Tone marks in the Ramkhamhaeng inscription

[AyG]

I'd always understood that Thai tone marks were derived from Devhanagari script, being the numerals 1 through 4, and that would certainly be consistent with modern Thai orthography. However, when we look at the Ramkhamhaeng inscription we see what resembles máy ​èek and máy​ càt​tá​waa. Initially I thought this might be evidence that might question the authenticity of the inscription. However, I've been able to track down a couple of later inscriptions that have the same feature. Given that the language of Sukhothai only had three tones for live syllables, it seems doubtful that the creator of the Thai script would have chosen the Devhanagari numbers 1 and 4. It seems to me more probable that they were simply meaningless symbols - a vertical line and a vertical cross. So, can anyone enlighten me as to when the symbols for tonemarks changed to the system we use today? Thanks.

[DavidHouston]

From "หลักภาษาไทย" by กำชัย ทองหล่อ, page 76:

"รูปวรรณยุกต์นี้เริ่มมีใช้ขึ้นตั้งแต่สมัยสุโขทัย แต่มีใช้อยู่เพียง ๒ รูปเท่านั้น คือไม้เอกกับไม้โท แต่ไม้โทเขียนเป็นรูปกากบาท(+) ต่อมาในตอนปลายสมัยกรุงสุโขทัยจึงได้เปลี่ยนรูปกากบาทเป็นรูปไม้โท อย่างที่ใช้อยู่ในปัจจุบันนี้ ส่วนไม้ตรีกับไม้จัตวายังไม่มีใช้ น่าจะเพิ่งมีใช้เมื่อตอนปลายสมัยกรุงศรีอยุธยา และคงจะคิดขึ้นสำหรับใช้เขียนคำที่มาจากภาษาจีนเป็นมูลเหตุ ดังปรากฏคำเขียนอยู่ในกฎหมายศักดินาพลเรือนซึ่งมีคำเขียนภาษาจีนที่ใช้ไม้ตรีและจัตวากำกับอยู่หลายชื่อ . . .

ในสมัยสมเด็จพระนารายณ์มหาราชหรือก่อนนั้นขึ้นไปก็ยังไม่มีวรรณยุกต์กรีและจัตวาใช้ ข้อนี้มีหลักฐานยืนยันอยู่ในหนังสือจินดามณี ซึ่งเป็นตำราสอนหนังสือไทยที่พระโหราแต่งขึ้นในสมัยนั้น"

Edited December 3, 2013 by DavidHouston

[AyG]

Thank you very much. Most informative.

For anyone who's interested, here's my rough translation:

"The number of tone marks has increased since the Sukhothai era when only two forms: tone mark 1 and tone mark 2, but tone mark 2 was written in the shape of a cross (+). Later towards the end of the Sukhothai era it changed from a cross to its current form. At this time tone marks 3 and 4 were still not used - they have been used since the end of the Ayutthaya period and probably arose to write words from Chinese since they appears that legal terms relating to civilian land ownership which contain many Chinese names using these two tone marks.

"Up to the time of King Narayana (Narai) The Great there were no tone marks 3 or 4 used. We can see this from Chindamani (the name of the first Thai textbook) which taught the writing system which Phra Hora (King Narai) invented at that time."

[AyG]

Correction. The final sentence is better translated as:

"We can see this from Chindamani (the name of the first Thai textbook) which taught the writing system which was used at that time of Phra Hora (King Narai)."

[Richard W]

The decimal digits from Western Europe to the Western part of Vietnam are just different styles of the same basic ten symbols. The Thai tone marks have always struck me as being a very good match to the European style! Additionally, they're not a bad match to the Eastern (Persian and Indian) Arabic styles. Once mai tho (how old is this name?) is identified with '2', as opposed to simply being the second tone mark, the way is open for some form of '3' and '4' to be used for extra tone marks. The question then becomes, where were the forms chosen from?

[AyG]

The forms all originally stem from the Devhanagari script used for writing Indic languages such as Sanskrit and Pali, and is the ultimate source of the Thai script.

The correspondence between Thai tone marks and numerals doesn't stop with tone mark 4. Mai taikhu corresponds to the number eight.

It's pure speculation, but perhaps the original sequence was along these lines:

[Richard W]

The forms all originally stem from the Devhanagari script used for writing Indic languages such as Sanskrit ... and is the ultimate source of the Thai script.

You're quoting a lie. The Thai script does not derive from Devanagari. Everything points to the Pallava script as the script through which it derives from the Brahmi script, the common ancestor of the left to right Indic scripts. Edited December 8, 2013 by Richard W

[AyG]

The forms all originally stem from the Devhanagari script used for writing Indic languages such as Sanskrit ... and is the ultimate source of the Thai script.

You're quoting a lie. The Thai script does not derive from Devanagari. Everything points to the Pallava script as the script through which it derives from the Brahmi script, the common ancestor of the left to right Indic scripts.

I was unclear with what I wrote, but I was specifically referring to the numerals in response to the previous poster. The Thai letters in all probability do derive from Pallava. However, as for the numerals, as far as I know, neither the Pallava script nor the Brahmi script had numerals. (I'd be happy to be corrected on this.)

Historically, the ancient Indian mathematicians who led the rest of the world in mathematics wrote in Sanskrit using devanagari script. It would therefore seem logical that Thai numerals were developed either directly or indirectly from this script.

[Richard W]

However, as for the numerals, as far as I know, neither the Pallava script nor the Brahmi script had numerals. (I'd be happy to be corrected on this.)

The Brahmi script certainly has numerals associated with it. However, the earliest Brahmi numerals, though decimal, are not a place value system, but rather include separate symbols for 10, 20 etc. Although Unicode encodes Brahmi non-decimal numbers below 10 and decimal digits separately (see the Unicode chart for the Brahmi Block, the latter look like a clear evolution of the former.

I don't think we can ignore the Khmer connection. While the mai tri used for writing Thai on the Khom script variant of the Khmer script was used in Khmer for marking words as imitating an animal's cry, the use of mai tri in Thai is very similar to the use of Khmer treisap, which looks like a superscript shorthand digit 3 (compare U+17CA, U+17E3 and U+17F3 at the chart for the Khmer Block). The Khmer treisap switches a consonant from series 1 (old voiceless) to series 2 (old voiced), which in Thai terms is a switch from the high or mid class to the low class. Now, a very common use of mai tri is with short-vowelled dead syllables, such as โต๊ะ, where converting ต from mid class to low class would have the desired effect on the tone.

Mai chattawa is clearly the same as Khmer U+17CE KHMER SIGN KAKABAT, which is used to indicate a 'rising or exclamatory tone'.

Unfortunately, I don't have dates for the usages, so I can't say where the usages originated.