Rules
Tone Rules
Factors

Consonants
Low Class
Middle Class
High Class

Tone Marks
- Low Class
- Middle Class
- High Class

Exams
- Consonant Groups
- Which Tone? (Low)
- Which Tone? (Mid)
- Which Tone? (High)

The Middle Class Consonants.

The following are the Middle Class consonants.

ก จ ฎ ฏ ด ต บ ป อ

Of these the consonant อ should be specially noted. When this occurs as an initial consonant and is immediately followed by the low class letter ย it is always silent but the tone of the syllable still follows the tone rules for a syllable having an initial middle class consonant in the normal manner.

There are only four words plus a number of compounds where the silent “อ” occurs, and you will notice that they all take the low tone.

Tone Rules for Middle Class Consonants.

(1) Syllables beginning with a middle class consonant and having no tone mark take the Mid Tone unless they end with K, P or T sounds or in a short vowel.

(2) Syllables beginning with a middle class consonant and having no tone mark take the Low Tone if they end in K, P or T sounds.

(3) Syllables beginning with a middle class consonant and ending with a short open vowel take the Low Tone. There are not many words of this type.

(4) Syllables beginning with a middle class consonant and having the tone mark MYAYK ( -่ ) over the initial consonant take the Low Tone.

(5) Syllables beginning with a middle class consonant and having the tone mark MYTO ( -้ ) over the initial consonant take the Falling Tone.

(6) Syllables beginning with a middle class consonant and having the tone mark MYDTREE ( -๊ ) over the initial consonant take the High Tone. There are very few of these words.

Syllables beginning with a middle class consonant and having the tone mark MYJUDTAWAH ( -๋ ) over the initial consonant take the Rising Tone. There are very few of these words.

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