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by contingencies
4842 days ago
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Actually I am almost certain Thai and Lao have those consonant divisions as well, in fact I believe 3 or 4. If I am not mistaken they are still taught and are part of the tone system and/or can affect unwritten vowel selection. More certainly, the consonant classes somehow stem from the need to preserve pronunciation of Pali, a middle-Indian prakrit language (with features not present in these SEA countries' modern languages) that is used as the littoral language of Theravadin ("older school") Buddhism. See http://pali.pratyeka.org/ for more info on that. |
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