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stand beside them—silent of course—and so endue them with all the privileges and powers of the "high" class. 3) A third group, originally it would seem of no more than three or four, with all the functions of the "high" class except inherent tone, and not provided with any means of extending their powers, formed the so-called "middle" class.
The inheritors of this scheme, the Siamese and the Lao, Tonal consonants in Siamese and Lao. both preserve to-day all of its essential features; but they differ considerably as to the constitution of two of the groups, namely the "high" and the "middle" letters. The difference concerns the five simple (unvoiced), non-aspirate stops which stand each at or near the head of its particular order of consonants: ก, จ, ฏ, ต, ป. In Siamese these are all "middle" letters, while in Lao they are all "high." The question as to which more nearly represents the original scheme, can never be positively answered, because we can never recover the Sŭkhothăi pronunciation. But the probabilities seem all on the side of the Lao. In the first place, the Lao certainly seems the more primitive in type, preserving many archaic features which the Siamese has lost. In the second place, its central geographical position and its compact area would both defend it, in some degree at least, from the external contact and pressure which the Siamese has not been able to escape. And further, when we consider that any mind capable of thinking out such a scheme at all would not have made it purposely confused and irrational from the start; and when we recall how surely the mere progress of time operates to confound "the best laid schemes,"—as for example it has confounded our once quite rational English spelling;—we should be inclined, I think, to count that the best representative of the old, which most clearly shows evidence of order and intelligent plan. This the Lao does in surprising degree, as may be seen on comparison of any one of the consonant series of the Indian alphabet—the guttural for example—with the corresponding series in Lao. Thus:—
| surd | sonant | |||
| simple | aspirate | simple | aspirate | |
| Indian | k | kh | g | gh |
| corresponds to | ||||
| Lao | k | kh | k | gh |
| simple | aspirate | simple | aspirate | |
| "high" | "low" | |||
