Burmese 4 Tones

Tones

Burmese is a tonal language, which means phonemic contrasts can be made on the basis of the tone of a vowel. In Burmese, these contrasts involve not only pitch, but also phonation, intensity (loudness), duration, and vowel quality. However, some linguists consider Burmese a pitch-register language like Shanghainese.

There are four contrastive tones in Burmese. In the following table the tones are shown marked on the vowel /a/ as an example; the phonetic descriptions are from Wheatley (1987).

For example, the following words are distinguished from each other only on the basis of tone:

• Low /kʰà/ "shake"

• High /kʰá/ "be bitter"

• Creaky /kʰa̰/ "fee"

• Checked /kʰaʔ/ "draw off"

Source: Wikipedia

Wheatley, Julian; Tun, San San Hnin (1999). "Languages in contact: The case of English and Burmese". The Journal of Burma Studies .