Tone name

Template:Short description In tonal languages, tone names are the names given to the tones these languages use.

Chinese

File:Pinyin Tone Chart.svg

Pitch contours of the four Mandarin tones

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 (Template:Zh), rising (Template:Zh), departing (Template:Zh), and entering (Template:Zh), each split into yin (Template:Zh) and yang (Template:Zh) registers, and the categories of high and low syllables.

Vietnamese

File:Vietnamese tone northern.svg

Northern Vietnamese (non-Hanoi) tones as uttered by a male speaker in isolation.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>

Standard Vietnamese has six tones, known as ngang, sắc, huyền, hỏi, ngã, and nặng tones.

Thai

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.<ref>Frankfurter, Oscar. Elements of Siamese grammar with appendices. American Presbyterian mission press, 1900 [1] (Full text available on Google Books)</ref> The table shows an example of both the phonemic tones and their phonetic realization, in the IPA.

File:Thai tones.svg

Thai language tone chart

Tone	Thai	Example	Phonemic	Phonetic	Example meaning in English
mid	สามัญ	นา	main}}	main}}	paddy field
low	เอก	หน่า	main}}	main}} or {{#invoke:IPA|main}}	(a nickname)
falling	โท	หน้า	main}}	main}}	face, front
high	ตรี	น้า	main}}	main}} or {{#invoke:IPA|main}}	maternal aunt or uncle younger than one's mother
rising	จัตวา	หนา	main}}	main}} or {{#invoke:IPA|main}}	thick

See also

• Tone letter
• Tone number
• Archaic & modern four tones in Chinese