But it's an empirical question, and the answer could very well be yes despite the above!
(3/3)
1. Music is as much a part of culture in areas with tone languages as elsewhere.
2. Pitch is used in non-tone languages for lots of stuff (emphasis, enumerating lists, distinguishing statements from questions, etc), so maybe speakers of any language would have comparable effects of such distractors.
3. Whisper studies (and others) suggest that listeners have plenty of cues besides pitch to distinguish different tones.
(2/3)
First, I have no idea - that's a great question. However, here are some thoughts that lead me to guess that they'd have no problem (when compared to speakers of non-tone languages):
(1/3)
#Lingule #803 "haashchʼééh": 2/6
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬛⬇️️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🏆
https://lingule.xyz/
Cool! Guess 1 is an indigenous language with speakers I've actually worked with! (Chipewyan in the list, Dënesųłinë to the folks who hold the language.)
Features I recognized: #Ejectives #LongVowels #ToneLanguage
Officially started my Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship at the University of Oxford. I am working on a variety of tone languages. Contact me if you have any collaboration ideas💡
🌟Check out my project:
https://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/early-career-fellowships/rise-and-fall-tone
#linguistics #fellowship #leverhulmetrust #academia #linguisticresearch #tonelanguage
Just published: Adaptation of Melodic Intonation Therapy to a Tone Language: A Pilot Study of Tone-Rhythmic Therapy in Mandarin #Chinese
By Chen, Qian, van de Weijer, Zhu & Wang, in Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica
Keywords:
Melodic intonation therapy (#MIT) · Tone-rhythmic therapy · #ToneLanguage · #Aphasia
Not open access, but I'm happy to send a pdf to anyone who is interested
Tim Mills
Chenzi Xu
Jeroen SZ 🌮