Tone number

A tone number is a numeral used in a notational system for marking the tones of a language. The number is usually placed after the romanized syllable. Notice that a number may have very different meanings in different contexts since the systems may have developed independently.

Other means of indicating tone in romanizations include tone diacritics or spelling changes. For instance, in Mandarin, the syllable 马 (which has a falling-rising tone) is represented in Wade-Giles romanization as ma³, Hanyu Pinyin as mǎ, and Gwoyeu Romatzyh as maa. The Wade-Giles romanization is an example of the use of tone numbers.

Chinese language study

In the Chinese tradition, numbers are assigned to various tones. For example, Standard Chinese has five tones and the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are assigned to them. Although those tones have names, which are more meaningful in the comparative study among geographical and chronological language varieties, most people refer to tones by number: "the first tone", "the second tone", and so on.

Tone numbers are also assigned for other spoken Chinese varieties according to various traditions, which may be unrelated to each other. The numbers are also unrelated to the relative pitch or the tones. That can be illustrated by comparing the tone charts of Standard Chinese (Mandarin), Cantonese, and Taiwanese Hokkien.

Mandarin
Tone number	1	2	3	4	5
Tone name	yin ping	yang ping	shang	qu	neutral
Tone letter	˥	˧˥	˩, ˨˩˦	˥˩
Cantonese
Tone number	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Tone name	yin ping	yin shang	yin qu	yang ping	yang shang	yang qu	shang yin ru	xia yin ru	yang ru
Tone contour	˥, ˥˧	˧˥	˧	˨˩, ˩	˩˧	˨	˥	˧	˨
Taiwanese
Tone number	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Tone name	yin ping	shang	yin qu	yin ru	yang ping	not used	yang qu	yang ru
Tone contour	˦	˥˩	˧˩	˧	˨˦	not used	˧	˥

Note: Tone sandhi rules and the unstressed syllable of Mandarin are not listed here for simplicity.

To enhance recognition and learning, color has also been associated with the tones.^[1] Although there are no formal standards, the de facto standard has been to use red (tone 1), orange (tone 2), green (tone 3),blue (tone 4) and black (tone 5). This color palette has been implemented in translation tools ^[2] and online dictionaries^[3]

Although tone numbers are quite useless in comparative studies, they are useful within the context of a specified dialect, since they are easy references. For example, we may see these descriptions:

In Mandarin, the numeral 1, originally in tone 1, is pronounced in tone 4 if followed by a classifier in tone 1, 2, or 3. It is pronounced in tone 2 if the classifier is in tone 4.
The Cantonese tones 7, 8, and 9 have the same tone contour as tones 1, 3, and 6 respectively.
In Taiwanese tone sandhi, tone 1 is pronounced as tone 7 if followed by other syllables in multisyllabic words.

Some romanization schemes, like Jyutping, use tone numbers. Even for Pinyin, tone numbers are used instead when diacritics are not available, as in basic ASCII text.

Other languages

Tone numbers are also used in the study of other tonal languages. Sometimes, 1 may mean high pitch and 5 may mean low pitch. We have to refer to the individual traditions to get the correct meanings.

References

^ Nathan Dummit, Chinese Through Tone & Color (2008)
^ Loqu8 iCE, a popup Chinese-English dictionary and translation tool, http://www.loqu8.com
^ MDBG Chinese-English Dictionary. In Display Options, "Mandarin tone colors", http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=0&wdqb=horse

Tone number

Chinese language study

Other languages

See also

References

Further reading