Which language has four lexical tones in its standard modern form?

Standard Mandarin Chinese has four lexical tones, plus a neutral tone in many descriptions. Tone is meaningful: changing the pitch pattern can change a syllable’s meaning even when its consonants and vowels remain the same.

The four main tones are traditionally described as high level, rising, dipping, and falling. Tone categories are often demonstrated with the syllable “ma,” although the exact pronunciation and context depend on the speaker and the word. Tone sandhi can alter a tone’s surface pronunciation in connected speech.

The term Mandarin can refer broadly to a group of varieties or specifically to Standard Chinese, the national standard based largely on the Beijing dialect. Other Chinese varieties, such as Cantonese, have different tone systems. Vietnamese and several other languages also use lexical tone, so the presence of tones alone does not identify a language as Chinese.