Tone name

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In tonal languages, tone names are the names given to the tones these languages use.

Contents

Chinese

Pitch contours of the four Mandarin tones Pinyin Tone Chart.svg
Pitch contours of the four Mandarin tones

In contemporary standard Chinese (Mandarin), the tones are numbered from 1 to 4. They are descended from but not identical to the historical four tones of Middle Chinese, namely level (Chinese :; pinyin :píng), rising (; shǎng), departing (; ), and entering (; ), each split into yin (; yīn) and yang (; yáng) registers, and the categories of high and low syllables.

Vietnamese

Northern Vietnamese (non-Hanoi) tones as uttered by a male speaker in isolation. Vietnamese tone northern.svg
Northern Vietnamese (non-Hanoi) tones as uttered by a male speaker in isolation.

Standard Vietnamese has six tones, known as ngang, sắc, huyền, hỏi, ngã, and nặng tones.

Thai

Thai has five phonemic tones: mid, low, falling, high and rising, sometimes referred to in older reference works as rectus, gravis, circumflexus, altus and demissus, respectively. [2] The table shows an example of both the phonemic tones and their phonetic realization, in the IPA.

Thai language tone chart Thai tones.svg
Thai language tone chart
ToneThaiExamplePhonemicPhoneticExample meaning in English
midสามัญนา/nāː/[näː˧]paddy field
lowเอกหน่า/nàː/[näː˩] or [näː˨˩](a nickname)
fallingโทหน้า/nâː/[näː˦˩]face, front
highตรีน้า/náː/[näː˦˥] or [näː˥]maternal aunt or uncle younger than one's mother
risingจัตวาหนา/nǎː/[näː˨˩˦] or [näː˨˦]thick

See also

References

  1. Nguyễn, Văn Lợi; Edmondson, Jerold A. (1998), "Tones and voice quality in modern northern Vietnamese: Instrumental case studies", Mon-Khmer Studies , 28: 1–18
  2. Frankfurter, Oscar. Elements of Siamese grammar with appendices. American Presbyterian mission press, 1900 (Full text available on Google Books)