Tone name
Encyclopedia
In the Chinese
and Vietnamese
languages, tone names are the names given to the tone
s these languages use.
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
and Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
languages, tone names are the names given to the tone
Tone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
s these languages use.
- In Chinese, tone names are given in terms of the four tonesFour tonesThe four tones of Chinese phonology are four traditional tone-classes of words derived from the four phonemic tones of Middle Chinese. They are even level , rising , going departing , and entering checked .-Names:In Middle Chinese, each of the tone names carries the tone it identifies: 平 even ,...
, namely level , rising , departing , and enteringEntering toneA checked tone, commonly known by its Chinese calque entering tone , is one of four syllable types in the phonology in Middle Chinese which are commonly translated as tone. However, it is not a tone in the phonetic sense, but rather describes a syllable that ends in a stop consonant, such as p, t,...
, as well as dark and light , and high and low . - Standard Vietnamese has six tones, known as ngang (or bằng), sắc, huyền, hỏi, ngã, and nặng tones.