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Graphical representation of the Modifier Tone Letters Unicode block

Modifier Tone Letters is a Unicode block containing tone markings for Chinese, Chinantec, Africanist, and other phonetic transcriptions. It does not contain the standard IPA tone marks, which are found in Spacing Modifier Letters.

꜀◌ ꜁◌ ꜂◌ ꜃◌ ◌꜄ ◌꜅ ◌꜆ ◌꜇⟩ are used to mark yin and (underlined) yang splits of the ping, shang, qu and ru tones, respectively, in the etymological four-tone analysis of Chinese. The dotted tone letters ⟨ ⟩ are used for the pitch of neutral tones, while the reversed tone letters ⟨ ⟩ and neutral ⟨ ⟩ are used for tone sandhi. ⟨        ⟩ are modifier letters used in Ozumacín Chinantec. ⟨ ⟩ are the IPA modifier letters for upstep and downstep, while ⟨ ⟩ are substitutes people used before broad font support of the IPA, and still preferred by some.

Block

Modifier Tone Letters[1]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+A70x
U+A71x
Notes
1.^As of Unicode version 17.0

History

The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Modifier Tone Letters block:

See also

References

  1. ^ “Unicode character database”. The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  2. ^ “Enumerated Versions of The Unicode Standard”. The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2023-07-26.