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> As many have pointed here Mandarin, Thai, Cantonese and Vietnam are tonal languages There are also plenty of tonal languages outside East/Southeast Asia, in
by gumby 4y ago
> As many have pointed here Mandarin, Thai, Cantonese and Vietnam are tonal languages
There are also plenty of tonal languages outside East/Southeast Asia, in South Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, and that's just ones I know of.
Languages also switch, like ancient Greek.
- LAC-Tech 4y agoOr indeed, ancient Chinese! Which IIRC was non tonal. There's some linguistic pattern where consonant clusters at the end of words get dropped, but their 'effect' on the vowel remains and that's how these kind of tones develop. IIRC there's also two different kind of tones, pitch tones, and register tones.... Languages are crazy.