<p>You might be interested to know that for some of the minority (non-sinitic) languages of China with tonal systems, tone letters are used rather than marks or numbers.  Two examples are Zhuang and Hmong (Miao).  Some examples:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Northern Zhuang</p>
<p>na [na24]  ‘thick’</p>
<p>naz [na42]  ‘paddy field’</p>
<p>naj [na55]  ‘face’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, no letter indicates a rising tone, -z a falling tone, -j a high tone.  There are 6 open syllable and 2 closed syllable tones altogether.  (All of these words have clear cognates in Thai, by the way.)</p>
<blockquote>
<p>White Hmong</p>
<p>kuv [ku24]  ‘I’</p>
<p>koj  [ko53]  ‘you’</p>
<p>pos [po11]  ‘thorn’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>How confusing this would be depends in part on whether real consonants can appear in syllable-final position or not.  If so, you would have to get used to distinguishing the real ones from the ones just marking tone.  For these two languages, I believe Zhuang has a fair number of final consonants (including stops), but Hmong has very few.</p>
<p>I don’t know if this system has ever been applied to a Chinese dialect.  Probably one could do so, because Chinese syllables are not that different from Zhuang and Hmong ones in their basic shape.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-04T16:06:15.247Z
2014-07-04T16:06:15.247Z
2020-06-17T09:50:11.587Z
neubau
<p>Judging by the word topolect, I think you are most interested in this:
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese#Tones" rel="nofollow">Phonetic realization of Mandarin tones in principal dialects</a>
(scroll down to the table with the caption 'Phonetic realization…'). This is how people from different regions will most likely realize the tones when they are speaking mandarin with the "local flavour", whereas educated people, tv/radio hosts will perhaps strictly stick with the Standard Mandarin, even if they are not from Beijing. </p>

<p>Dialects have their own tone systems, with a varying number of tones. Unfortunately, phonological material is only available for a very few dialects, e.g. Hokkien, Cantonese, Shanghaiese [if you consider these to be dialects, I think they are languages on their own]. I used to do research on the tone systems of tonal languages, and there are at least two types of notations, the one with numbers describe the pitch, just as the OP demonstrates, and there is another kind of notation which uses "sticks", like ˥ Mandarin 1st tone, etc. (unfortunately this site doesn't support pasting them, please refer to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_%28linguistics%29#Word_tones_and_syllable_tones" rel="nofollow">table in this article.</a> </p>

<p>The Chinese people, when they are to discuss the tones for any reason, including linguists, will use tone names, that have existed since centuries if not millennia, e.g. 阳平、去声、上声, etc. These are less accurate, since they are not absolute notations of a tone contour and could vary across dialects and regions. A good reference would be this <a href="http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AE%98%E8%AF%9D#.E5.9F.BA.E4.BA.8E.E8.B0.83.E7.B1.BB.E7.9A.84.E5.88.86.E5.8C.BA.E6.96.B9.E5.BC.8F" rel="nofollow">table</a>. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-02T16:46:02.133Z
2014-07-02T16:46:02.133Z
Kovács Imre
<p>Mandarin, as everyone probably knows, has four tones: 1st, 2nd, 3rd &amp; 4th tone.</p>

<p>Each tone has its own tone mark that represents that tone:</p>

<ul>
<li>1st tone = ˉ (macron)</li>
<li>2nd tone = ˊ (acute accent)</li>
<li>3rd tone = ˇ (caron/háček)</li>
<li>4th tone = ˋ (grave accent)</li>
</ul>

<p>But these are all just representations of each tones actual 调值 (tone value), i.e.:</p>

<ul>
<li>1st tone = 55</li>
<li>2nd tone = 35</li>
<li>3rd tone = 214</li>
<li>4th tone = 51</li>
</ul>

<p>Each tone mark is a visual representation of each tones value. Good? Good.</p>

<p>Now the question:
<strong>Do any dialects have tone marks?</strong></p>

<p>Cantonese, at least the works that I have seen, is written with pinyin and tone numbers, i.e: <code>gwong2 dung1 waa2</code>...</p>

<p>Other topolects are simply written with IPA + tone contour marks.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-01T05:07:35.360Z
The Yale romanization of Cantonese uses tone marks (and -h for the lower series).  There is a wiki page about this.
neubau
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-01T05:11:28.963Z
Had a look. Isn't 2nd tone and 5th tone's tone mark the same? (A rising acute accent mark?) How would one differentiate between them?
Mou某
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-01T05:16:34.530Z
Tones 4,5,6 and 9 (the low ones) have an -h after the vowel, but before any final consonants.
neubau
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-01T07:03:14.917Z
Do you strictly mean *topolects* (e.g. Cantonese, Wu), *dialects* (e.g. Shenyang dialect, Beijing dialect) or *both*?
congusbongus
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-01T07:08:17.317Z
topolect is just a proper translation for 方言. I wrote both to cover all the bases. To answer your question *both*.
Mou某
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-06T12:23:11.210Z
Cantonese is not written in pinyin (well at least gwong2 dung1 waa2 is not pinyin, but jyutping, 粵拼).
dda
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-07T08:37:22.630Z
I don't know if the pitch notation, or tone value as you called it, is applicable to Mandarin. Unlike in Cantonese, in Mandarin 11, 22, 33, 44, 55 are all correct ways to pronounce the 1st tone, that's why we need tone marks to represent the change in tone instead of the absolute height of the tones.
NS.X.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-11T15:30:53.910Z
@NS.X. Really? I'm pretty sure there is a reason it's referred to as a **high** flat level tone...
Mou某
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-12T04:33:29.247Z
@user3306356 I think that name is inherited from ancient time when the tonal system is more akin to today's Cantonese. I am certain that in modern Mandarin, the absolute pitch for individual characters is mainly determined by the tone of the sentence, which is very different from Cantonese.
NS.X.
<topolect>
Dialects/Topolects: Tone Marks?
# Dialects/Topolects: Tone Marks?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-07-01)

Mandarin, as everyone probably knows, has four tones: 1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th tone.

Each tone has its own tone mark that represents that tone:

* 1st tone = ˉ (macron)
* 2nd tone = ˊ (acute accent)
* 3rd tone = ˇ (caron/háček)
* 4th tone = ˋ (grave accent)

But these are all just representations of each tones actual 调值 (tone value), i.e.:

* 1st tone = 55
* 2nd tone = 35
* 3rd tone = 214
* 4th tone = 51

Each tone mark is a visual representation of each tones value. Good? Good.

Now the question:
**Do any dialects have tone marks?**

Cantonese, at least the works that I have seen, is written with pinyin and tone numbers, i.e: `gwong2 dung1 waa2`...

Other topolects are simply written with IPA + tone contour marks.

**Tags:** topolect
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: The Yale romanization of Cantonese uses tone marks (and -h for the lower series).  There is a wiki page about this.  
> **username_0**: Had a look. Isn't 2nd tone and 5th tone's tone mark the same? (A rising acute accent mark?) How would one differentiate between them?  
> **username_1**: Tones 4,5,6 and 9 (the low ones) have an -h after the vowel, but before any final consonants.  
> **username_2**: Do you strictly mean *topolects* (e.g. Cantonese, Wu), *dialects* (e.g. Shenyang dialect, Beijing dialect) or *both*?  
> **username_0**: topolect is just a proper translation for 方言. I wrote both to cover all the bases. To answer your question *both*.  
> **username_3**: Cantonese is not written in pinyin (well at least gwong2 dung1 waa2 is not pinyin, but jyutping, 粵拼).  
> **username_4**: I don't know if the pitch notation, or tone value as you called it, is applicable to Mandarin. Unlike in Cantonese, in Mandarin 11, 22, 33, 44, 55 are all correct ways to pronounce the 1st tone, that's why we need tone marks to represent the change in tone instead of the absolute height of the tones.  
> **username_0**: @NS.X. Really? I'm pretty sure there is a reason it's referred to as a **high** flat level tone...  
> **username_4**: @user3306356 I think that name is inherited from ancient time when the tonal system is more akin to today's Cantonese. I am certain that in modern Mandarin, the absolute pitch for individual characters is mainly determined by the tone of the sentence, which is very different from Cantonese.  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2014-07-04. Score: 1

You might be interested to know that for some of the minority (non-sinitic) languages of China with tonal systems, tone letters are used rather than marks or numbers. Two examples are Zhuang and Hmong (Miao). Some examples:

> Northern Zhuang
>
> na [na24] ‘thick’
>
> naz [na42] ‘paddy field’
>
> naj [na55] ‘face’

So, no letter indicates a rising tone, -z a falling tone, -j a high tone. There are 6 open syllable and 2 closed syllable tones altogether. (All of these words have clear cognates in Thai, by the way.)

> White Hmong
>
> kuv [ku24] ‘I’
>
> koj [ko53] ‘you’
>
> pos [po11] ‘thorn’

How confusing this would be depends in part on whether real consonants can appear in syllable-final position or not. If so, you would have to get used to distinguishing the real ones from the ones just marking tone. For these two languages, I believe Zhuang has a fair number of final consonants (including stops), but Hmong has very few.

I don’t know if this system has ever been applied to a Chinese dialect. Probably one could do so, because Chinese syllables are not that different from Zhuang and Hmong ones in their basic shape.


---

### Answer by username_5 on 2014-07-02. Score: 1

Judging by the word topolect, I think you are most interested in this:
[Phonetic realization of Mandarin tones in principal dialects](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese#Tones)
(scroll down to the table with the caption 'Phonetic realization…'). This is how people from different regions will most likely realize the tones when they are speaking mandarin with the "local flavour", whereas educated people, tv/radio hosts will perhaps strictly stick with the Standard Mandarin, even if they are not from Beijing.

Dialects have their own tone systems, with a varying number of tones. Unfortunately, phonological material is only available for a very few dialects, e.g. Hokkien, Cantonese, Shanghaiese [if you consider these to be dialects, I think they are languages on their own]. I used to do research on the tone systems of tonal languages, and there are at least two types of notations, the one with numbers describe the pitch, just as the OP demonstrates, and there is another kind of notation which uses "sticks", like ˥ Mandarin 1st tone, etc. (unfortunately this site doesn't support pasting them, please refer to the [table in this article.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_%28linguistics%29#Word_tones_and_syllable_tones)

The Chinese people, when they are to discuss the tones for any reason, including linguists, will use tone names, that have existed since centuries if not millennia, e.g. 阳平、去声、上声, etc. These are less accurate, since they are not absolute notations of a tone contour and could vary across dialects and regions. A good reference would be this [table](http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AE%98%E8%AF%9D#.E5.9F.BA.E4.BA.8E.E8.B0.83.E7.B1.BB.E7.9A.84.E5.88.86.E5.8C.BA.E6.96.B9.E5.BC.8F).


---

