如何教民族学生说一口流利、标准的普通话,这是一件不容易的事情。因为汉语中的四种声调“阴平、阳平、上声、去声”在少数民族语言当中是没有的。教民族学生读汉语时,发现学生的“上声”读音并不准确,有时是由平声转入,有时是由去声转入,在汉语中是一般是没有这种音的。汉语是声调语言,汉语的声调大致有四种。这四种基本声调都具有辨义功能。但是,这四种声调并不是凭空而产生的,是经过长期的历史演变而逐渐固定下来的。教民族学生学好汉语的四种基本声调时,如能让学生了解汉语声调的性质及历史发展,对声调的掌握会有很大好处。本文就汉语声调的演变过程加以探讨。一、声调的产生和性质1、声调的产生。从发生学的角度来看,社会科学与自然科学相比,有其神秘的一面:它不能象自然科学那 How to teach ethnic students to speak fluently and standard Mandarin is a difficult task. Because of the four Chinese tones, “Yin Ping, Yang Ping, Shang sound, go sound” is not among the minority languages. When students of ethnic groups were taught Chinese, they found that their pronunciation of “Shangsheng” was not accurate. Sometimes they were transferred from Pinghsheng to Pingshu, sometimes from noises, which is not the case in Chinese. Chinese is a tonal language, there are roughly four kinds of Chinese tones. These four basic tones have a discerning function. However, these four tones are not created out of thin air but are gradually fixed through long-term historical evolution. Teaching minority students to learn the four basic tones of Chinese can give them a great advantage in understanding the tone if they allow them to understand the nature of Chinese tones and their historical development. This article explores the evolution of Chinese tone. First, the tone and the nature of the production 1, tone generation. From the point of view of genesis, the social science has its mysterious aspect in contrast with the natural sciences: it can not be like the natural sciences