Talk:Tangsa language
Add topicLatest comment: 5 years ago by Johnwcowan in topic What do the superscript numbers mean?
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List of languages in Myanmar
[edit]Northern Naga of Myanmar (SIL p.c.) - see Talk:Konyak languages. — Stevey7788 (talk) 05:48, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
What do the superscript numbers mean?
[edit]I almost converted these to IPA, but realized that couldn't be it. They're gibberish without clarification. So what are they? — kwami (talk) 08:20, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
- They are language-specific toneme marks that do not correspond to any particular IPA tone letter. IA grammar for the specific language must be consulted in order to determine the specific tone. It is not uncommon for cognates in related language varieties to have the same tonemes even when their phonetic tones are different: in Sichuan Mandarin, for example, the pronunciations of the 3rd and 4th tones are interchanged. Using the numbers instead of the IPA preserves the tonemic relationships.
As an example, the four tones of Modern Chinese may be written shi1, shi2, shi3, shi4 instead of shī, shí, shǐ, shì (Pinyin) or [ʂz̩˥ ʂz̩˧˥ ʂz̩˨˩˦ ʂz̩˥˩] (IPA). --John Cowan (talk) 04:39, 20 February 2021 (UTC)