> Is tone ever indicated by spelling rather than by diacriticals? I ask
> because there is a system of "tone spelling" used for teaching Chinese.
> It is supposed to be better than accent marks over vowels for
> providing retention of tone as an inherent part of the syllable/word for
> speakers of non-tone languages.
One language spoken in China uses the Roman alphabet with some (mostly)
Cyrillic additions written at the end of a syllable to mark the tone.
Apparently there are six tones. Interestingly, the Cyrillic letters
they chose look like "alphabetic" variants of the digits.
Michael Everson
School of Architecture, UCD; Richview, Clonskeagh; Dublin 14; E/ire
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