Tonal Language

Post-velar harmony.

Some of the Native American Indian languages have this sort of characteristic. One I am familiar with is the Kalispel Salishan. Beautiful, songlike language structure.

After a bit of browsing, I'm not sure you are correct (re tonal languages being geographically SE Asian). There seems to be a connection with the spread of peoples out of Africa. Can't vouch for any of this, but take a peek here and here.

You should visit the deep south in the USA. We here are very proud of our tonal dialect.

Oooou eee ou ah ah ting tang twalla walla bing bang....Heard this once someplace, not sure of origin....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punjabi_language

I think this is it:

From here: http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/lyrics2/nov_witchdoc.html

Song Lyrics: Witch Doctor
Recorded by: David Seville
Written by: David Seville (Ross Bagdasarian)
Single: Released in 1958

I told the witch doctor I was in love with you
I told the witch doctor I was in love with you
And then the witch doctor, he told me what to do
He said that ....

(Chorus:)
Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bing bang
Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bing bang...
Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bing bang
Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bing bang

…

Happy singing

According to the link to wiki that was cited above, it is a tonal language, that's why I posted the link....Clearly it is not Chinese, which is the claim made by OP...

" Punjabi is unusual among modern Indo-European languages because it is a tonal language."

Pritam may be able to clarify, but here is one of many examples on the web;

"Among the Indo-Aryan languages, Panjabi is a tonal language. There are three tones found in Punjabi, namely, rising, falling, and level. The word /kóra/ with the rising tone means 'leper', falling tone [kòra] means 'horse' and with the level tone [kora] it means 'whip'. Similarly, /pá/ with the rising tone means colour, falling tone [pà] means 'brother,' and with the level tone [pa] means 'to feel'."

I'm sure you're right.

The previous post doesn't make a good example, but Punjabi (or at least some of it's varieties) seems to be classed as tonal. Geographically, it fits with the maps I lnked to in my first post here.

ps......#2

You are right, .... where the note (absolute on a musical scale) used when saying the word determined the meaning. You take away the tones, it is often unintelligible.

That's why, if a new Chinese song is sung to even native Chinese speaker, it is mostly unintelligible unless you know the lyric before hand.

Being a ethnic Chinese, I always wonder why our language is unique in this aspect, the other neighbouring country people just pick up the our linguistic habit ! But, not the Japanese or Korean. They only borrow the scripts.
That's is why ,it is of great interest to me , where else in the world the language is tonal. So, if your language is tonal type , please do let me know.
Someone said South African native language has clicking sound, but it is not tonal.

This is just an speculation on what the tonal language the OP was referring to. To me those sounds are more of the nostril generated sounds rather than and as compared to the throat generated words and pronunciations in the English language. It resembles more like a hum sound that comes along with the Chinese spoken words as they are spoken and where the humming or tone frequency is determined by the meaning of the word they wanted to impart? But then again, it's just a guess ...

No I can't clarify this. I'm not a linguistic expert. My mother tongue is Hindi and I'm living in a state where majority speak Telugu language. I agree with you that Panjabi is a tonal language and meaning of some words change with pronunciation. But the different meaning of word 'kora' you mentioned, I will explain as a Hindi man as follows:

1. The word /kóra/ with the rising tone means 'leper'

'leper' is called 'korha' , there is different alphabet in Hindi for 'rha'. [ ढ़ / rha]

2. Falling tone [kòra] means 'horse'

'horse' is called 'ghoda', here pronounciation of 'da' is different than english da and there is different Hindi alphabet for it. [ ड़ ṛa ]

. With the level tone [kora] it means 'whip'.

'whip' is called 'koda' with exactly similar pronunciation of 'da' like 'ghoda'.

4. There is one more [kora] in Hindi, pronunciation is same as in English and it means 'totally blank'. Blank paper is called 'kora kaagaj'

Thanks, Pritam. This has been a very interesting read, though I suspect we've barely scratched the surface of an answer for the OP. Even expert opinion I've found while reading up on this seems to be very divided/diverse. When we consider factors such as stress on sylables, dialect, etc, it all gets very complicated.

Being able to master a few words (simple courtesy phrases) in another language is a good thing, but getting it wrong by mispronunciation could be chatastrophic !

"Being able to master a few words in another language is a good thing, but getting it wrong by mispronunciation could be catastrophic!"

You are absolutely right Kris on the above statement, GA. I have many bitter experiences of it.

An extension to the last word of my previous comment 'Kora Kagaj'.... in fact in pronunciation it is more near to 'Kora Kagaz'. There is an old popular Hindi film with this title and its title song goes like this-

"Mera dil to kora kagaz, kora he rah gaya"

means "My heart is like a blank paper, it remained blank" (as the person who had to write some thing on it, left).

on a related subject, the bushmen of africa include clicks as a part of there language.

English is a tonal language.

English language is NOT tonal.

Linguists claim that Mandarin Chinese has four distinct tones, none of which are restricted by pitch. The same word spoken by many Chinese sounds the same because they all learn their language from, and imitate, one another just as for the most part any given word in English sounds the same when spoken by many English speakers. But this is not to say that these words would not be recognized in either language if spoken at a different pitch. These same linguists say Cantonese has seven distinct tones and English has nine, but they expect further study could reveal as many as fifteen distinct English tones in the American dialect. Pitch and tone(linguistic) are two very different things.

And, to add to my Korean comment, modern Korean is developing tones because of the strong influence of spoken English in their country.

Classical Korean is completely atonal.

Regards.

********** Quote ********

A tonal language is a language in which pitch is used as a part of speech, changing the meaning of a word. An example of how tone can change the meaning of a word can be found in English: the word "present" can be used as a verb or a noun, with a stress on the first or second syllable changing the meaning. In tonal languages, the way in which you say a word is very important, as it radically changes the meaning. Tonal languages are found primarily in Asia, Africa, and South America.

********** Un-Quote ********

Far-Eastern languages may be called in my view Non-Alphabet or sound-alphabet languages as Chinese [I know] has no Alphabets but Sounds.

As is mentioned in quote above Arabic [in my view] is the top-end Tonal-Language as it has a wide number of Tonal signs:

But the Chinese [All versions] each figure is a sound and words are composed of sounds not Alphabets.

Not sure that stress on a syllable is the same as change in tone.....ER will hopefully clarify......

answer is no.

Further to my post:

It seems to me, that in #13s sense, even Hungarian - where I am a native speaker - qualifies as a tonal language. The meaning of a word changes radically, depending of a wovel spoken in low or high pitch, short or long, and additionally by the stress on a syllable.

Example: egeszsegedre, the marked letter:

...... high pitch, emphasis: to you health (a toast)

.......low pitch, no emphasis: to your behind

These variations are systematic to the language.

I would like to illustrate, how unstable the linguistic classifications are. I as a rank amateur favor the Babylonian connection (I understand old place names from the region), a 100 years battle rages in linguistic circles between this and Ural-Altai groups. The two are mutually exclusive. To add spice to it, a researcher of American Indian languages classified hungarian in the Athabascan indian group. There are grammatical similarities, but I am willing to bet the old homestead, that hungarians got around in middle asia, and europa but did not migrate to nothwest canada. At least, not according the handed down sagas, and modern DNA classification.

DNA research is breaking open this logiam. This year I read a study (in hungarian) showing its connections and separations with other folks, and how many thousand years ago that was. Fascinating. I tend to trust, it is more fundamental than linguistic pronouncements.

Continuation to #18: Examples to DNA research. Search for:

"Caucasian Mummies Found in China" and

"Tarim mummies" Wikipedia

An international collaboration analysed the mitochondria (maternal only) to trace pickup from different groups, and their likely times. Full or partial DNA analysis is outstanding.

The above is a very old alphabet (characters and translations) used by the Philippines around 900 AD, which I believe has some Malay origins. As in any language and dialects, there are words that are spelled the same way but will have different meanings when spoken. When used with tonals variations, word meanings changes depending on where one put the accent or emphasis during pronunciations.

Is it:

What's that in the road ahead?

or...

What's that in the road, a head?