Tone name

The tones of the standard Chinese (Chinese四声/四声, pinyin sì Sheng, four tones ') are a characteristic of the high Chinese language.

With a tonal language property is a change in tone is also associated with a change in the meaning of the word. The high Chinese has four tones such; the neutral tone is sometimes counted as the fifth.

• 4.1 clay mold
• 4.2 transcription
• 4.3 fanqie

• 5.1 Tonsandhi the third tone
• 5.2 Tonsandhi of不( bù )
• 5.3 Tonsandhi of一( yī )
• 5.4 Other Tonsandhi phenomena

Importance

The syllables of the standard Chinese are pronounced with a tonal change, making their distinction is possible and completely different meanings can accept. A debate without proper emphasis usually leads to the fact that the speaker is not understood. So the two words are Běijīng (北京, Beijing ') and bèijǐng (背景, background' ) only through their tonal values ​​distinguishable.

The following example is often used to illustrate:

This set contains all the notes of the standard Chinese.

Many other Chinese languages ​​, while enjoying the more than four tones, the Cantonese, for example, has nine tones. In contrast to Cantonese there is no case relative dependencies in the debate, a single syllable suggests the sound, a relative distinction to following syllables is not necessary.

Classification

The tones are thereby divided as follows:

First sound

1 Ton第一声/第一声, dì yī Sheng

Traditional name: Chinese阴平/阴平, Pinyin Yin Ping, Yin level '

The pitch of the high tone is constant and high, the sound almost sung rather than spoken. The sound volume is constant. Shown is this tone by a bar over the vowel.

Example:今天 星期一, JinTian xīngqīyī, Today is Monday '.

Second sound

2 tone第二声/第二声, dì èr Sheng

Traditional name: Chinese阳平/阳平, Pinyin Ping Yang, Yang level '

The pitch of the sound rising up from the lower to middle in the higher pitch, similar to the intonation of a question in German. It is about 10 percent shorter than the first tone. The sound volume increases during the course of the syllable. He is represented by an acute.

Example:人民 银行/人民 银行Renmin yínháng, Bank of the People ( People's Bank) '.

Third sound

3 Ton第三声/第三声, dì sān Sheng

Traditional name: Chinese上声/上声, Pinyin shǎng Sheng, rising tone '

When falling - rising tone lower the pitch of the middle level down and generally rises again in the middle level. By Tonsandhis occur exceptions (see below). He is about 15 to 20 percent longer than the first tone, and so that the sound of the longest tone duration. The sound volume is at the beginning of the loudest, then falls and rises at the end of the syllable again slightly. He is represented by a caron.

Example:你 也 可以, nǐ Ye kěyǐ, you can, too. '

Fourth tone

4 Ton第四声/第四声, dì sì Sheng

Traditional name: Chinese去声/去声, Pinyin Qu Sheng, evacuating the Sound '

The pitch drops sharply down and the syllable is pronounced shorter with more emotion, comparable with the German accent of an instruction (eg go ). He has about a 20 to 25 percent shorter tone duration than the first tone, making it the shortest full tone. The sound volume drops sharply. He is represented by a grave accent.

Example:抱歉,再见/抱歉,再见, Baoqian, Zaijian, sorry, goodbye! '.

Plain clay

The neutral ( 5 ) audio playback is usually not counted:

Neutral tone (Chinese轻声/轻声, Pinyin qīng Sheng, lighter tone ')

The falling tone sounds short and easy, and is therefore often not considered as a separate sound. He has less than 50 percent of the tone duration of the first note and extremely low strength.

The neutral tone is common in polysyllabic words in which the second syllable is less pronounced than the first. So妈妈/妈妈is spoken as a mom, it occurs here, the neutral tone on the second syllable, although both represent the same character. It is mostly, rarely shown without tone marks by a small zero over the vowel.

Example

A common example to illustrate the difference in Chinese, is the comparison of the syllable ma and their different meanings depending on the tone:

Unstressed syllable:

The proceedings of the four tones with the syllable "ma" to listen? / I

As the example shows, the pronunciation of the correct tone is mandatory because only it is given a proper meaning; so the pronunciation of syllables, depending on the speaker is quite variable - however, the sound is always the same. A batch -wise comparison is the difference in meaning in German, in the four words leather, slut, loaders, songs, at a displacement of the first vowel.

Representation

Among other things, for didactic reasons, a representation of sounds is necessary. In addition to the explicit designation by the name of the sound be identified by an earthenware or indexing of the sounds is a common means.

Clay mold

The Chinese linguist Zhao Yuanren has developed a system to remember the tones. He divided the pitch into five levels, with 5 being the highest and 1 the lowest tone is. The change in tone can be represented by a concatenation of the numbers as a clay mold. For high Chinese to write therefore

The occurring in Tonsandhis half - third tone can be represented by / 21 / ( see below).

This form is used among other things for the description in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Transcription

Many Romanisierungen as Pinyin, MPS II and Tongyong Pinyin use diacritics over the vowels to represent the sounds. The transcription Zhuyin uses diacritics. In the Wade-Giles romanization, however, usually a superscript number is used at the end of the syllable to indicate the tone.

The Romanization Gwoyeu Romatzyh rarely used the tones are not represented by additional characters outside of the syllable, but also expands the syllable with letters. Thus, for the above syllable "ma" but presented with the first note as mha, with the second tone as ma.

The tone marks are, however, often omitted, as for native speakers a discussion of the importance of context is clear and people who do not speak the local language are usually not capable of the tones are to be considered in the debate.

The transcriptions treat generally not the case, the Tonsandhis occurring (see below) - the reader is requested to determine the correct tone itself.

Fanqie

The system of fanqie was used in ancient times to describe the pronunciation of Chinese characters. This was achieved by using two characters, representing the arrival and final position and at the same time sent the tone for the desired syllable. Through the development of the Chinese language the former system is not readily applicable to today's standard Chinese. With the modern Chinese transliterations of this system has also become superfluous.

Tonsandhi

Like other Chinese languages ​​has the high Chinese Tonsandhis over, can occur in the context -dependent sound changes. In this case, a subsequent syllable affect the original tone of a syllable ( naturals ).

Tonsandhi the third tone

• Follows a syllable in the third tone another syllable in the third tone, the preceding syllable is often pronounced in the second tone. Diving several syllables in the third tone immediately after the other, the first syllables in different variations can be pronounced.

• Lao lǐ mǎi Hao jiǔ,
• Lao Lí mǎi Hao jiǔ,
• Lao lǐ May Hao jiǔ or
• Lao Lí May Hao jiǔ

• Follows a syllable in the third tone syllable in a different tone than the third, the preceding syllable is pronounced in the third semi- tone, ie, the slope is omitted after falling.

Tonsandhi of不( bù )

The syllable不( " not " ) has the fourth tone bù as Stammton, but which is spoken as a second tone when another syllable in the fourth tone follows: Examples:

Tonsandhi of一( yī )

• Follows on the Chinese number一( "one") a syllable in the fourth or neutral tone ,一is spoken in the second tone.

• Follow on一a syllable in the first, second or third tone ,一is spoken in the fourth tone.

• Serves一not alone as determiner of the next word or is一at block end一is spoken in the first tone

More Tonsandhi phenomena

The numbers七( " Seven" ) and八( "eight" ) are similar to the above cases falling of many speakers before a fourth tone in the second tone, speaking in front of other tones in the fourth tone and isolated in the first tone.

Eintrittston

The North China once owned a fifth tone, " Eintrittston " (Chinese入声/入声, Pinyin Ru Sheng ) is called and which occurred in other Chinese languages. In the Jin language he is still preserved. This Eintrittston is a sound of very short duration and ends in a consonant or glottal stop. His sound is described as " like an arrow strikes in a wooden board ." However, in modern standard Chinese without this sound does not exist.