NAVLIPI

The World’s First (and Only) Truly Phonemic Alphabet

HOW NAVLIPI WRITES TONES OF TONAL LANGUAGES,

All tone markers in NAVLIPI appear after the syllable they act upon.

E.g. the tone marker in Mandarin for the 3^rd tone (falling-rising) is written in NAVLIPI as `´ , so the word for “you”, which uses this tone is written as nii`´ in NAVLIPI.

MANDARIN (Chinese-Simplified Transcription):

| (1^st Mandarin tone, high and level.)
´ (2^nd Mandarin tone, rising.)
`´ (3^rd Mandarin tone, falling-rising.)
` (4^th Mandarin tone, falling.)

CANTONESE

| (1^st Cantonese tone, level, high.)
´ (2^nd Cantonese tone, rising, low-mid to high.)
(no tone mark) (3^rd Cantonese tone, level, mid.)
` (4^th Cantonese tone, falling, low-mid to low.)
̉ (5^th Cantonese tone, rising, low to low-mid.)
. (6^th Cantonese tone, level, low-mid.)

VIETNAMESE

(no tone mark) (1^stVietnamese tone, level, high.)
´ (2^nd Vietnamese tone, rising, mid to high.)
` (3^rd Vietnamese tone, falling, low to lower.)
. (4^th Vietnamese tone, falling, low to very low, very short.)
^ (5^th Vietnamese tone, falling-rising, with break in between.)
̉ 6^th Vietnamese tone, falling-rising, low to lower to low.)

(Note that this exactly follows the current Vietnamese transcription.)

THAI

̉ (1^st Thai tone, slightly falling, mid to low.)
(no tone mark) (2^nd Thai tone, level, mid.)
´ (3^rd Thai tone, slightly rising, high to higher.)
`´ (4^th Thai tone, falling-rising.)
´` (5^th Thai tone, rising-falling.)

YORUBA

` (1^st Yoruba tone, level, low.)
(no tone mark) (2^nd Yoruba tone, level, mid.)
´ (3^rd Yoruba tone, level, high.)

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