There's no gene for speaking Chinese, English, or Swahili. Children grow up chatting like those around them. But a new study suggests that genetic differences may have influenced the type of language a particular culture develops. All languages rely on consonants and vowels to distinguish words. But some languages, such as Chinese, also use changes in pitch for this purpose. ( Science Now)
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Enrique Gili is a freelance writer covering Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS), issues for regional magazines in the Southland and beyond. I live in Ocean Beach, San Diego the coolest beach town around.
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Tounge Tied or Pitch Perfect
Category: Health
Posted on: June 1, 2007 11:28 AM, by EJGili
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To my surprise I note that Swedish (my primary) and some other European languages use pitch accent to distinguish some words. I haven't really thought about it, since it is historical reasons such as remaining strong grammar rules and foreign word import that leaves us with a few hundred collisions on phoneme level. And not every swedish dialect care to make the distinction any longer.
Wikipedia speculates that the proto-indo-european language had some tonality.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | June 1, 2007 06:38 PM