What is the list of diacritics used to denote the seven Cantonese tones (in pinyin or similar notation)? Is there a standard (or even, more common) convention?
asked Jul 12, 2015 at 1:17
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1This is an interactive page you can hear. Note the 9 tones in the flash icons. rthk.org.hk/elearning/bettercantonese/cantoneseabc_acc.htm– leo4jcJul 12, 2015 at 4:02
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Thanks for your link. However I cannot hear anything on my android phone. Why are 9 tones instead of 7 displayed. Do you have an alternate page or what web plugins do I need?– Jack MaddingtonJul 12, 2015 at 18:38
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1The site require flash plugin. Try this input.foruto.com/ccc/jyt/007.htm or input.foruto.com/ccc/jyt/005.htm No comment on the 7 or 9 issue. To me, there really are 9 distinct tones to me! The last three are short ones maybe it got rolled into the others in your system.– leo4jcJul 13, 2015 at 16:39
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1 Answer
Common romanization systems for Cantonese are Jyutping, Cantonese Pinyin, and Yale.
In both Jyutping and Cantonese Pinyin, tones are represented with numbers.
In Yale, tones are either indicated with tone marks coupled with -h, or with numbers:
1 high-flat 55 sī sīn sīk 1 high-fall. 53 sì sìn 2 mid-rising 35 sí sín 3 mid-flat 33 si sin sik 4 mid-falling 21 sìh sìhn 5 low-rising 13 síh síhn 6 low-flat 22 sih sihn sihk
answered Jul 12, 2015 at 3:27
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Thanks for your excellent explanation. But aren't there supposed to be 7 tones. The link by @leo4jc displays 9 boxes but I cannot hear anything. Could you please clarify. Jul 12, 2015 at 18:35
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2@JackMaddington Yale distinguishes the high-level and high-falling (both #1 in all systems) with tone marks (e.g., sī vs sì). Neither of the other systems do. It should be noted that in HK Cantonese, those two tones have merged, and so they don't need to be distinguished in writing. Jul 12, 2015 at 20:21
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2@JackMaddington Also, since you seem confused about the "9 tones", I should note that there are 3 other "allotones" for syllables ending in -p,-t,-k. For example, sīk has a different tone contour than sī. Similarly for si and sik and for sih and sihk. However, these tone differences are never contrastive (i.e., if the syllable ends in a stop consonant, then the contour is one way, if they don't, then it's the other way), so all the romanizations I listed don't make the distinction--they treat sihk as the same tone as sih, etc. Jul 12, 2015 at 20:25
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1Thank you for yor explanation. It makes clear how the three extra tone sounds can be described with no need for additional notation (and how the first two tones have come to losr their distinction in HK Cantonese). Jul 14, 2015 at 7:03