Tones of Taiwanese
Tones of Taiwanese. The traditional tone class categorization, named after the tones of Middle Chinese:
| Tone number |
Name | Description | Pitch | MTL | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | dark level (ym-pviaa (陰平)) | high | 55 | af | say (獅) |
| 2 | rising (siorng (上)) | shouting | 51 | ar | hor (虎) |
| 3 | dark departing (ym-khix (陰去)) | low falling | 31 | ax | pax (豹) |
| 4 | dark entering (ym-jip (陰入)) | low short | 3ʔ | aq | piq (鱉), aq (鴨) |
| 5 | light level (ioong-pviaa (陽平)) | curving tone | 24 | aa | hiim (熊), guu (牛) |
| 7 | light departing (ioong-khix (陽去)) | basic tone | 33 | a | chviu (象) |
| 8 | light entering (ioong-jip (陽入)) | high short | 5ʔ | ah | lok (鹿) |
- tone names "level, rising, departing, entering" or "pviaa, siorng, khix, jip" are from the suosefng of Middle Chinese
- Not shown: Tone 6 ("light rising", pitch 22/33) is not widely used. Lukang accent still has the 6th tone, which has merged with the 2nd and 7th tones in other dialects of Taiwanese. Tone 9 (pitch 35) is used in Japanese loanwords and contractions. See TL for diacritics.