Non-tonal simply means the denotation isn’t carried by tone, not that users of the language don’t use tone. It’s an interesting distinction.
John McWhorter has a few courses in The Great Courses catalog about language - its pretty fascinating stuff. He covers things like tonal languages, and how even for a linguist like himself, they’re tough to learn.
They absolutely do. Even within the same language, regional accents can have very different prosodies.
I recall reading a Nature article iirc about how neonatal cry melody can reflect prenatal exposure to parental language! How nuts is that!? Brains are cool.
eta: Found it: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982209018247
This made me think, and I realized that non-tonal languages actually do have a tonal aspect to them.
Non-tonal simply means the denotation isn’t carried by tone, not that users of the language don’t use tone. It’s an interesting distinction.
John McWhorter has a few courses in The Great Courses catalog about language - its pretty fascinating stuff. He covers things like tonal languages, and how even for a linguist like himself, they’re tough to learn.
True, otherwise it would be monotone, though some people speak in a monotone voice that can put you to sleep.
Me as a native finnish speaker making every english speaker in a meeting unsure of my meanig
Can you explain please?
As others explained, finnish is pretty flat and that carries to the other languages I speak. To english mostly, I refuse to speak swedish
From what I’ve learned from memes is that there is “enmity” between Swedes and Finns, am I correct?
Finnish people are stereotyped to sound monotone, enunciate clearly, speak directly, and tersely. This makes them seem unfriendly.
And then they expect you to stay 3 m away from them at all times, which intensifies their seeming unfriendliness.
At least these are the memes.
Knew there was a reason I liked Finns…
When we go to a hotel, we prefer the Finnish level of service: make everything work and otherwise leave us alone.
Sounds pretty similar to US stereotypes towards Eastern Europeans, who are “always grumpy” and “rude”.
They absolutely do. Even within the same language, regional accents can have very different prosodies.
I recall reading a Nature article iirc about how neonatal cry melody can reflect prenatal exposure to parental language! How nuts is that!? Brains are cool.
eta: Found it: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982209018247
Wow. Off to searching for articles in Nature! Hello rabbit hole…
Huh