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 |
- "level, rising, departing, entering" or "pviaa, siorng, khix, jip" refer to the original four tones of Middle Chinese
- Not shown: Tone 6 (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 TRS for diacritics.