Re: tonal languages

John writes:

>Oh, OK, no problem.  Sounds like you're numbering the four yin tones 1-4
>and the yang tones 5-8, with 6 (my 4) merged with 2 (my 3).
Yes, that's right. Here's what I found for Taiwanese:

1 yin ping
2 yin shang
3 yin qu
4 yin ru (clipped)
5 yang ping
6 yang shang (here, the dictionary says: "Yinyang bu fen." or "There
no distinction between yin and yang (shang)." [ie: 2 and 6 are the
same])
7 yang qu
8 yang ru (clipped)

As it morphs into Mandarin:

1 yin ping => M1
2 yin shang => M3
3 yin qu => M4
4 yin ru => M1,2,3, or 4
5 yang ping => M2
6 yang shang => M3
7 yang qu => M4
8 yang ru => M2 or 4 (ie. yang ping and yang qu)

For Shanghainese, I found:

1 yin ping (quelle surprise)
2 yin qu
3 yang qu
4 yin ru (glottal stop)
5 yang ru (glottal stop)

>So, here's
>my Universal Tone Map.  U=universal, MC=Middle Chinese, M=Mandarin,
>C=Cantonese, T=Taiwanese, S=Shanghainese.
>
>                 ping            shang           qu              ru
>high            U1 M1 C1 T1 S1  U3 C2           U5 C3 T3        U7 C1/C3 T4
>unsplit         MC1             MC3 M3 T2 S3    MC5 M4 S3       MC7
>low             U2 M2 C4 T5 S2  U4 C5           U6 U8 C6 T7     U8 C6 T8
I made something similar (though I'm a little confused by the
high/low terms) and I think I squeezed Hakka into the mix. I saw it
recently as I was cleaning out my den. If it resurfaces, I'll share.

Kou

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