In tonal languages, tone names are the names given to the tones these languages use.
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/58/Pinyin_Tone_Chart.svg/115px-Pinyin_Tone_Chart.svg.png)
- 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:
平 ; pinyin: píng), rising (Chinese:上 ; pinyin: shǎng), departing (Chinese:去 ; pinyin: qù), and entering (Chinese:入 ; pinyin: rù), each split into yin (Chinese:陰 ; pinyin: yīn) and yang (Chinese:陽 ; pinyin: yáng) registers, and the categories of high and low syllables.
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ce/Vietnamese_tone_northern.svg/250px-Vietnamese_tone_northern.svg.png)
- Standard Vietnamese has six tones, known as ngang, sắc, huyền, hỏi, ngã, and nặng tones.
- 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.
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/Thai_tones.svg/250px-Thai_tones.svg.png)
Tone | Thai | Example | Phonemic | Phonetic | Example meaning in English |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
mid | สามัญ | นา | /nāː/ | [näː˧] | paddy field |
low | เอก | หน่า | /nàː/ | [näː˩] or [näː˨˩] | (a nickname) |
falling | โท | หน้า | /nâː/ | [näː˦˩] | face, front |
high | ตรี | น้า | /náː/ | [näː˦˥] or [näː˥] | maternal aunt or uncle younger than one's mother |
rising | จัตวา | หนา | /nǎː/ | [näː˨˩˦] or [näː˨˦] | thick |
See also
edit- Tone letter
- Tone number
- Archaic & modern four tones in Chinese
References
edit- ^ Nguyễn, Văn Lợi; Edmondson, Jerold A. (1998), "Tones and voice quality in modern northern Vietnamese: Instrumental case studies", Mon-Khmer Studies, 28: 1–18
- ^ Frankfurter, Oscar. Elements of Siamese grammar with appendices. American Presbyterian mission press, 1900 [1] (Full text available on Google Books)