Chao tone numbers

· from English (after Yuen Ren Chao)

What are Chao tone numbers?

Chao tone numbers describe pitch on a 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest) scale, so Mandarin tone 1 is 55 and tone 4 is 51.

Linguist Yuen Ren Chao devised the system in 1930, together with tone letters drawn as small pitch graphs. Each tone is written as its start, (optional middle) and end pitch. It is the standard way dictionaries and linguists compare tones across Chinese varieties, Thai and Vietnamese.

Examples

Mandarin: tone 1 = 55, tone 2 = 35, tone 3 = 214, tone 4 = 51; Cantonese 詩 si1 = 55, 事 si6 = 22

Kungfucius says: Pitch, but make it a phone number.