Tone Languages

(Click here to go back to the list of all language demos)

The examples are grouped according to the traditional division into contour- and register-tone languages.

A. Contour-tone languages
All examples are from the Asian region:

  • Mandarin
  • Cantonese
  • Thai

    B. Register-tone languages
    Two examples of the many West-African tone languages:

  • Ibibio, a Niger-Kordofanian language spoken in Nigeria
  • Yoruba; just a brief example but features talking drums

    See separate demo for the Sino-Tibetan language Mpi, which combines tone with voice quality.

    See V&C (p. 9-12), BPM (p. 231-233), Course in Phonetics (chap. 10), Laver (p. 465-483) and Handbook of the IPA (p. 14, and 23/24) for more details.

    Transcription of Tone

    There are two main systems for transcribing tone.

    The first system is commonly used for register tone languages with a small number of tones. The basic symbols (illustrated over the vowel a are á, à, and ā for high, low and mid, respectively. For further possibilities these symbols are combined: e.g â is falling (high + low). Thus, the symbols do not give an impression of the pitch movement, i.e they are not iconic. This system is used for the Ibibio example below.

    The second system is iconic. It is especially used for contour-tone languages. It represents pitch movement on a 5-point scale (1=lowest, 5=highest) by means of so-called tone-letters consisting of a vertical reference line on the right preceded by a line indicating pitch. Often the tone is also explicitly described by a series of numbers on the 5-point scale (it may not actually always be possible to reproduce all such sequences typographically as a tone letter). Even though this system is iconic, it is nonetheless a stylized representation, i.e it should not be assumed that it captures all details of actual pitch contours. This system is used in the Mandarin example below.

    The Thai example below illustrates the use of both systems (as well as the awkward fact that authors may differ in their designations for tones).

    Since the second system can be cumbersome to use in actual transcriptions, for many languages each tone has conventionally been assigned a tone number. For example, the high level tone in Mandarin is referred to as Tone number 1. A syllable with this tone can then be simply notated by appending the tone number as a superscript, e.g ma1.

    A further advantage of using tone numbers is that it provides a convenient way of describing tone sandhi. This refers to the often very complex modifications of tones when pronounced in sequence. A commonly quoted example for Mandarin is that in a sequence of two Tone-3 syllables, the first syllable is pronounced with Tone 2.

    1. Mandarin
    (Example from SoWL)

    Note: Words are played automatically in the order below
    Tone Number
    Description
    Pitch
    Tone Letter
    1 high level 55 ˥ ma "mother"
    2 high rising 35 ˦˥ ma "hemp"
    3 low falling rising 214 ˨˩˦ ma "horse"
    4 high falling 51 ˥˩ ma "scold"

    Click here for examples of the tones spoken in short phrases.
    Click here for the sonagram of a complete short story using only one syllable, but different tones.
    And here for the fitting sound:

    2. Cantonese
    (Example from IPA Illustrations)

    Tone Description
    high, level si
    mid, level si
    low-mid, level si
    low-mid to low, falling si
    low-mid to high, rising si
    low-mid to mid, rising si

    3. Thai

    Shows alternative designations for the same tones (arranged on the same line), and alternative transcription methods.

      Example from IPA Illustrations  
    Example from SoWL
    high khá
    		high rising 45 ˦˥ na:
    mid khā
    		mid falling 32 ˧˩ na:
    low khà
    		low falling 21 ˨˩ na:
    rising khă
    		low falling rising 215 ˨˩˦ na:
    falling khâ
    		high falling 51 ˥˩ na:

    (Just to make life really confusing the SoWL example is reproduced in the web version of "Course in Phonetics" and also in Laver with yet a third transcription method.)

    4. Ibibio
    (Example from SoWL)

    Although the language has three tones (high, low, and falling) the falling tone only occurs on final syllables, giving the following combinations in two-syllable words:

    Tone on First Syllable
    High Low
    Tone on
    Second
    Syllable
    		High ákp͡á
    		àkp͡á
    Falling ákp͡ân
    		àkp͡ɔ^
    Low ákù
    		àkp͡à

    5. Yoruba
    (from A. Simon (ed.) "Musik in Afrika")

    This gives some examples of imitation of tonal patterns by talking drums.

    One contrastive example is given at the beginning:

    1. ojo ("rain")
    2. ojo (Yoruba name)

    Click here for the whole sequence:

    Tone Sandhi

    Most tone languages have a number of rules that modify tones when spoken in a sequence, i.e when spoken in normal phrases rather than in isolation.

    One of the most well-known cases is in Mandarin Chinese: when two Tone-3 syllables occur in sequence, the first one is changed to Tone 2.

    Three examples are given. Each consists of 3 syllables. They are spoken first as isolated syllables (without sandhi) and then as a phrase (with sandhi). The tone of the middle syllable changes in each case from Tone 3 to Tone2 (indicated by "3>2").

    mai hau chou
    3 3>2 3
    S
    chi shuei guo
    1 3>2 3
    S
    wo hen ho
    3 3>2 3
    S