Mnemonic For Tone

[duiter]

Dear all,

What is the best mnemonic to remember tone ?

For example middle class with long vowel

Thanks a lot

[Richard W]

No single mnemonic, but I found that the paradoxical rule that a low tone cannot occur with a low class initial and a high tone cannot occur with a high class initial goes a long way.

The tones for live syllables with mid class have to be learnt, and better still learn a direct transfer from spelling to phonetic tone.

You can then extend that list with the following modifications:

1. High and mid differ only for high, live with no tone mark, in which case the tone is rising.

2. Mai tri and mai chattawa only occur with mid class consonants - and if they do, incorrectly, occur with other classes, the consonant class has no effect on the tone - mai tri is high and and mai chattawa is rising, end of story.

3. Live v. dead is irrelevant if there is a tone mark, i.e. treat dead syllables as live in these cases.

4. Sequence of tones of live, low differs from live, mid by dropping the second from the series, i.e.:

Mid => middle, low, falling, high, rising

Low => middle, falling, high

(Rule 2 works here, to restrict the second sequence length to three, namely no tone, mai ek, mai tho.)

5. Dead tone with no tone mark is the same as mai ek, except that in this case there isn't time for tone to fall on a short vowel. Consequently, low, no tone mark, dead, short is high, not falling. This is the only case in which vowel length matters to the rules. This case is worth learning specifically. (Actually, falling tone can occur on a short dead syllable, but there are very few examples, and they all need tone marks.)

So, in the example, mid, no tone mark, dead, long -> middle, mai ek -> low tone.

If you want to make sense of the rules, note that:

(a) The core combinations are (i) live, no tone mark; (ii) live, mai ek; (iii) live, mai tho; and (iv) dead, no tone mark.

( Mid, live, mai tho and low, live, mai ek used to have different tones (and the tone difference lives on in the regional dialects). The tones merged a long time ago in Central Thai, and there are many words that are spelt with a low consonant and mai ek when they should be spelt with a high consonant and mai tho, for the former is commoner than the latter when spelt etymologically, and was therefore the safer bet when one couldn't remember the spelling.

The other combinations cover cases which have not developed regularly from the language as it was when first written. They are chiefly used for new words, but also for some irregular modifications of old words.

[klons]

What I did was memorize the rules for the middle class and sort of think of that as the norm.

Then moving along to high class take note of any deviations from the norm. I think there was only one

and that's the consonant with the long vowel is rising instead of mid.

Then moving along to the low class I use the phrase low falling falling from high.

(The norm being mark ่ is low mark ้ is falling but with low consonants it becomes falling and high)

Plus you have low consonant with short vowel and dead syllable = high tone

and low consonant with long vowel and dead syllable = falling tone

and I think that's about it.