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Serbo-Croatian - a tonal language? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7158 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes  12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 1 of 14 17 April 2005 at 12:29am | IP Logged |
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I have discovered that in some dialects of Serbo-Croatian (forgive me for that expression) rising or falling pitches of voice are used to distinguish between two words that are written the same.
This looks to me as the grammatical feature in small that is used in regular tonal languages such as Chinese. People on Wikipedia seem to have a hard time figuring out whether you can really call it 'a tonal language' or not. What do you think? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7038 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 2 of 14 17 April 2005 at 8:51am | IP Logged |
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No, Serbocroatian is not a tonal language, and neither is Schwedisch or Norwegian because of "anden" / "anden" ("spirit" / "duck") depending on rising or falling tone. If they are, then so is English - think about the distinction between "bow" (deck of a ship; formal greeting by bending at the waist), and "bow" (ribbon in the hair; weapon for shooting arrows), which could either be described by a different dipthong or a rising versus a falling tone. Most all languages have a trace of this, but they cannot be considered tonal languages until it is an integral part of their basic operating system, as in all forms of Chinese, Thai, Tibetan(?), and many Bantu languages.
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| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7100 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 14 17 April 2005 at 10:52am | IP Logged |
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As far as I know, Japanese also makes disctinctions of tone in certain words. "ame", depending on its stress and tone, can mean "candy" or "rain". As Ardaschir said, this is not an integral part of the language.
In some ways, it's similar to the papa and papá example the administrator showed on his web site. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Seth Diglot Changed to RedKing’sDream Senior Member United States Joined 7006 days ago 240 posts - 252 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Persian | Message 4 of 14 17 April 2005 at 5:10pm | IP Logged |
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Norwegian and Swedish may not be tonal languages like Chinese, but their system of tones is certainly highly semantically developed--at least in the sense that they have a system of two tonemes regularly associated with primary stress, unlike English or most Danish dialects whose similar phonetic relaization of the two accents is in the glottla stop.
Moreover, I am having a hard time distinguishing "bow" except when imagining it with a different dipthong. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7100 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 14 17 April 2005 at 5:28pm | IP Logged |
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I am confused - I thought "bow", in its different meanings, are pronounced differently? Or is this a regional variation?
"bow" (deck of a ship; formal greeting by bending at the waist) pronounced [bau] "bow" (ribbon in the hair; weapon for shooting arrows) pronounced [bo] 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| maxb Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6965 days ago 536 posts - 589 votes 7 sounds Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 6 of 14 18 April 2005 at 5:25am | IP Logged |
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From what I have gathered, Swedish is a "pitch accent" language, which as far as I know means that some words are distinguished only by the pitch melody, they are in other words not distinguished by stress. It seems to me that "anden" (meaning the spirit) is pronounced with two falling tones while "anden" (meaning the duck) is pronounced with a high level tone followed by a low level falling tone. However unlike chinese every word does not have a tone in swedish.
If you want to know more about the "tonal" features of Swedish you can find some intersting information in this article. http://www.olle-kjellin.com/SpeechDoctor/ASLA02_Newterm.pdf 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| msherl Newbie United Kingdom Joined 7013 days ago 14 posts - 14 votes Studies: Serbo-Croatian | Message 7 of 14 13 June 2005 at 4:43pm | IP Logged |
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I have studied Serbo-Croat to a fairly high standard.
I can tell you that there are certain words which are spelled the same, but which can take on two completely different meanings depending on how a certain vowel is pronounced, i.e. whether the vowel is "elongated" or not. An example is "sam", which pronounced quickly would mean "I am", but when pronounced with a longer, elongated "aaaa" would mean "alone". Hope this helps. The distinction is fairly subtle, unlike the differences between the two pronounciations of the English "bow" mentioned above, which seem to me to be different vowel sounds regardless of a rising or falling pitch. Edited by msherl on 13 June 2005 at 4:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Magnum Bilingual Triglot Retired Moderator Pro Member United States Joined 6899 days ago 359 posts - 353 votes Speaks: English*, Serbian*, French Studies: German Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 14 13 June 2005 at 4:53pm | IP Logged |
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Serbian is not a tonal language.
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