4 ms·
>there are tonal languages, after all! I believe most (if not all) natural tonal languages use relative pitch, not absolute, so you wouldn't need perfect pitch
by aninhumer 12y ago
>there are tonal languages, after all!
I believe most (if not all) natural tonal languages use relative pitch, not absolute, so you wouldn't need perfect pitch to understand them.
- jtheory 12y agoHuh; quite right. I've had it in my head for several years that Thai, at least, was tonal based on absolute pitch; but it looks like that's wrong. I did turn up that a much larger percentage of people have perfect pitch in populations that speak tonal languages.