Tone number

 ( Phonology ) 

Tone numbers are numerical digits used like letters to mark the tones of a language. The number is usually placed after a romanization syllable. Tone numbers are defined for a particular language, so they have little meaning between languages.

Other means of indicating tone in romanization include diacritics, , and orthographic changes to the consonants or vowels. For instance, in Mandarin Chinese, the syllable 馬 (which has a falling-rising tone) is represented in Wade-Giles romanization as ma³, with a tone number; in Hanyu Pinyin as mǎ, with a diacritic; and in Gwoyeu Romatzyh as maa, with a change in the vowel letter.

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In Chinese In the Chinese tradition, numbers, diacritics, and tone name are assigned to the historical four tones (level, rising, departing, and entering) of Chinese. These are consistent across all Chinese dialects, reflecting the development of tone diachronically. In the later stage of Middle Chinese, voiced consonants (such as b-, d-, g-, z-) began to merge into voiceless ones (p-, t-, k-, s-) and such voiceless-voiced consonant contrast was substituted by further high-low pitch contrast (yin, and yang). It is also common to number the tones of a particular dialect independently of the others. For example, Standard Chinese has four–five tones and the digits 1–5 or 0–4 are assigned to them; Cantonese has 6–9 tones, and the digits from 0 or 1 to 6 or 9 are assigned to them. In this case, Mandarin tone 4 has nothing to do with Cantonese tone 4, as can be seen by comparing the tone charts of Standard Chinese (Mandarin), Cantonese, and Taiwanese Hokkien.

Mandarin
5 or 0
Neutral
depends on context
Cantonese
Tone number	1	2	3	4	5	6	7 (1)	8 (3)	9 (6)
Yin departing	Yang departing	Yang entering
Taiwanese Hokkien
0
Yang level	Yang risingOnly remaining at Quanzhou dialect	Yang entering	High risingAppearing at some special cases	Neutral
		depends on context

Note: Tone sandhi rules and the unstressed syllable of Mandarin are not listed here for simplicity.

To enhance recognition and learning, color has also been associated with the tones.Nathan Dummit, Chinese Through Tone & Color (2008) or www.chinesecoloured.com Although there are no formal standards, the de facto standard has been to use red (tone 1), orange (tone 2), green (tone 3), blue (tone 4) and black (tone 5). This color palette has been implemented in translation tools and online dictionaries.

Although such numbers are useless in comparative studies, they are convenient for in-dialect descriptions:

• In Mandarin, the numeral "one", originally in tone 1, is pronounced in tone 4 if followed by a classifier in tone 1, 2, or 3. It is pronounced in tone 2 if the classifier has tone 4.
• In Taiwanese tone sandhi, tone 1 is pronounced as tone 7 if followed by another syllable in a polysyllabic word.

Some romanization schemes, like Jyutping, use tone numbers. Even for Pinyin, tone numbers are used instead when are not available, as in basic ASCII text.

For the numbers of the traditional tone classes, which are consistent between dialects, see four tones in Middle Chinese.

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See also

• Chinese characters
• Chinese language
• Bopomofo
• Tone letter
• Tone name

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Notes

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Further reading

• (2025). 9789027247858, John Benjamins. ISBN 9789027247858

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