上上. (3) siông ké̤ṳ 上去. (4) siông ĭk 上入. (5) hâ bìng 下平. (6) hâ siông (unused). (7) hâ ké̤ṳ 下去. (8) hâ ĭk 下入. The Romanized method of marking these tones and characters illustrating the tones are given below:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 丹 | 胆 | 旦 | 答 | 談 | 淡 | 達 | |
| dăng | dāng | dáng | dák | dàng | unused | dâng | dăk |
The Finals as modified by tones are given in Table Ⅲ.
The sound of the tones can only be learned from the living voice of the teacher. The following brief descriptions and diagrams on the musical staff are taken with slight modification from the Second Edition of the Dictionary. It is credited there for the most part to Rev. M. C. White, M.D., formerly of the Methodist Mission and to Rev. Charles Hartwell, formerly of the American Board Mission.
“The first tone is a uniform even sound, enunciated a little above the ordinary speaking key, neither elevated nor depressed from the commencement to the close of the word. It is in this respect like the enunciation of a note in music; it may therefore be called the singing tone, or the musical monotone. It is long in time.
“The second tone is enunciated in the ordinary speaking key, and the voice usually falls a note at the close, as in English at the end of a sentence in unimpassioned discourse. When closely combined with a following word, however, the second tone is sustained, and turns upward, like the vanishing stress of unaccented words in common conversation. It is also long in time.
“The third tone is what elocutionists call the rising third is heard in English on the emphatic word in a direct question, as ‘Does it rain?’ where the voice turns upward through the interval of two notes of the octave. In time it, too, is long.
“The fourth tone turns the voice upward through the same interval as the third tone, but it terminates abruptly as though the voice was suddenly interrupted in an effort to pronounce a final h. In words which in other tones end in ng the abrupt close of the fourth tone sounds somewhat like a suppressed or half-uttered k, but the clicking sound of the k is not heard. It is pronounced more quickly than the third tone but is properly long in time.
“The fifth tone is a quick forcible enunciation, commencing about two notes above the ordinary speaking pitch of the voice and suddenly dropping down to the keynote. It is what is called by
