Re: IPA tone numbers?

On Wed, 13 Dec 2000, E-Ching Ng wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> Finally finished that English paper and can get on with all my linguistics final
> projects. Hurray! I have another tone question now. Is there a standard IPA
> way to represent tones? I seem to remember somebody on the list using
> two-digit numbers to d
escribe some tones.

5 = highest pitch, 1 = lowest pitch, and then things like 425 mean "start
medium high, drop down to medium low, move to highest".  The actual
IPA system involves characters which start with a vertical line and
then have a zigzag horizontal line, like this:

          |      /
          |\    /
          | \  /
          |  \/
          |

but everybody understands the numbers.

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore
        --Douglas Hofstadter