Is Chinese a tonal
language?
By: Wang Yujiang
Many linguists regard Chinese as a tonal language.
Actually, it is not. They do not distinguish the name of characters and the
sounds they represent. English letters have both names and the sounds they
represent. Chinese characters also have names and sounds they present.
Since we produce around four hundred sounds for
thousands of Chinese characters, we have to use different tones to distinguish
them when we talk about a single character. That is a tonal character not a
tonal language. When we speak, we do not follow the tones marked in the
dictionary that linguists call change of tone. Chinese intonation is the same
as people speaking English.
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