Modifier Tone Letters is a
Unicode block
A Unicode block is one of several contiguous ranges of numeric character codes (code points) of the Unicode character set that are defined by the Unicode Consortium for administrative and documentation purposes. Typically, proposals such as the ...
containing
tone
Tone may refer to:
Visual arts and color-related
* Tone (color theory), a mix of tint and shade, in painting and color theory
* Tone (color), the lightness or brightness (as well as darkness) of a color
* Toning (coin), color change in coins
* ...
markings for Chinese,
Chinantec, Africanist, and other phonetic transcriptions. It does not contain the standard
IPA tone marks, which are found in
Spacing Modifier Letters
Spacing Modifier Letters is a Unicode block containing characters for the IPA, UPA, and other phonetic transcriptions. Included are the IPA tone marks, and modifiers for aspiration and palatalization. The word ''spacing'' indicates that these ...
.
are used to mark yin and (underlined) yang splits of the ping, shang, qu and ru tones, respectively, in the etymological
four-tone analysis of Chinese. The dotted tone letters are used for the pitch of
neutral tone
The phonology of Standard Chinese has historically derived from the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. However, pronunciation varies widely among speakers, who may introduce elements of their local varieties. Television and radio announcers are chos ...
s, while the reversed tone letters and neutral are used for
tone sandhi
Tone sandhi is a phonological change that occurs in tonal languages. It involves changes to the tones assigned to individual words or morphemes, based on the pronunciation of adjacent words or morphemes. This change typically simplifies a bidirec ...
. are modifier letters used in
Ozumacín Chinantec. are the IPA modifier letters for
upstep
In linguistics, upstep is a phonemic or phonetic upward shift of tone between the syllables or words of a tonal language. It is best known in the tonal languages of Sub-Saharan Africa. Upstep is a much rarer phenomenon than its counterpart, down ...
and
downstep, while are substitutes people used before broad font support of the IPA, and still preferred by some.
Block
History
The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Modifier Tone Letters block:
See also
*
Phonetic symbols in Unicode
Unicode supports several phonetic scripts and notation systems through its existing scripts and the addition of extra Unicode block, blocks with phonetic characters. These phonetic characters are derived from an existing script, usually Latin, Gr ...
References
{{reflist
Unicode blocks