Tone number

Tone numbers are numerical digits used like letters to mark the tones of a language. The number is usually placed after a romanized syllable. Tone numbers are defined for a particular language, so they have little meaning between languages.

Other means of indicating tone in romanization include diacritics, tone letters, and orthographic changes to the consonants or vowels. For instance, in Mandarin, the syllable 马 (which has a falling-rising tone) is represented in Wade-Giles romanization as ma³, with a tone number; in Hanyu Pinyin as mǎ, with a diacritic; and in Gwoyeu Romatzyh as maa, with a change in the vowel.

In Chinese

In the Chinese tradition, numbers, diacritics, and names are assigned to the historical four tones of Chinese. These are consistent across all Chinese dialects, reflecting the development of tone diachronically. However, it is also common to number the tones of a particular dialect independently of the others. For example, Standard Chinese has four–five tones and the digits 1–5 or 0–4 are assigned to them; Cantonese has 6–9 tones, and the digits from 0 or 1 to 6 or 9 are assigned to them. In this case, Mandarin tone 4 has nothing to do with Cantonese tone 4, as can be seen by comparing the tone charts of Standard Chinese (Mandarin), Cantonese, and Taiwanese Hokkien.

Mandarin
Tone number	1	2	3	4	5
Tone name	dark level	light level	rising	departing	neutral
Tone letter	˥	˧˥	˩, ˨˩˦	˥˩	(none)
Cantonese
Tone number	1	2	3	4	5	6	7 (1)	8 (3)	9 (6)
Tone name	dark level	dark rising	dark departing	light level	light rising	light departing	upper dark entering	lower dark entering	light entering
Tone letter	˥, ˥˧	˧˥	˧	˨˩, ˩	˩˧	˨	˥	˧	˨
Taiwanese (臺灣話) and Min Nan (閩南語)
Tone number	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Tone name	dark level	rising	dark departing	dark entering	light level	not used	light departing	light entering
Tone letter	˦	˥˩	˧˩	˧	˨˦	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 such numbers are useless in comparative studies, they are convenient for in-dialect descriptions:

In Mandarin, the numeral one, 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 has tone 4.
In Taiwanese tone sandhi, tone 1 is pronounced as tone 7 if followed by another syllable in a polysyllabic word.

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.

For the numbers of the traditional tone classes, which are consistent between dialects, see four tones (Chinese).

Notes

↑ Nathan Dummit, Chinese Through Tone & Color (2008) or www.chinesecoloured.com
↑ Loqu8 iCE, a popup Chinese-English dictionary and translation tool
↑ MDBG Chinese-English Dictionary. In Display Options, "Mandarin tone colors",

Tone number

In Chinese

See also

Notes

Further reading