Tone Languages

Tone languages are languages with words which differ in their tones. Words with identical consonant and vowel sequences can be distinguished on the basis of tone alone. Many Asian languages are tone languages.

Burmese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Lao, Punjabi, Thai and Vietnamese are tone languages. Of these languages, Punjabi is the only one that belongs to the Indo-European language family. Most tone languages are found in Asia and Africa. African languages which are tone languages include Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba.

The tones used in tone languages can be classified as contour and register. A contour tone is a tone which shifts from one pitch to another over a syllable or word. When the tone descends, it is called falling, and when it ascends, it is called rising. Other common contour tones are falling-rising and rising-falling. Many contour tone languages also have a tone spoken at a relatively even pitch which is called a level tone.

A register tone is a tone which is level. The pitch is relatively even. The distinction is in the level of pitch relative to other tones. Many languages of West Africa use register tones. For example, Yoruba has three level tones: high, mid and low.

Many languages use tone to distinguish words. Tone languages are especially common in East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. In the tone languages of East Asia, contour tones are common, but in Sub-Saharan Africa, register tones are common. Languages with contour tones usually have more tones than languages with register tones.