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Shouldn't this article be titled Chinese Tone Name? There are many tonal languages, not just Chinese. For example, Vietnamese has 6 tones, all of which are named. DHN 02:59, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I have added a small section on Vietnamese tone names, and a description of their pitch qualities. ~~ Dylanwhs 07:36, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Other names

In World Braille Usage, UNESCO, 1990 (http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0008/000872/087242eb.pdf), page 18 of the paper document, page 24 of the PDF file, I've seen other names for Chinese tones: 阴平, 阳平, 上声 and 去声. Are they in common use? Tohuvabohuo (talk) 13:25, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Middle Chinese tones and modern ones are different

Middle Chinese (MC) and modern Mandarin have both 4 tones. But they are different, though the tones in Mandarin indeed derive from MC. 阴平, 阳平, 上声, 去声 are tones in Putonghua (modern common Chinese), while 平 (Level tone), 上 (Rising tone), 去 (Departing tone), 入 (Entering tone) are tones in MC. Even among modern dialects, there are varied tones, different number, different tone level. For example, Cantonese has 9 different tones, some say 10. Generally speaking, 阴平 and 阳平 in Putonghua are splited from MC's 平, while 上 is derived from 上 and 去 from 去。But MC's 入声 (Entering) is devided into 4 parts and each becomes part of Putonghua's 阴平, 阳平, 上声 and 去声. 210.77.9.71 (talk) 13:35, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] About Cantonese tone names

While the traditional opinion is that Cantonese has 9 tones, some modern scholars disagree with it. For instance, the Chinese University of Hong Kong hosts a webpage called [http://arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can/ Chinese Character Database: With Word-formations, Phonologically Disambiguated According to the Cantonese Dialect]. It's a database where you can search for a Chinese character and get its various Cantonese pronunciations, and vice versa. There, they use a pronunciation model that consists of initials, tones, and finals. The finals function like consonant endings of the pronunciations. Now, for practical purposes (e.g. not taking classical poems into account), some of the traditional 9 tones are differenciated only by the finals and do not otherwise sound different to native Cantonese speakers (e.g. myself). So once the finals have been eliminated from the consideration of the actual tone, we end up with only 6 tones, which are much more manageable than the 9 tones. SwordAngel (talk) 01:12, 12 April 2009 (UTC)