8 ms·

All languages have tones. See how the 'a' sound is different in 'car' and 'can', or 'make'?

• lacampbell 10y ago
  That's not a tone in the sense of how mandarin has them. A better approximation of tones in english is saying these phrases out loud: "Yes!" "Yes?" "Yes..."
• grzm 10y ago
  That's not the same thing. That's an inconsistent mapping of sounds (phonemes) to symbols (and one of the reasons English can be so frustrating to learn). Tones when referring to linguistics are changes in pitch to distinguish words. Given that these differences in pitch (tonemes) are created with the same system (mouth, tongue, lips, vocal chords, &c) as phonemes, you can argue that they're the same, but it's an important enough distinction that linguists find it meaningful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_(linguistics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_(linguistics)
  • deleted 10y ago
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