What ˨ means
˨ marks a low relative pitch level. In phonetic transcription—the notation used to record speech sounds and tones—the IPA's Chao-style tone letters put it after the syllable it describes. It marks a position in a tone scale, not one fixed frequency.
In 1930, Chinese linguist Yuen Ren Chao published a tone-letter system that arranged bars at different pitch levels to make tones and their contours practical to print. His table uses ˨ for level 2 and ˨˨ for 22; the IPA chart uses ˨ for a low-level tone.
Chinese corner-tone marks are a separate tradition: in the 1830s, Bridgman and Wells Williams developed marks placed in the corners of Chinese characters to note tone. They share the subject of tone, but are not alternate forms or spellings of ˨.
How do I type ˨ in an IPA transcription?
On Key Curry's IPA input page, type &l for ˨. It enters as a separate character, not an accent attached to a vowel.
The order of tone letters sets the pitch path: ˨ falls from low to extra-low, while ˨ rises from low to mid. Some fonts join each sequence into one contour; others show two bars. The sequence means the same either way.
Technical: it belongs in phonetic transcription, where the tone scheme supplies its reading.
is extra-low; ˨ marks low, not the bottom level.
Part of the collection
Don't confuse it with
2
Related characters
1
Combination ideas
2Questions people ask
1Why do two tone bars sometimes join into one shape?
Some fonts shape adjacent Chao tone letters into a single contour; others leave the bars separate. The sequence stays the same.
More like this
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Collections with ˨
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How to type or find ˨
- Search it as
- IPA · Chao tone letters · low tone bar · tone letter · phonetic tone transcription · tone contour
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
˨\02E8&l on Key Curry's IPA input page.Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.