The Tones

Happy Thanksgiving!

We mentioned that Cantonese is a tonal language. Tones are an integral part of a word -- the meaning of a sound depends on the tone. Different tone = different word.

Tone refers to the pitch of one's voice in pronouncing a word. You pronounce some words at a higher pitch than others, and some words at a lower pitch than others.

This is an unsettling way of speaking, and often takes months for some people to get used to it (and many don't). After all, we pronounce each word in English using just one flat boring pitch (Oh, really? No! We do NOT. Duh.)

Fortunately, the range of tones is quite limited, and every single one is in use in standard English and cetainly within reach of anyone who can speak English. Note that you do not have to squeak out the high tones at Bernadette Peters' pitch or resonate at the low tones of Lurch (Addams Family), although that would certainly be fun.

Sometimes, the problem is not the tones itself. If you can sing do-re-mi, you will do fine. Sometimes, the problem is mindset. Some people just cannot believe that tones affect not just the meaning of the word, but actually changes the word into an unrelated one. Some people believe that they are exempt from this rule. They're not. You're not. I'm not. If you don't use the right tone, you won't be understood.

In the movie Jurassic Park, the children were told that if you stand still, the T-Rex will not 'see' you even if you were standing right in front of it and even if it was looking for you. It's hard to believe, and all your instincts say 'run!'. It's the same with Cantonese. No matter how earnest you are in pronouncing a word, no matter how earnest your listener is, if you speak words at the wrong tone, you won't be understood.

How many tones do we have to learn? Formally, there are supposed to be 10. But according to some teachers, only seven are in actual use, even by native speakers. Since we're not linguists, we restrict ourselves to the seven:

1 - High Falling
2 - Middle Rising
3 - Middle Level
4 - Low Falling
5 - Low Rising
6 - Low Level
* - Modified Tone

If we take your normal pitch as your Middle Level tone, then you pronounce High Falling tones at a higher pitch than your normal tone. Again, you do not change your voice into Mickey Mouse; you just pronounce it at a higher tone, as you would the "yeah" in 'oh, yeah?

For another insight, let's take that your normal pitch is at 'mi' in do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do. Then you can pronounce Low Level words at the same tone as the first 'do', and you can pronounce High Falling at the same pitch as 'sol'. (We stress can because you can go even higher or even lower, as you prefer).

It is the relativeness of the pitch that is important. Cantonese does not demand absolute pitch. There is no one universal fixed pitch for each word -- we do not have to pronounce the same word at the exact same pitch as every other person. You just have to pronounce them at a higher or lower pitch relative to your own normal pitch. I may pronounce Middle Tones at a higher pitch than you do, but it's still middle tone.

Next: We lied. Each word does not have one tone, but two tones.

Can3 You1 Read3 This4?

To indicate the tone at which a Cantonese word must be spoken at, linguists have devised ways to mark up English words used to romanise Cantonese words.

To romanise means to spell out a non-English word in using roman characters (i.e., a,b,c,d...etc). That is what we have been doing since our very first posts. When we write, gei chin ah, we are romanising the Cantonese words with roman spellings that we think approximate the actual pronounciation of the Cantonese word. (Cantonese is of course, not natively written using roman characters).

Since tones are critical in Cantonese, a romanisation without any indication of tone is virtually useless.

There are several extant standards for Cantonese romanisation; what we will use is the Lau System. In this system, each of the various tones used in Cantonese are each assigned a number, and the number is appended at the end of each romanised word, so the reader is informed as to which tone the word must be pronounced.

This is an example of romanisation using the Lau system: Gei² chin⁴ ah³?

It's a very simple and effective system. If you know what 2, or 3, or 4 means, then you know which tone to employ.

* * *

Next: Ready your singing voices and clean your ears. Introducing the tones.

Speaking in Tones

Many non-Chinese are vaguely aware that the Chinese language, and for that matter, Cantonese, is a monosyllabic language. If you sit down and think about it, you could come to convince yourself that there exists an almost infinite number of one-syllable sounds one can make.

But for reasons known only to the ancients (and maybe some linguists), Cantonese has not made use of all these possible one-syllable sounds. It frugally uses only a very small subset.

Unfortunately, instead of making it easier to learn the language (after all, the fewer sounds to remember, the sooner you can speak the language, right?), the limited set of sounds has caused grief to many stout-hearted men and women.

What is the Cantonese word for buy? Maai. What is the Cantonese word for sell? Maai. See any difference?

Do you see a problem?

Now we can understand why our friend gets forks whenever he asks for tea -- the Cantonese word for tea is cha and the Cantonese word for fork is cha.

Are the Cantonese crazy? Who in their right mind would use the same word to mean different things? Should the British colonials have forced the Cantonese in Hong Kong to cleave from their native language and cleave to English?

The answer is no, they are not crazy, and maai is not the same word as maai, and we are no longer in Kansas. We are now at the brink of the next stage of understanding Cantonese.

Hurdling this stage is critical to understanding the language. It is a daunting task requiring faith, diligence, persistence. There is no way to avoid it.

* * *

Next: Welcome to the world of tonal languages.


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Footlinks:

1. There are any number of people who will argue that Chinese should not be called a monosyllabic language. For a clear explanation of that position, see (among others) http://www.askasia.org/frclasrm/readings/r000020.htm
2. Just in case you didn't get it, the English word cleave has two opposite meanings.