Why the three different classes?

[yougivemebaby]

Can someone explain to me why there is three different classes? Is it purely grammatical or is it to help with tone rules?

Also does someone have a simple table with the tone rules? (trolls welcome )

Thank you!

[Richard W]

It is a matter of history, plus a little twist that causes there to be three classes rather than two.

When Thai was first committed to writing, there was a fuller set of voiced consonants including /g/ ค, /dʑ/ ช, /d/ ท, /b/ พ, /z/ ซ, and /v/ ฟ, and there was a contrast between voiceless (or pre-aspirated) e.g. หน and voiced nasals น. There were three contrasting tones on live syllables, and there was no tone contrast on dead syllables. These voicing contrasts were lost, but the contrast was preserved in the tone. The old oral stops /g/, /dʑ/, /d/ and /b/ also became aspirated, contrasting with the pre-existing aspirated stops. This leads to a system with two classes of consonants, and two tone marks, mai ek and mai tho. The tone contrast now also extended to dead syllables.

The local twist is that not all consonants occurred with both sets of tones - /k/ ก, /tɕ/ จ, /t/ ต and /p/ ป occurred with only a single set. It so happened that for one of the old tones, the commonest and therefore written without a tone mark, they came to be pronounced with same tone as the old voiced consonants. There were thus three rules.

Modern /d/ ด and /b/ บ were anciently pronounced preglottalised, which is similar but slightly different to being implosive. Their tone is the same as for the old voiceless consonants. Finally, one of the tones for the old voiced consonants merged with one of the tones for the old voiceless consonants. This gives the modern system of five tones except for notations with mai tri and mai chattawa.

The gap in the modern system whereby /k/ ก, /tɕ/ จ, /t/ ต and /p/ ป and modern /d/ ด and /b/ บ were pronounced with just one set of tones has been filled in, initially with recent Chinese loans. Two new tone marks were therefore added, mai tri and mai chattawa.

Finally, the system of low and high tones on dead syllables with short vowels and of low and falling tones on dead syllables with long vowels has been filled in by a mixture of Chinese loans, English loans, onomatopoeic coinings, and miscellaneous innovations. Falling and high tones can now occur on dead syllables with both short and long vowels. No new marks were needed for these innovations - the marking system for live syllables was adequate to fill in the gaps.

The table at http://www.thai-language.com/ref/tone-rules is a nicely condensed one. For the classes of the consonants, I recommend the table phonetic organisation of consonants.

I memorised the sequence of tones for mid-class live syllables - M L F H R. This sequence matches most of the numberings of the tones that one is likely to meet. Some systems number from 0 and others from 1. For high-class syllables, only the tone for no mark differs, R. For low-class syllables, the second tone in the list is omitted, so the sequence goes M F H. I back this up with the mnemonic that the low tone does not occur with a low class initial and that the high tone does not occur with a high class initial.

For dead syllables, the tone is the same as for mai ek, except with a short vowel and a low-class initial. The mnemonic I use is that for dead syllables with short vowels and with an initial low consonant, there isn't time for the tone to fall, so it is high rather than falling. Note that this is only a mnemonic; there are rare dead syllables with a short vowel and a falling tone.

[AyG]

If you're really interested in a full explanation, get J. Marvin Brown's book "From Ancient Thai to Modern Dialects". But be warned, it's a fairly tough read.

[yougivemebaby]

If you're really interested in a full explanation, get J. Marvin Brown's book "From Ancient Thai to Modern Dialects". But be warned, it's a fairly tough read.

Looked pretty tough already

[yougivemebaby]

It is a matter of history, plus a little twist that causes there to be three classes rather than two.

When Thai was first committed to writing, there was a fuller set of voiced consonants including /g/ ค, /dʑ/ ช, /d/ ท, /b/ พ, /z/ ซ, and /v/ ฟ, and there was a contrast between voiceless (or pre-aspirated) e.g. หน and voiced nasals น. There were three contrasting tones on live syllables, and there was no tone contrast on dead syllables. These voicing contrasts were lost, but the contrast was preserved in the tone. The old oral stops /g/, /dʑ/, /d/ and /b/ also became aspirated, contrasting with the pre-existing aspirated stops. This leads to a system with two classes of consonants, and two tone marks, mai ek and mai tho. The tone contrast now also extended to dead syllables.

The local twist is that not all consonants occurred with both sets of tones - /k/ ก, /tɕ/ จ, /t/ ต and /p/ ป occurred with only a single set. It so happened that for one of the old tones, the commonest and therefore written without a tone mark, they came to be pronounced with same tone as the old voiced consonants. There were thus three rules.

Modern /d/ ด and /b/ บ were anciently pronounced preglottalised, which is similar but slightly different to being implosive. Their tone is the same as for the old voiceless consonants. Finally, one of the tones for the old voiced consonants merged with one of the tones for the old voiceless consonants. This gives the modern system of five tones except for notations with mai tri and mai chattawa.

The gap in the modern system whereby /k/ ก, /tɕ/ จ, /t/ ต and /p/ ป and modern /d/ ด and /b/ บ were pronounced with just one set of tones has been filled in, initially with recent Chinese loans. Two new tone marks were therefore added, mai tri and mai chattawa.

Finally, the system of low and high tones on dead syllables with short vowels and of low and falling tones on dead syllables with long vowels has been filled in by a mixture of Chinese loans, English loans, onomatopoeic coinings, and miscellaneous innovations. Falling and high tones can now occur on dead syllables with both short and long vowels. No new marks were needed for these innovations - the marking system for live syllables was adequate to fill in the gaps.

The table at http://www.thai-language.com/ref/tone-rules is a nicely condensed one. For the classes of the consonants, I recommend the table phonetic organisation of consonants.

I memorised the sequence of tones for mid-class live syllables - M L F H R. This sequence matches most of the numberings of the tones that one is likely to meet. Some systems number from 0 and others from 1. For high-class syllables, only the tone for no mark differs, R. For low-class syllables, the second tone in the list is omitted, so the sequence goes M F H. I back this up with the mnemonic that the low tone does not occur with a low class initial and that the high tone does not occur with a high class initial.

For dead syllables, the tone is the same as for mai ek, except with a short vowel and a low-class initial. The mnemonic I use is that for dead syllables with short vowels and with an initial low consonant, there isn't time for the tone to fall, so it is high rather than falling. Note that this is only a mnemonic; there are rare dead syllables with a short vowel and a falling tone.

Thank you for taking the time to answer me..

[AyG]

The Thai writing system originated in the Sukhothai period and was devised for that particular dialect.

To quote from another of J. Marvin Brown's books, referring to this period:

"Remember that low aspirates were voiced in Sukhothai (ค่า was gàa) - in fact, that is what 'low' really meant: voiced consonants. Similarly, 'high' meant aspirates, and 'mid' meant glottals."

Subsequently the same script was used to write the Ayutthaya dialect which was somewhat different from that of Sukhothai, hence the clear logic of the Sukhothai system became clouded. Something very similar happened with the tone system, which was originally very simple for Sukhothai Thai, but is rather a confusing mess for Ayutthaya (and hence contemporary) Thai.

[eric67]

This explanation also based on Marvin Brown's work, but maybe a bit easier to understand:

[Richard W]

The tone split dates seem too early - the Thai script isn't known from before the 13th century!

The 'glottalisation' characterisation does not work for ก จ ต ป. In fact, the true anciently glottalised group, อ อย ด บ, only splits off separately in Northern Thai (and its Tai Khuen offshoot), where they are the only mid consonants. Like Thai, in Northern Thai, the high v. mid difference is only relevant for live syllables with no tone mark. (The difference can be more extensive in Isan dialects.) Finally, I don't believe the evidence that บ was originally pronounced /ʔm/ as opposed to /ʔb/ is persuasive. Li notes that /ʔm/ and /hm/ in related non-Tai languages, such as Sui, are both represented by หม in Thai, while Sui /ʔb/ corresponds to Thai บ. While Shan has /m/ corresponding to Thai บ, note that Thai at least has strong rhinoglottophiliac tendencies, so a sequences of changes [ʔb] > [ʔm] > [m] is quite natural. (Some Shan dialects actually have [w] instead!)

[liddelljohn]

When i was attempting to improve my Thai language skills all the teachers in Phuket insisted that including Tones there were 14 classifiers , ,,,got me very confused to the point i gave up after 3 years , never did attempt the script

i am normally a good language learner in terms of general speech , if not the written word can fluently speak french, german , spanish , and reasonable basic Thai,arabic ,italian and some russian , and i find scandinavian languages easy to follow , but not relly important as msot Scandies speak superb english .

[AyG]

strong rhinoglottophiliac tendencies

I had to go to the dictionary for that. I was glad to discover rhinoglottophilia isn't a sexual attraction to rhinos. To save others searching, it's the connection between laryngeal (glottal) and nasal articulations. It's a modern term (dating from 1975), and is more of an observation of an association in certain languages than an explanation of it.