Tones
Cantonese has nine tones in six distinct tone contours.
| Tone name | Yīn Píng (陰平) |
Yīn Shàng (陰上) |
Yīn Qù (陰去) |
Yáng Píng (陽平) |
Yáng Shàng (陽上) |
Yáng Qù (陽去) |
Yīn Rù (陰入) |
Zhōng Rù (中入) |
Yáng Rù (陽入) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tone Number | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 (1) | 8 (3) | 9 (6) |
| Tone name in English | high level or high falling | mid rising | mid level | low falling | low rising | low level | entering high level | entering mid level | entering low level |
| Contour | 55 / 53 | 35 | 33 | 21 / 11 | 13 | 22 | 5 | 3 | 2 |
| Character Example | 分 | 粉 | 訓 | 焚 | 奮 | 份 | 忽 | 發 | 佛 |
| Example | fan1 | fan2 | fan3 | fan4 | fan5 | fan6 | fat7 (fat1) | faat8 (faat3) | fat9 (fat6) |
Read more about this topic: Cantonese Pinyin
Famous quotes containing the word tones:
“And this mighty master of the organ of language, who knew its every stop and pipe, who could awaken at will the thin silver tones of its slenderest reeds or the solemn cadence of its deepest thunder, who could make it sing like a flute or roar like a cataract, he was born into a country without literature.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“There sighs, lamentations and loud wailings resounded through the starless air, so that at first it made me weep; strange tongues, horrible language, words of pain, tones of anger, voices loud and hoarse, and with these the sound of hands, made a tumult which is whirling through that air forever dark, as sand eddies in a whirlwind.”
—Dante Alighieri (1265–1321)
“This was Venice, the flattering and suspect beauty—this city, half fairy tale and half tourist trap, in whose insalubrious air the arts once rankly and voluptuously blossomed, where composers have been inspired to lulling tones of somniferous eroticism.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)