Theme : Alphabets - 02b Thai alphabet - part 2

Next to the stamps in the middle of the sheet, some other signs can be found on the border of the frame.
Here we find the 'vowel' marks or other diacritics (tone marks)
In the chart below, we see some of the vowel(combinations) which are for untrained ears, sometimes hard to distinguish from each other.

The tone marks, indicate if it's a high, mid or low tone; a rising or a falling tone ...
Five examples of 'KA', each with their own meaning and pronouciation.

ka ka ka ka ka ...

Same with 'MA' in a different transcript

ma ma ma ma ...

Try saying 'nah-nana-naa-na' and you'll notice that we also pronounce words in different tones.
The meaning of the word however, stays the same most of the time, where in tonal languages the meaning changes.
Or say 'yeah' when you're excited, when in doubt, when replying recultantly... I'm sure you'll notice diffent tones too.

Burmese has 2 tones,
Mandarin has 4 tones,
Thai has 5 tones,
Laotian has 5 or 6 (depends on the dialect/region)
Vietnamese has 6 tones,
Taiwanese has 7 tones,
and Cantonese (Hong Kong for example) has 9 tones ...

what a ca-ca-ca-ca-caphony...

to be continued....