Editing Cherokee language (section)

=== Tone ===
Cherokee distinguishes six pitch patterns or [[Tone (linguistics)|tones]], using four pitch levels. Two tones are level (low, high) and appear on short or long vowels. The other four are [[contour tone]]s (rising, falling, lowfall, highrise) and appear on long vowels only.{{sfn|Montgomery-Anderson|2008a|p=51}}

There is no academic consensus on the notation of tone and length, although in 2011 a project began to document the use of tones in Cherokee to improve language instruction.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Dunlap |first=Mary Jane |date=2011-11-01 |title=Language specialists racing with time to revitalize Cherokee language |url=https://today.ku.edu/2011/11/01/language-specialists-racing-time-revitalize-cherokee-language |access-date=2023-01-28 |publisher=The University of Kansas |language=en}}</ref> Below are the main conventions, along with the standardized [[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]] notation.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center"
|-
! Vowel length
! Tone
! IPA
! Pulte & Feeling<br />(1975)
! Scancarelli<br />(1986)
! Montgomery-Anderson<br />(2008, 2015)
! Feeling (2003),<br />Uchihara (2016)
|-
|rowspan="2"|Short
| Low
| {{IPA|˨}}
|ạ²
|à
|a
|a
|-
| High
| {{IPA|˧}}
|ạ³
|á
|á
|á
|-
|rowspan="6"|Long
| Low
| {{IPA|˨}}
|a²
|à:
|aa
|aa
|-
| High
| {{IPA|˧}}
|a³
|á:
|áa
|áá
|-
| Rising
| {{IPA|˨˧}}
|a²³
|ǎ:
|aá
|aá
|-
| Falling
| {{IPA|˧˨}}
|a³²
|â:
|áà
|áà
|-
| Lowfall
| {{IPA|˨˩}}
|a¹ (= a²¹)
|ȁ:
|aà
|àà, àa
|-
| Superhigh
| {{IPA|˧˦}}
|a⁴ (= a³⁴)
|a̋:
|áá
|aa̋
|}

* The ''low tone'' is the default, unmarked tone.
* The ''high tone'' is the marked tone. Some sources of high tone apply to the [[Mora (linguistics)|mora]], others to the syllable. Complex [[morphophonological]] rules govern whether it can spread one mora to the left, to the right or at all. It has both lexical and morphological functions.
* The ''rising and falling tones'' are secondary tones, i.e. combinations of low and high tones, deriving from moraic high tones and from high tone spread.
* The ''lowfall tone'' mainly derives from glottal stop deletion after a long vowel, but also has important morphological functions ([[#Pronominal lowering|pronominal lowering]], [[#Tonicity|tonic/atonic alternation]], [[#Laryngeal alternation|laryngeal alternation]]).
* The ''superhigh tone'', also called ''highfall'' by Montgomery-Anderson, has a distinctive [[morphosyntactical]] function, primarily appearing on adjectives, nouns derived from verbs, and on subordinate verbs. It is mobile and falls on the rightmost long vowel. If the final short vowel is dropped and the superhigh tone becomes in word-final position, it is shortened and pronounced like a slightly higher final tone (notated as ''a̋'' in most orthographies). There can only be one superhigh tone per word, constraint not shared by the other tones. For these reasons, this contour exhibits some accentual properties and has been referred to as an [[Stress (linguistics)|accent]] (or stress) in the literature.{{sfn|Uchihara|2016|p=95}}

While the tonal system is undergoing a gradual simplification in many areas, it remains important in meaning and is still held strongly by many, especially older, speakers. The syllabary displays neither tone nor vowel length, but as stated earlier regarding the paucity of minimal pairs, real cases of ambiguity are rare. The same goes for transliterated Cherokee ({{lang|chr-Latn|osiyo}} for {{IPA|chr|oosíjo|}}, {{lang|chr-Latn|dohitsu}} for {{IPA|chr|doòhiı̋dʒu|}}, etc.), which is rarely written with any tone markers, except in dictionaries. Native speakers can tell the difference between written words based solely on context.