POJ tone marks reference
Southern Min is a tonal language, and Pe̍h-ōe-jī shows each tone with a diacritic on the main vowel. In POJ Composer you type the tone as a number after the syllable and the mark lands on the right letter automatically.
| Type | Tone | Diacritic | On “a” | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | High level (陰平) The default, unmarked tone. | no mark | a | kha1 → kha |
2 | Rising (陰上) | acute ´ | á | be2 → bé |
3 | Low departing (陰去) | grave ` | à | khi3 → khì |
4 | Stopped (陰入) Unmarked; the syllable ends in -p, -t, -k or -h. | no mark | a | bah4 → bah |
5 | Rising (陽平) | circumflex ^ | â | lang5 → lâng |
6 | Rising (陽上) Merged with tone 2 in most modern dialects; rarely written. | caron ˇ | ǎ | a6 → ǎ |
7 | Mid level (陽去) | macron ¯ | ā | tang7 → tāng |
8 | High stopped (陽入) Ends in a stop, like tone 4. | vertical line | a̍ | peh8 → pe̍h |
9 | High rising / emphatic Used for loanwords and the emphatic tone, e.g. in Penang Hokkien. | double acute ˝ | a̋ | ka9 → ka̋ |
Where the mark goes
In a vowel cluster the tone mark doesn’t simply land on the first letter. POJ has rules about which vowel is “tone-bearing”, and they even depend on the ending. For example, in the oa cluster the mark sits on the o in an open syllable but shifts to the a when a real consonant closes it:
- goa2 → góa (open — mark on o)
- soat8 → soa̍t (closed — shifts to a)
- poann2 → póaⁿ (nasal ⁿ doesn’t count as closing)
You don’t have to remember any of this — that’s the whole point of the tool. Just type the tone number and it works out the placement.
Try it
New to the system? Start with the beginner’s guide.