ and /ph/... so yes, perhaps a communication glitch like you say withnail. But that would be like looking upon English p like [pi:] rather than /p/.

I am sure somebody will correct me if I am wrong, but the consonant phoneme /ph/ represented by ผ ภ พ in the Thai script is unvoiced (no buzz in your glottis) and hence can not carry pitch - ergo, you can try to utter the phoneme with a high/low/rising/falling/mid tone (without applying a vowel afterwards), and you will see it is impossible to get a distinctive tone in.

ผ้อ

ภ่อ

พ่อ

These sound the same. If you want to be completely culturally insensitive you can insist on the following test: create a list with these three syllables in a random order, say 10 instances. Then find a Thai to read them out to your teacher. He/she can attempt to separate which are the words with ผ พ and ภ, respectively.

[This is not a real suggestion, I do think that if you like your teacher and find his/her lessons valuable, you should drop this issue.]

[riga]

Withnail have made a good point IMO

For the "S" characters ซ,ศ,ส, and ษ I've asked the same question to a friend of mine (who is thai native speaker) times ago, because I was surprised that the thai alphabet

included 3 different consonants for S (ส, and ษ ) that are all in the high class and so will give also the same tone but he couldn't give me an answer.

[5tash]

Check out this link on the Thai alphabet.

[meadish_sweetball]

Withnail have made a good point IMO

For the "S" characters ซ,ศ,ส, and ษ I've asked the same question to a friend of mine (who is thai native speaker) times ago, because I was surprised that the thai alphabet

included 3 different consonants for S (ส, and ษ ) that are all in the high class and so will give also the same tone but he couldn't give me an answer.

The simplified answer is that the Thai writing system still reflects its origins in the Devanagari script, although it was not created directly from it, rather via inspiration from old Khmer - at least this is what Wikipedia claims.

Anyhow, links back to Devanagari have been preserved, in Thai as in many other writing systems in South-East Asia. The 'extra' letters are there to represent sounds that exist in Indic languages (possibly also in Old Khmer at the time the system was created?).

In modern Standard Thai they sound exactly the same. One could also say that they serve the purpose of avoiding getting too many homonyms but I am not convinced this was the original intention.

There is much to learn in this area from a historical and etymological point of view, and some posters on the board are quite knowledgeable. I am not one of them so I'll shut up for now.

Unless you have a special interest in these matter though, it will be sufficient to memorize how the letters are pronounced in initial and final position of a syllable, and which class they belong to, so that you know how they affect the tone.

[Richard W]

Yes, if one views the letters themselves as being the 'words' พอ and ผอ or as symbols (as soon as they are in initial position of a syllable followed by a vowel they do have a pitch determining function.) rather than the phonemes (sounds) /ph/ and /ph/... so yes, perhaps a communication glitch like you say withnail. But that would be like looking upon English p like [pi:] rather than /p/.

An interesting test would be spoonerisms. To what extent does the tone attach to the consonant rather than the to the vowel? In Cham, which has two registers rather than tones, and in which most speakers are illiterate, register ('breathy' v. 'modal') was found to associate with the consonant rather than with the vowel in deliberate spoonerisms, a rahter common form of word play in Cham. I know Thai also has deliberate spoonerisms, but I don't know how traditional or spelling based they are.

[Hobgoblin]

There aren't any differences in the actual sounds those characters make in an orthographic sense when contained within a word. What may be different are how they are spoken when spelled:

พ (พอ) - Phaw[M]

ผ (ผอ) - Phaw[R]

These two characters exist for the same aspirate 'P' sound (three when you count ภ which is low) because of tones. Because of tone rules, a low or rising tone cannot come from a low consonant, and a mid or high tone cannot come from a high consonant. The same sound with both these classes covered insures that any tone can be attained from the same aspirate sound. So, if you hear an aspirate 'P' with a low or rising tone (such as ผม or ผ่าน), you know it's spelled with Phaw[R] Pheung[F]. If you hear a high or mid tone (พ้น or พา), you know it's spelled with Phaw[M] Phan[M]. Of course, if you have a low tone (live or dead syllable) or a falling tone, it's not clear since those tones can come from both consonants, depending on which tone mark is used, if any.

[DavidHouston]

Of course, if you have a low tone (live or dead syllable) or a falling tone, it's not clear since those tones can come from both consonants, depending on which tone mark is used, if any.

คุณหอบกอบลินครับ

Please explain to us how one might obtain a low tone (live or dead) from the consonant "พ". I do understand a falling tone in that "พ่า" and "ผ้า" have the same tone, differing only by tone mark. Thank you.

[Hobgoblin]

Of course, if you have a low tone (live or dead syllable) or a falling tone, it's not clear since those tones can come from both consonants, depending on which tone mark is used, if any.

คุณหอบกอบลินครับ

Please explain to us how one might obtain a low tone (live or dead) from the consonant "พ". I do understand a falling tone in that "พ่า" and "ผ้า" have the same tone, differing only by tone mark. Thank you.

Oops My mistake in the post - only falling tones should come from both these letters. Low and Rising come only from ผ, and high and mid should only be from พ.