Checked Tone
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A checked tone, commonly known by the Chinese
calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language wh ...
entering tone, is one of the four syllable types in the
phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
of
Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
. Although usually translated as "tone", a checked tone is not a tone in the phonetic sense but rather a syllable that ends in a
stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...
or a
glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
. Separating the checked tone allows ''-p'', ''-t'', and ''-k'' to be treated as
allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...
s of ''-m'', ''-n'', and ''-ng'', respectively, since they are in
complementary distribution In linguistics, complementary distribution, as distinct from contrastive distribution and free variation, is the relationship between two different elements of the same kind in which one element is found in one set of environments and the other ele ...
. Stops appear only in the checked tone, and nasals appear only in the other tones. Because of the origin of tone in Chinese, the number of tones found in such syllables is smaller than the number of tones in other syllables. In Chinese phonetics, they have traditionally been counted separately. For instance, in
Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
, there are six tones in syllables that do not end in stops but only three in syllables that do so. That is why although Cantonese has only six tones, in the sense of six contrasting variations in pitch, it is often said to have nine tones. Final voiceless stops and therefore the checked "tones" have disappeared from most
Mandarin dialects Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...
, spoken in northern and southwestern China, but have been preserved in the southeastern branches of Chinese, such as Yue,
Min Min or MIN may refer to: Places * Fujian, also called Mǐn, a province of China ** Min Kingdom (909–945), a state in Fujian * Min County, a county of Dingxi, Gansu province, China * Min River (Fujian) * Min River (Sichuan) * Mineola (Am ...
, and
Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
. Tones are an indispensable part of Chinese literature, as
characters Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
in poetry and prose were chosen according to tones and rhymes for their
euphony Phonaesthetics (also spelled phonesthetics in North America) is the study of beauty and pleasantness associated with the sounds of certain words or parts of words. The term was first used in this sense, perhaps by during the mid-20th century and ...
. This use of language helps the reconstruction of the pronunciation of
Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese language, Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones ...
and
Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
since the Chinese writing system is
logographic In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced ''hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, as ...
, rather than phonetic.


Phonetics

From a phonetic perspective, the entering tone is simply a
syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...
ending with a
voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies ...
stop Stop may refer to: Places * Stop, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the United States * Stop (Rogatica), a village in Rogatica, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina Facilities * Bus stop * Truck stop, a type of rest stop for truck d ...
that has
no audible release A stop with no audible release, also known as an unreleased stop or an applosive, is a stop consonant with no release burst: no audible indication of the end of its occlusion (hold). In the International Phonetic Alphabet, lack of an audible rele ...
: or . In some variants of Chinese, the final stop has become a
glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
, .


History

The voiceless stops that typify the entering tone date back to the
Proto-Sino-Tibetan Proto-Sino-Tibetan (PST) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Sino-Tibetan language family and the common ancestor of all languages in it, most prominently the Chinese languages, the Tibetan language, Yi, Bai, Burmese, Karen, Tangut, ...
, the parent language of Chinese as well as the
Tibeto-Burman languages The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non-Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people speak ...
. In addition, it is commonly thought that
Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese language, Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones ...
had syllables ending in
cluster may refer to: Science and technology Astronomy * Cluster (spacecraft), constellation of four European Space Agency spacecraft * Asteroid cluster, a small asteroid family * Cluster II (spacecraft), a European Space Agency mission to study t ...
s , , and (sometimes called the "long entering tone" while syllables ending in , and are the "short entering tone"). Clusters later were reduced to /s/, which, in turn, became and ultimately tone 3 in
Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
(the "departing tone"). The first Chinese philologists began to describe the phonology of Chinese during the
Early Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the ''Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The S ...
period (specifically, during the
Northern and Southern Dynasties The Northern and Southern dynasties () was a period of political division in the history of China that lasted from 420 to 589, following the tumultuous era of the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Eastern Jin dynasty. It is sometimes considered a ...
, between 400 and 600 AD), under the influence of
Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
and the
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
language that arrived along with it. There were several unsuccessful attempts to classify the tones of Chinese before the establishment of the traditional four-tone description between 483 and 493. It is based on the Vedic theory of three intonations (聲明論). The middle intonation, ', maps to the "level tone" (平聲); the upwards intonation, ', to the "rising tone" (上聲); the downward intonation, ', to the "departing tone" (去聲). The distinctive sound of syllables ending with a stop did not fit the three intonations and was categorised as the "entering tone" (入聲). The use of four-tone system flourished in the Sui and
Tang Tang or TANG most often refers to: * Tang dynasty * Tang (drink mix) Tang or TANG may also refer to: Chinese states and dynasties * Jin (Chinese state) (11th century – 376 BC), a state during the Spring and Autumn period, called Tang (唐) b ...
dynasties (7th–10th centuries). An important rime dictionary, '' Qieyun'', was written in this period. Note that modern linguistic descriptions of
Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
often refer to the level, rising and departing tones as tones 1, 2 and 3, respectively. By the time of the
Mongol The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member ...
invasion (the
Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fifth ...
, 1279–1368), former final stops had been reduced to a
glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
in Mandarin. The '' Zhongyuan Yinyun'', a
rime book A rime dictionary, rhyme dictionary, or rime book () is an ancient type of Chinese dictionary that collates characters by tone and rhyme, instead of by radical. The most important rime dictionary tradition began with the ''Qieyun'' (601), whic ...
of 1324, already shows signs of the disappearance of the glottal stop and the emergence of the modern Mandarin tone system in its place. The precise time at which the loss occurred is unknown though it was likely gone by the time of the
Qing Dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...
, in the 17th century.


Example


Entering tone in Chinese


Mandarin

The entering tone is extant in
Jianghuai Mandarin Lower Yangtze Mandarin () is one of the most divergent and least mutually-intelligible of the Mandarin languages, as it neighbours the Wu, Hui, and Gan groups of Sinitic languages. It is also known as Jiang–Huai Mandarin (), named after th ...
and the
Minjiang dialect The Minjiang dialect (, ; ) is a branch of Sichuanese, spoken mainly in the Min River (''Mínjiāng'') valley or along the Yangtze in the southern and western parts of the Sichuan Basin in China. There is also a language island of the Minjiang ...
of
Sichuanese Sichuanese, Szechuanese or Szechwanese may refer to something of, from, or related to the Chinese province and region of Sichuan (Szechwan/Szechuan) (historically and culturally including Chongqing), especially: *Sichuanese people, a subgroup of the ...
. In other dialects, the entering tone has been lost, and words that had the tone have been distributed into the four modern tonal categories, depending on the initial consonant of each word. In the
Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
dialect that underlies
Standard Mandarin Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standar ...
, syllables beginning with originally unvoiced consonants are redistributed across the four tones in a completely random pattern. For example, the three characters , all pronounced in
Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
(William Baxter's reconstruction), are now pronounced ', with tones 1, 3 and 4 respectively. The two characters , both pronounced , are now pronounced ' (tone 1) and ' (tone 2/3) respectively, with character splitting on semantic grounds (tone 3 when it is used as a component of a name, mostly tone 2 otherwise). Similarly, the three characters (Middle Chinese ) are now pronounced ', with tones 1, 2 and 4. The four characters (Middle Chinese ) are now pronounced ', with tones 1, 2, 2 and 3. In those cases, the two sets of characters are significant in that each member of the same set has the same phonetic component, suggesting that the phonetic component of a character has little to do with the tone class that the character is assigned to. In other situations, however, the opposite appears to be the case. For example, the group / of six homophones, all in Middle Chinese and divided into a group of four with one phonetic and a group of two with a different phonetic, splits so that the first group of four is all pronounced ' (tone 2) and the second group of two is pronounced ' (tone 4). In such situations like this, it may be that only one of the characters in each group normally occurs in speech with an identifiable tone, and as a result, a " reading pronunciation" of the other characters was constructed based on the phonetic element of the character. The chart below summarizes the distribution in the different dialects.


Wu

In
Wu Chinese The Wu languages (; Wu romanization and IPA: ''wu6 gniu6'' [] ( Shanghainese), ''ng2 gniu6'' [] (Suzhounese), Mandarin pinyin and IPA: ''Wúyǔ'' []) is a major group of Sinitic languages spoken primarily in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Zhejiang Provin ...
, the entering tone has been preserved. However, the sounds with an entering tone no longer ends in /p/, /t/ or /k/, but rather a
glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
/ʔ/ in most Wu dialects. In some dialects such as
Wenzhounese Wenzhounese (), also known as Oujiang (), Tong Au () or Au Nyü (), is the language spoken in Wenzhou, the southern prefecture of Zhejiang, China. Nicknamed the "Devil's Language" () for its complexity and difficulty, it is the most divergent div ...
, even the glottal stop has disappeared. The sounds of entering tones can be divided into two registers, depending on the initials: *"dark entering" (陰入), a high-pitched checked tone, with a voiceless initial. * "light entering" (陽入), a low-pitched checked tone, with a voiced initial.


Cantonese

Like most other variants of Chinese, Cantonese has changed initial voiced
stop Stop may refer to: Places * Stop, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the United States * Stop (Rogatica), a village in Rogatica, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina Facilities * Bus stop * Truck stop, a type of rest stop for truck d ...
s, affricates and
fricatives A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
of
Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
to their voiceless counterparts. To compensate for the loss of that difference, Cantonese has split each of the Middle Chinese tones into two, one for Middle Chinese voiced initial consonants (''yang'') and one for Middle Chinese voiceless initial consonants (''yin''). In addition, Cantonese has split the yin-entering tone into two, with a higher tone for short vowels and a lower tone for long vowels. As a result, Cantonese now has three entering tones: *Upper yin (short ''yin'', 短陰入/上陰入) *Middle / Lower yin (long ''yin'', 長中入/下中入), derived from the upper tone *Upper yang (short ''yang'', 中入/短陽入/上陽入) *Lower yang (long ''yang'', 長陽入/下陽入) *Some variants of Cantonese have four entering tones such that the lower yang tone is differentiated according to the length of the vowel, short vowels for Upper yin and long vowels for Lower yin. According to 杨蔚. 粤语古入声分化情况的当代考察. 2002. PhD Thesis. 中國 The entering tone in Cantonese has retained its short and sharp character.


Hakka

Hakka preserves all of the entering tones of Middle Chinese and is split into two registers. The Meixian Hakka dialect often taken as the paradigm gives the following: * "dark entering" (陰入) , a low-pitched checked tone * "light entering" (陽入) , a high-pitched checked tone Middle Chinese entering tone syllables ending in whose vowel clusters have become front high vowels like and shifts to syllables with finals in some of the modern Hakka, as seen in the following table.


Min

Southern Min ( Minnan, including
Taiwanese Taiwanese may refer to: * Taiwanese language, another name for Taiwanese Hokkien * Something from or related to Taiwan ( Formosa) * Taiwanese aborigines, the indigenous people of Taiwan * Han Taiwanese, the Han people of Taiwan * Taiwanese people, ...
) has two entering tones: *Upper (''yin'', 陰入), also numbered tone 4 *Lower (''yang'', 陽入), tone 8 A word may switch from one tone to the other by
tone sandhi Tone sandhi is a phonological change occurring in tonal languages, in which the tones assigned to individual words or morphemes change based on the pronunciation of adjacent words or morphemes. It usually simplifies a bidirectional tone into a ...
. Words with entering tones end with a glottal stop ( h, p tor k(all unaspirated). There are many words that have different finals in their literary and colloquial forms.


Entering tone in Sino-Xenic

Many Chinese words were borrowed into Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese during the
Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
period so they preserve the entering tone to varying degrees.


Japanese

Because
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
does not allow a syllable to end with a consonant except ん ''n'', the endings ''-k'', ''-p'', ''-t'' were rendered as separate syllables ''-ku'' or ''-ki'', ''-pu'', and ''-ti'' (''-chi'') or ''-tu'' (''-tsu'') respectively. Later phonological changes further altered some of the endings: * In some cases in which the ending is immediately followed by an unvoiced consonant in a compound, the ending is lost, and the consonant becomes
geminate In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
. ** Examples: 学 ''gaku'' + 校 ''kau'' (> Modern Japanese ''kō'') becomes 学校 ''gakkō'' (school), and 失 ''shitsu'' + 敗 ''pai'' (> Modern Japanese ''hai'' when standing alone) becomes 失敗 ''shippai'' (failure) * The ''-pu'' ending changes into ''-u''. (''pu''>''fu''>''hu''>''u''). That process can be followed by -''au'' -> -''ō'' and -''iu'' -> -''yū''. ** Example: 十 ''jipu'' (ten) becomes ''jū'' It is possible to recover the original ending by examining the historical kana used in spelling a word.


Korean

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...
keeps the ''-k'' and ''-p'' endings while the ''-t'' ending is represented as ''-l'' ( tapped ''-r-'', , if intervocalic) as Sino-Korean derives from a northern variety of Late Middle Chinese where final ''-t'' had weakened to .


Vietnamese

Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia ** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam. * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overse ...
preserves all of the endings , and (spelt -''c''). Additionally, after the vowels ''ê'' or ''i'', the ending -''c'' changes to -''ch'', giving rise to -''ich'' and -''êch'', and ''ach'' (pronounced like ''aik'') also occurs for some words ending with -''k''. Only the '' sắc'' and ''nặng'' tones are allowed on check tones. In Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary, those tones were split from the Middle Chinese "entering" tone in a similar fashion to Cantonese. Whether the tone of a syllable should be ''sắc'' or ''nặng'' depends on the voicing of the initial consonant of the original Middle Chinese syllable.


Reconstruction of entering tones from Mandarin

Although it is hard to distinguish words of entering tone origin based on only Mandarin pronunciation, it is possible to do so, to an extent, with the help of the phonetic component of each Chinese character. Although it is not completely accurate, it is a quick way to identify characters of the entering tone. * If a character has a phonetic component and is known to have an entering tone, other characters that have that phonetic component probably have an entering tone. For example, if one already knows that 白 (white) is of the entering tone, one can conjecture that 拍 (beat), 柏 (fir), 帛 (white cloth), 迫 (urgent) are also of entering tone. * Characters that begin with an
unaspirated In linguistics, a tenuis consonant ( or ) is an obstruent that is voiceless, unaspirated and unglottalized. In other words, it has the "plain" phonation of with a voice onset time close to zero (a zero-VOT consonant), as Spanish ''p, t, ch ...
obstruent An obstruent () is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by ''obstructing'' airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well as ...
(
Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
''b'', ''d'', ''g'', ''j'', ''z'', or ''zh''), end in a vowel, and have a light level tone (阳平) in Mandarin (corresponding to a rising tone in
Standard Mandarin Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standar ...
) almost always derive from an entering tone. For example ''dé'', ''gé'', ''jué'', ''zá'' and ''zhái'' all come from entering tones. ** On the other hand, characters that begin with an unaspirated obstruent and end in a nasal final (''n'' or ''ng'') in Mandarin almost never have a light level tone. E.g. *''gáng'' and *''zún'' are not recognised syllables in Modern Standard Mandarin.


See also

*
Historical Chinese phonology Historical Chinese phonology deals with reconstructing the sounds of Chinese from the past. As Chinese is written with logographic characters, not alphabetic or syllabary, the methods employed in Historical Chinese phonology differ considerably ...
*
Sino-Japanese vocabulary Sino-Japanese vocabulary, also known as refers to Japanese vocabulary that had originated in Chinese or were created from elements borrowed from Chinese. Some grammatical structures and sentence patterns can also be identified as Sino-Japanese. Si ...
*
Sino-Korean vocabulary Sino-Korean vocabulary or Hanja-eo () refers to Korean words of Chinese origin. Sino-Korean vocabulary includes words borrowed directly from Chinese, as well as new Korean words created from Chinese characters, and words borrowed from Sino-Japane ...
*
Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary ( vi, từ Hán Việt, Chữ Hán: 詞漢越, literally 'Chinese language, Chinese-Vietnamese words') is a layer of some 3,000 monosyllabic Morpheme, morphemes of the Vietnamese language borrowed from Literary Chinese wi ...
*
Tone name In tonal languages, tone names are the names given to the tones these languages use. *In contemporary standard Chinese (Mandarin), the tones are numbered from 1 to 4. They are descended from but not identical to the historical four tones of Midd ...


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Checked Tone Chinese language