Checked tone

Checked tone
Traditional Chinese	入聲にっしょう
Simplified Chinese	入声にっしょう
Literal meaning	the tone of character 入いれ 'entering' tone
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin rùshēng Wade–Giles ju4-shêng1 Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization yahpsīng Jyutping jap6 sing1 IPA [jɐp̚˨.sɪŋ˥] Southern Min Hokkien POJ ji̍p-siaⁿ
Alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	促聲
Simplified Chinese	促声
Literal meaning	the hurried tone
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin cùshēng Wade–Giles ts'u4-shêng1 Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization chūksīng Jyutping cuk1 sing1 IPA [tsʰʊk̚˥.sɪŋ˥]

A checked tone, commonly known by the Chinese calque entering tone, is one of the four syllable types in the phonology of Middle Chinese. Although usually translated as "tone", a checked tone is not a tone in the phonetic sense but rather a type of syllable that ends in a stop consonant or a glottal stop. Separating the checked tone allows -p, -t, and -k to be treated as allophones of -m, -n, and -ng, respectively, since they are in complementary distribution. Stops appear only in the checked tone, and nasals appear only in the other tones. Because of the origin of tone in Chinese, the number of tones found in such syllables is smaller than the number of tones in other syllables. Chinese phonetics have traditionally counted them separately.

Final voiceless stops and therefore the checked "tones" have disappeared from most Mandarin dialects, spoken in northern and southwestern China, but have been preserved in southeastern Chinese branches like Yue, Min, and Hakka.

Tones are an indispensable part of Chinese literature, as characters in poetry and prose were chosen according to tones and rhymes for their euphony. This use of language helps reconstructing Old Chinese and Middle Chinese pronunciations since Chinese writing system is logographic, rather than phonetic.

Phonetics

From a phonetic perspective, the prototypical entering tone is simply a syllable ending with a voiceless stop that has no audible release: [p̚], [t̚], [k̚], and/or a glottal stop [ʔ̚] depending on the language variety. Middle Chinese has only the first three.

It is customarily called a tone regardless of whether a tonal distinction is possible in such syllables. In languages such as Early Middle Chinese and most varieties of Wu, such syllables do not have contrastive tones (i.e. the tone or pitch of the syllable is entirely predictable) and are therefore phonologically toneless. In languages such as Cantonese or Hakka, a small number of tonal distinctions exist (typically 2), which historically developed as a substitute for the lost Middle Chinese initial voicing.

Some Chinese varieties have innovated new final consonants from such historical syllables. A few dialects of Gan have [l] (from historical [t̚]). In some dialects of Cantonese and Gan, the final stop is voiced.

History

The voiceless stops that typify the entering tone date back to the Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the parent language of Chinese as well as the Tibeto-Burman languages. In addition, Old Chinese is commonly thought to have syllables ending in clusters /ps/, /ts/, and /ks/ (sometimes called the "long entering tone" while syllables ending in /p/, /t/ and /k/ are the "short entering tone"). Such clusters were later reduced to /s/, which, in turn, became /h/ and ultimately "departing tone" in Middle Chinese.

The first Chinese philologists began to describe the phonology of Chinese during the Early Middle Chinese period (specifically, during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, between 400 and 600 AD), under the influence of Buddhism and the Sanskrit language that arrived along with it. There were several unsuccessful attempts to classify the tones of Chinese before the establishment of the traditional four-tone description between 483 and 493. It is based on the Vedic theory of three intonations (聲明せいめい論ろん). The middle intonation, udātta, maps to the "level tone" (平聲ひょうしょう); the upwards intonation, svarita, to the "rising tone" (上聲じょうせい); the downward intonation, anudātta, to the "departing tone" (去聲きょしょう). The distinctive sound of syllables ending with a stop did not fit the three intonations and was categorised as the "entering tone" (入聲にっしょう), thus forming the four-tone system. The use of this system flourished in the Sui and Tang dynasties (7th–10th centuries), during which the Qieyun (Chinese: 切きり韻いん) rime dictionary was written.

Note that modern linguistic descriptions of Middle Chinese often refer to the level, rising and departing tones as tones 1, 2 and 3, respectively.

By the time of the Mongol invasion (the Yuan dynasty, 1279–1368), the former final stops had been reduced to a glottal stop /ʔ/ in Old Mandarin. The Zhongyuan Yinyun (中原なかはら音韻おんいん), a rime book of 1324, already shows signs of glottal stop disappearing and the modern Mandarin tone system emerging in its place. The precise time at which the loss occurred is unknown though it was likely gone by the time of the Qing Dynasty, in the 17th century.

Example

Chinese character	Fanqie spelling and Middle Chinese reconstruction	Modern varieties of Chinese having entering tone					Sino-Xenic pronunciations			Standard Mandarin (no entering tone)	Gloss
		Hakka	Hokkien	Jianghuai Mandarin (Nanjing dialect)	Wu (Ningbo dialect)	Cantonese	Classical Japanese	Korean	Vietnamese
合ごう	侯ほう閤ごう切きり [ɣɒp]	[hap˥]	[hɐʔ˥]	ho⁵ [xoʔ˥]	[ɦɐʔ˩˨]	[hɐp˨]	ガフ gapu, カフ kapu	합 hap	hợp / hạp	hé [xɤ̌]	'union', 'close'
十じゅう	是ぜ執と切せつな [ʑĭĕp]	[sip˥]	[sip˥], [tsap˥]	shr⁵ [ʂʅʔ˥]	[zʷœʔ˩˨]	[sɐp˨]	ジフ zipu, シフ sipu	십 sip	thập	shí [ʂɨ̌]	'ten'
佛ふつ	符ふ弗どる切きり [bʰĭuət]	[fut˥]	[hut˥], [put˥]	fu⁵ [fuʔ˥]	[vɐʔ˩˨]	[fɐt˨]	ブツ butu, フツ putu	불 bul	phật	fó [fuɔ̌]	'Buddha'
八はち	博ひろし拔切 [pæt]	[pat˩]	[pat˩], [peʔ˩]	ba⁵ [paʔ˥]	[pɐʔ˥]	[paːt˧]	ハチ pati, ハツ patu	팔 pal	bát	bā [pá]	'eight'
易えき	羊ひつじ益えき切きり [jĭɛk]	[ji˥˧], [jit˥]	[ek˥], [iaʔ˥]	i⁵ [iʔ˥]	[ji˦], [jeʔ˩˨]	[jɪk˨]	ヤク yaku, エキ eki	역 yeok	dịch	yì [î]	'change', 'exchange'
客きゃく	苦く格かく切きり [kʰɐk]	[hak˩],[kʰak˩]	[kʰek], [kʰeʔ˩]	kä⁵ [kʰɛʔ˥]	[kʰɐʔ˥]	[haːk˧]	キャク kyaku, カク kaku	객 gaek	khách	kè [kʰɤ̂]	'guest'

怒髮どはつ衝冠，憑欄處しょ，瀟瀟雨う歇}[xĭɐt]；

抬望眼め，仰天ぎょうてん長嘯ちょうしょう，壯たけし懷ふところ激げき烈れつ[lĭɛt]。
三さん十功名塵與土，八はち千せん里さと路ろ雲くも和わ月つき[ŋĭwɐt]；
莫等閒あいだ，白はく了りょう少しょう年頭ねんとう，空そら悲切きり[ʦʰiet]。

靖やすし康かん恥はじ，猶なお未み雪ゆき[sĭuɛt]；
臣子しんし恨，何時いつ滅めつ[mĭɛt]。
駕が長ちょう車しゃ，踏破とうは賀が蘭山あららぎやま缺かけ[kʰĭuɛt]；
壯たけし志こころざし飢かつえ餐胡虜とりこ肉にく，笑わらい談だん渴飲匈奴きょうど血ち[xiwet]。

待まち從したがえ頭あたま，收拾しゅうしゅう舊きゅう山河さんが，朝あさ天てん闕[kʰĭwɐt]！

— Yue Fei, 滿江みつえ紅べに (Full River of Red)

Entering tone in Chinese

Mandarin

See also: Mandarin dialects § Tones

The entering tone is extant in Jianghuai Mandarin and Minjiang Sichuanese. Other dialects have lost the entering tone, and syllables that had the tone have been distributed into the four modern tonal categories, depending on their initial consonants.

The Beijing dialect that forms the basis of Standard Mandarin redistributed syllables beginning with originally unvoiced consonants across the four tones in a completely random pattern. For example, the three characters 积脊迹, all pronounced /tsjek/ in Middle Chinese (William Baxter's reconstruction), are now pronounced jī jǐ jì, with tones 1, 3 and 4 respectively. The two characters 割わり／葛かずら, both pronounced /kat/, are now pronounced gē and gé/gě respectively, with the character 葛かずら splitting on semantic grounds (tone 3 when it is used as a component of a name, mostly tone 2 otherwise).

Similarly, the three characters 胳阁各かく (MC /kak/) are now pronounced gē gé gè. The four characters 鸽蛤颌合 (MC /kop/) are now pronounced gē gé gé gě.

In those cases, the two sets of characters are significant in that each member of the same set has the same phonetic component, suggesting that the phonetic component of a character has little to do with the tone class that the character is assigned to.

In other situations, however, the opposite appears to be the case. For example, the group 幅はば福ぶく蝠辐／腹はら复 of six homophones, all /pjuwk/ in Middle Chinese and divided into a group of four with one phonetic and a group of two with a different phonetic, splits so that the first group of four is all pronounced fú and the second group of two is pronounced fù. Situations like this may result from the fact that only one of the characters in each group normally occurs in speech with an identifiable tone, and as a result, a "literary pronunciation" of the other characters was constructed based on the phonetic element of that character.

The chart below summarizes the distribution in the different dialects.

Mandarin dialect	Voiceless	nasal or /l/	Voiced obstruent
Peninsular / Jiao-Liao	3	4	2
Northeastern	1, 2, 3, 4 (mostly 3, irregular)	4	2
Beijing	1, 2, 3, 4 (no obvious pattern)	4	2
North-Central / Ji-Lu	1	4	2
Central Plains	1		2
Northwestern / Lan-Yin	4		2
Southwestern	2 (mainly), 1, 4 or preserved (Minjiang dialect)
Yangtze/Jianghuai	entering tone preserved

Identifying checked tones in Modern Standard Mandarin

There are several conditions that can be used to determine if a character historically had a checked tone in Middle Chinese based on its current reading in Modern Standard Mandarin. However, there are many characters, such as 切きり, 塔とう, 六ろく, 刻こく and 骨ほね which do not satisfy any of these conditions at all.

Initial	Final	Tone	Exceptions
Tenuis obstruent: ㄅ、ㄉ、ㄍ、ㄐ、ㄓ、ㄗ (b, d, g, j, zh, z)	Non-nasal final	Second tone	鼻はな, 值
Alveolar consonant: ㄉ、ㄊ、ㄋ、ㄌ、ㄗ、ㄘ、ㄙ (d, t, n, l, z, c, s) or ㄖ (r)	ㄜ (e)	(any)	呢、眲、若わか（般~）、惹
Velar consonant: ㄍ、ㄎ、ㄏ (g、k、h) Retroflex consonant：ㄓ、ㄔ、ㄕ、ㄖ (zh, ch, sh, r)	ㄨㄛ (uo)	(any)	咼（渦うず、堝、過か、鍋なべ、禍わざわい） 果はて（猓、粿、裹、蜾、輠、餜、夥おびただし） 火ひ、和わ（~麵）、貨
Bilabial consonant: ㄅ、ㄆ、ㄇ (b, p, m) Alveolar non-sibilant consonant: ㄉ、ㄊ、ㄋ、ㄌ (d, t, n, l)	ㄧㄝ (ie)	(any)	爹、咩
Non-labial tenuis obstruent: ㄉ、ㄍ、ㄗ (d, g,z) Non-labial fricative: ㄏ、ㄙ (h, s)	ㄟ (ei)	(any)	這、誰だれ
ㄈ (f)	ㄚ、ㄛ (a,o)	(any)
Alveolar sibilant：ㄗ、ㄘ、ㄙ (z, c, s)	ㄚ (a)	(any)	仨、灑
(any)	ㄩㄝ (üe)	(any)	嗟's variant reading of juē, 靴くつ, 瘸

• A character with a nasal final /-n/, /-ŋ/ in Modern Standard Mandarin will not have the checked tone in Middle Chinese. (The only exception is 廿にじゅう; niàn.)
• A character with the sibilant final /-ɿ/ in Standard Chinese, i.e. those with initials z-, c-, s- and final -i, will not have the checked tone in Middle Chinese.
• A character with the final -uai or -uei in Modern Standard Mandarin will typically not have the checked tone in Middle Chinese. (Exceptions: 率りつ; shuài, and others)
• A character with a tenuis obstruent initial (pinyin: b, d, g, j, z, zh, z）in Standard Mandarin and the third tone will typically not have the checked tone in Middle Chinese. (Exceptions: 百ひゃく; bǎi, 葛かずら; gě when used as a surname, 骨ほね; gǔ, 角かく; jiǎo, 窄; zhǎi, among others)
• Characters that begin with an unaspirated obstruent and end in a nasal final (n or ng) in Mandarin almost never have light level tone (or second tone in Modern Standard Mandarin, marked in pinyin with an acute accent). This is a corollary of the first condition in the table above, where characters that begin with an unaspirated obstruent (pinyin b, d, g, j, z, zh), end in a vowel, and have a light level tone (阳平) in Mandarin (corresponding to a rising tone in Standard Mandarin) almost always derive from an entering tone (e.g. 德とく; dé, 革かわ; gé, 絕ぜっ绝; jué,雜ざつ/杂; zá and 宅たく; zhái all come from entering tones). As such, *gáng and *zún are not recognised syllables in Standard Chinese.
• If a character has a phonetic component that is known to have an entering tone, other characters that have that phonetic component probably have an entering tone. For example, if one already knows that 白しろ; 'white' has entering tone, one can conjecture (correctly) that 拍はく; 'to beat', 柏かしわ; 'fir', 帛; 'white cloth', 迫さこ; 'urgent' also have entering tone. However, there are plenty of exceptions, such as 怕; 'afraid' and 扒; 'to cling to'', 'to gather up', which lack the entering tone.

Wu

Most varieties of Wu Chinese preserve the entering tone. However, no contemporary Wu varieties preserve the /p/, /t/ or /k/ distinction, but instead merges them all into a glottal stop /ʔ/. For example, in Shanghainese, the three lexemes 濕しめ／湿しめ; 'wet', 失しつ; 'lose', 塞ふさが; 'block', historically ending in /p/, /t/ and /k/, all end in a glottal stop, and are pronounced seq /səʔ⁵⁵/.

In some modern Wu varieties such as Wenzhounese, even the glottal stop has disappeared, and the entering tone is preserved as separate tone, with a falling-rising contour, making it unequivocally a phonemic tone in modern linguistics.

The pitch of the entering tones are divided into two registers, depending on the initials:

• "dark entering" (陰かげ入いれ), a high-pitched checked tone, with a voiceless initial.
• "light entering" (陽ひ入いれ), a low-pitched checked tone, with a voiced initial.

Many terms with grammatical functions also undergo sporadic evolution and gain a checked tone. This process can be considered a form of lenition, and is sometimes considered a form of glottalization.

Term	Gloss	Wu										Non-Wu
		Shanghai	Suzhou	Ningbo	Jinhua	Chongming	Changzhou	Wuxi	Jiaxing	Tiantai	Hangzhou	Beijing	Guangzhou	Nanchang	Xining
阿おもね	diminuitive	aq⁷ /aʔ꜆/	aeq⁷ /aʔ꜆/	aq⁷ /ɐʔ꜆/	eq⁷ /əʔ꜆/	aeq⁷ /æʔ꜆/	aq⁷ /aʔ꜆/	aq⁷ /aʔ꜆/	aq⁷ /ɑʔ꜆/	aq⁷ /aʔ꜆/	aq⁷ /ɑʔ꜆/	a /a/	aa³ /a꜄/	/꜀ŋa/	/꜀a/
個こ	possessive	gheq⁸ /ɦəʔ꜇/	keq⁷ /kəʔ꜆/	goq⁸ /ɡoʔ꜇/	keq⁷ /kəʔ꜆/	geq⁸ /ɡəʔ꜇/	geq⁸ /ɡəʔ꜇/	keq⁷ /kəʔ꜆/	keq⁷ /kəʔ꜆/	koq⁷ /koʔ꜆/	koq⁷ /koʔ꜆/	gè /kɤ꜄/	ko³ /kɔ꜄/	/ko꜄/	/kɔ꜄/

Romanization used is Wugniu. This phenomenon can also be seen in many pronouns, such as Shanghainese aq-la (阿おもね拉ひしげ, "we") and Yuyaonese ⁸geq-laq₈ (搿辣, "they").

Cantonese

In general, Cantonese preserves the Middle Chinese finals intact, including the differentiation between -p, -t and -k final consonants. Standard Cantonese does not use any glottal stops as final consonants.

There are a few isolated cases where the final consonant has changed as a result of final dissimilation, but they remain in the checked tone.

Chinese character	Middle Chinese (Baxter)	Standard Cantonese (Jyutping)	Hakka (PFS)	Sino-Korean	Sino-Vietnamese
法ほう	pjop	faat3	fap	법 (beop)	pháp
乏とぼし	bjop	fat6	fa̍t	핍 (pip)	phạp

Like most other Chinese variants, Cantonese has changed initial voiced stops, affricates and fricatives of Middle Chinese to their voiceless counterparts. To compensate for losing that difference, Cantonese has split each Middle Chinese tones into two, one for Middle Chinese voiced initial consonants (light) and one for Middle Chinese voiceless initial consonants (dark). In addition, Cantonese has split the dark-entering tone into two, with a higher tone for short vowels and a lower tone for long vowels. As a result, Cantonese now has three entering tones:

• Upper dark entering / short dark entering (上陰かみかげ入いれ/短たん陰かげ入いれ)
• Lower dark entering / long middle entering (下陰したかげ入いれ/長ちょう中入なかいり)
• Light entering (陽ひ入いれ)

Some variants of Yue Chinese, notably including that of Bobai County (Chinese: 博ひろし白しろ; pinyin: Bóbái) in Guangxi and Yangjiang (simplified Chinese: 阳江; traditional Chinese: 陽ひ江こう; pinyin: Yángjiāng; Cantonese Yale: Yèuhnggōng) in Guangdong, have four entering tones: the lower light tone is also differentiated according to vowel length, short vowels for upper light and long vowels for lower light. Thus in such varieties:

• Upper dark entering / short dark entering (上陰かみかげ入いれ/短たん陰かげ入いれ)
• Lower dark entering / long middle entering (下陰したかげ入いれ/長ちょう中入なかいり)
• Upper light entering / short light entering (上陽じょうよう入いれ/中入なかいり/短たん陽ひ入いれ)
• Lower light entering / long light entering (下しも陽ひ入いれ/長陽ちょうよう入いれ)

Chinese character	Middle Chinese (Baxter)	Standard Cantonese (Jyutping)	Vowel length in standard Cantonese	Bobai dialect (IPA)	Sino-Vietnamese
北きた	pok	bak1	short	/paʔ55/	bắc
百ひゃく	paek	baak3	long	/pak33/	bách
薄うすき	bak	bok6	short	/pɔk22/	bạc
白しろ	baek	baak6	long	/pak22/	bạch
竹たけ	tsyowk	zuk1	short (the final -uk /ʊk̚/ does not distinguish long from short)	/tʃuk55/	trúc
捉	tsraewk	zuk3, zuk1		/tʃɔk33/	tróc
鐲	dzyowk, draewk	zuk6		/tʃɔk22/	trạc
濁にご	draewk	zuk6		/tʃɔk11/	trọc

Hakka

Hakka preserves all Middle Chinese entering tones and is split into two registers. Meixian Hakka dialect often taken as the paradigm gives the following:

• "dark entering" (陰かげ入いれ) [ ˩ ], a low-pitched checked tone
• "light entering" (陽ひ入いれ) [ ˥ ], a high-pitched checked tone

Middle Chinese entering tone syllables ending in [k] whose vowel clusters have become front high vowels like [i] and [ɛ] shifts to syllables with [t] finals in some of the modern Hakka, as seen in the following table.

Character	Guangyun fanqie	Middle Chinese reconstruction	Hakka Chinese	Gloss
職しょく	之これ翼つばさ切きり	tɕĭək	tsit˩	vocation, profession
力ちから	林はやし直ただし切きり	lĭək	lit˥	strength, power
食しょく	乗じょう力りょく切きり	dʑʰĭək	sit˥	eat, consume
色いろ	所ところ力つとむ切きり	ʃĭək	sɛt˩	colour, hue
德とく	多た則のり切きり	tək	tɛt˩	virtue
刻こく	苦く得え切き	kʰək	kʰɛt˩	carve, engrave, a moment
北きた	博ひろし墨ぼく切きり	pək	pɛt˩	north
國くに	古ふる或ある切せつな	kuək	kʷɛt˩	country, state

Min

Southern Min (Minnan, including Taiwanese) has two entering tones:

• Upper (dark, 陰かげ入いれ), also numbered tone 4
• Lower (light, 陽ひ入いれ), tone 8

A word may switch from one tone to the other by tone sandhi. Words with entering tones end with a glottal stop ([-ʔ]), [-p], [-t] or [-k] (all unaspirated). There are many words that have different finals in their literary and colloquial forms.

Eastern Min, as exemplified by Fuzhounese, also has two entering tones:

• Upper/dark entering, 陰かげ入いれ, which in Fuzhounese has the tonal value /˨˦/ and ends in the glottal stop /ʔ/. This tone contour is not shared with any other tone category.
• Lower/light entering, 陽ひ入いれ, which in Fuzhounese has the tonal value /˥/ and also ends in the glottal stop /ʔ/.

Within its complex tone sandhi laws, Fuzhounese has a split in sandhi behavior between two separate upper/dark entering 陰かげ入いれ tones. This is believed to be a reflex of an earlier stage in its development, where final /k/ was distinguished from final /ʔ/.

In the related Fuqing dialect, a proportion of entering tone lexemes have lost their glottal stop and have merged into the phonetically equivalent tones:

• Upper/dark entering, 陰かげ入いれ, with value /˨˩/, is merging into upper/dark departing, 陰かげ去さ, with value /˨˩/.
• Lower/light entering, 陽ひ入いれ, with value /˥/, is merging into upper/dark level, 陰平かげひら, with value /˥˧/.

Outcomes of Glottal Stop Retention in Fuzhou vs Loss in Fuqing

Historical Entering Tone	Dark entering (陰かげ入いれ)			Light entering (陽ひ入いれ)
Entering Tone Character	隔へだた	索さく	曲きょく	石いし	糴	畫が	挃
Fuzhou dialect (colloquial reading)	gáh kɑʔ˨˦	só̤h sɔʔ˨˦	kuóh kʰuɔʔ˨˦	siŏh suoʔ˥	diăh/diĕh tieʔ˥	uăh uaʔ˥	dĭk tiʔ˥
Historical Other Tone	Dark departing (陰かげ去さ)			Dark level (陰平かげひら)
Other Tone Character	教きょう	燥	課か	輸	爹	蛙かえる	蜘
Fuzhou dialect (colloquial reading)	gá kɑ˨˩˧	só̤ sɔ˨˩˧	kuó kʰuɔ˨˩˧	suŏ suo˥	diă/diĕ tie˥	uă ua˥	dĭ/tĭ ti˥
Fuqing dialect (colloquial reading)	kɑ˨˩	θしーたɔ˨˩	kʰuɔ˨˩	θしーたyo˥˧	tia˥˧	ua˥˧	ti˥˧

This merger can also affect sandhi environments, but there is the option to use the sandhi pattern of the former checked tone while still eliminating the final glottal stop.

Additionally in Fuqingnese, sandhi environments where the light entering 陽ひ入いれ tone is non-final cause the glottal stop to weaken and in some tones lost, and where the tone changes to a low sandhi tone /˨˩/, the glottal stop is completely lost. The dark entering 陰かげ入いれ tone on the other hand retains its glottal stop in sandhi environments.

Entering tone in Sino-Xenic

Many Chinese words were borrowed into Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese during the Middle Chinese period so they preserve the entering tone to varying degrees.

Japanese

Because Japanese does not allow a syllable to end with a consonant except ん n, the endings -k, -p, -t were rendered as separate syllables -ku or -ki, -pu, and -ti (Modern -chi) or -tu (Modern -tsu) respectively. Later phonological changes further altered some of the endings:

• In some cases in which the ending is immediately followed by an unvoiced consonant in a compound, the inserted vowel ending is lost, and the consonant becomes geminate.
  • Examples: 学がく, gaku + 校こう, kau (> Modern Japanese kō) becomes 学校がっこう, gakkō, 'school', and 突, totu + 破やぶ, pa (> Modern Japanese ha when standing alone) becomes 突破とっぱ, toppa (breakthrough)
• The -pu ending changes into -u. (pu > fu > hu > u). That process can be followed by -au > - ō and -iu > -yū.
  • Example: 十じゅう, zipu, 'ten' becomes jū (phonologically zyū)

Recovering the original ending is possible by examining the historical kana used in spelling a word, which has also aided scholars in reconstructing historical Chinese pronunciation.

Korean

Korean keeps the -k and -p endings while the -t ending is represented as -l (tapped -r-, [ɾ], if intervocalic) as Sino-Korean derives from a northern variety of Late Middle Chinese where final -t had weakened to [r].

Vietnamese

Vietnamese preserves all endings /p/, /t/ and /k/ (spelt -c). Additionally, after the vowels ê or i, the ending -c changes to -ch, giving rise to -ich and -êch, and ach (pronounced /ajk/) also occurs for some words ending with -k.

Only the sắc and nặng tones are allowed on checked tones. In Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary, those tones were split from the Middle Chinese "entering" tone in a similar fashion to Cantonese. Whether the syllable tone should be sắc or nặng depends on the original Middle Chinese syllable's initial consonant voicing.

Chinese character	Middle Chinese reconstruction	Vietnamese
百ひゃく	[pɐk] (voiceless initial)	bách
白しろ	[bʰɐk] (voiced initial)	bạch
室しつ	[ɕĭĕt] (voiceless initial)	thất
實み	[dʑʰĭĕt] (voiced initial)	thật
一いち	[ʔĭĕt] (voiceless initial)	nhất
日ひ	[nʑĭĕt] (voiced initial)	nhật
密ひそか	[mĭĕt] (voiced initial)	mật
佛ふつ	[bʰĭuət] (voiced initial)	phật
屈こごめ	[kĭuət] (voiceless initial)	khuất or quật

See also

• Historical Chinese phonology
• Sino-Japanese vocabulary
• Sino-Korean vocabulary
• Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary
• Tone name

External links

• Chinese Universal Tone Tutorial at the Wayback Machine (archived June 13, 2006)