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Thai Consonants · ro ruea

#35 of forty-four · low class

ro ruea

เรือ · boat

Low class อักษรต่ำ

Low class is the shifted class — the same mark lands a different tone than on mid or high.

Pronunciationinitial /r/
looped · print
loopless · modern
handwritten
Initial sound/r/RTGS r · Paiboon r
As finaln · แม่กนcloses a syllable → “dead”
Frequency#1 of 44a day-one letter — you’ll meet it immediately
CodepointU+0E23
ร เรือ (ro ruea) — Thai consonant meaning 'boat', engraved specimen plate
เรือ · boat — engraved specimen plate
What tone does give?class isn’t trivia — it’s the tone engine

A consonant’s class exists for one reason: it decides the tone. Low class is the shifted class — the same mark lands a different tone than on mid or high. Here’s every outcome for as the initial:

Syllable No mark◌่ mái èek◌้ mái thoo
Liveopen or sonorant endmidfallinghigh
Dead · longlong vowel + stopfallingfallinghigh
Dead · shortshort vowel + stophighfallinghigh

Live syllable open or sonorant end

No markmid
◌่mái èekfalling
◌้mái thoohigh

Dead · long syllable long vowel + stop

No markfalling
◌่mái èekfalling
◌้mái thoohigh

Dead · short syllable short vowel + stop

No markhigh
◌่mái èekfalling
◌้mái thoohigh

Change the initial to another class and the same marks produce different tones — that shift is what makes tone a small system, not 44 separate facts. Derive tones on the Tones surface

Easy to mix upby shape, and by sound

Sounds like — watch the spelling

Same initial /r/:

stands alone — no other consonant makes this initial sound, so it’s always . One of the easy ones to spell.

Same final /n/ — identical at a word’s end:

In real wordsthe letter at work
How it’s writtenstart at the head

Stroke-order animation isn’t available for this letter yet. Nearly every Thai letter begins at its head — the little loop — then one continuous stroke.

Where it comes fromorigin & lineage

Indic and native; /r/ (often [l]).

OriginIndic
LineageBrahmi → Khmer → Thai
UnicodeU+0E23
Statusin current use