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How to Determine the Tone of a Syllable

contributed by Gregory Satir

Every syllable in a Thai word is spoken with a tone, one of five—mid, low, falling, high or rising. Determining the tone can be complicated. A syllable might have one of four tone marks written over it. The tone mark only partially determines the actual tone of that syllable. You also may need to consider the the syllable’s starting consonant and possibily how the syllable ends.

1.

Let’s start with the easy case. The third and fourth tone marks do actually determine the tone of a syllable. Just read this table:

-๊ high
-๋ rising

2.

Otherwise, syllables with the first or second tone mark, or no tone tone mark, can have more than one tone. We must determine the class of the syllable’s starting consonant — mid, high or low. Do not confuse consonant class with tone, even though they use the same words.

Three Classes of Consonants

Low
ค, ฅ, ฆ, ง, ช, ซ, ฌ, ญ, ฑ, ฒ, ณ, ท, ธ, น, พ, ฟ, ภ, ม, ย, ร, ล, ว, ฬ, ฮ

Mid
ก, จ, ฎ, ฏ, ด, ต, บ, ป, อ

High
ข, ฃ, ฉ, ฐ, ถ, ผ, ฝ, ศ, ษ, ส, ห

For more information on the classes of the Thai consonants, please see:

Lesson: Phonemic Approach to the Consonant Classes
Quiz: Sonorant, Aspirate, or Plain: the 21 Consonant Sounds
Quiz: Classes of All 44 Thai Consonants
Reference: Tone Rules
Reference: Thai Consonants

Now, if the syllable has a tone mark, use this table:

	Consonant Class
Tone Mark	Mid/High	Low
-่	low	falling
-้	falling	high

3.

If there is no tone mark written over the syllable, you must consider how the syllable ends. A dead syllable ends with a short vowel or one of these “stop” sounds: /-k/ /-t/ /-p/. A live syllable ends with a long vowel or one of these sonorant sounds: /-ng/ /-n/ /-m/ /-y/.

	Consonant Class
Syllable Type	Mid	High	Low
dead (short)	low	low	high
dead (long)	low	low	falling
live	mid	rising	mid

Where vowel length is pretty obvious:

short -ะ --ิ --ึ --ุ เ-ะ แ-ะ โ-ะ เ-าะ --ัวะ เ--ียะ เ--ือะ เ-อะ
long -า --ี --ือ --ู เ- แ- โ- -อ --ัว เ--ีย เ--ือ เ-อ --ำ