A language where you sing?

[JeSuisMustapha]

Well, make sure that the questions you pose can be interpreted as such with out tone, either by context or by using question words. biggrin  

[Dukonnaire]

I dunno if this has been mentioned yet, but most humans would have a tough time speaking a language with exact tone intervals as a large part of it, unless they carried a pitchwhistle around with them.

Only a very small percentage of the human population has the ability to recognise a specific pitch, so there could be as many as 12 misinterpretations of the same sentence.

Unless of course it was the INTERVALS themselves that created the meaning. Like, a rise of a minor second interval may constitute an exclamation, rather than a specific shift from C to C#, for example. In that case, I think it could be a very interesting project. smile

The first vowel of every sentence could be without diacritic, then diacritics could form the specific tonal changes on each succeeding vowel. You'd have to dig into all sorts of alphabets to get 24 different interval changes (that's the entire chromatic scale ascending+descending), so it might be easier to invent some or just double up on the vowel transcriptions. ie, a fifth might be something like " fööó ". Or, you could take the easy way out and mutilate the Vietnamese alphabet. razz

But I'm waffling on, now. Hope there's something interesting in there somewhere. wink

EDIT: Oh, in terms of actual human capacity to speak with specific intervals in real time, it might be simpler to use simple intervals, like seconds, thirds, fifths, and octaves, and then have a more complex vowel length system. Like Estonian.  

[Dukonnaire]

Maggoty Anne

But remember how intonation is used in English to convey meaning? Like how you raise your pitch a little at the end of a sentence when you ask a question? How would you prevent everything being said in English from becoming a statement?

We Australians do that even when we aren't asking a question. crying  

[spheal 000]

Dukonnaire

Maggoty Anne

But remember how intonation is used in English to convey meaning? Like how you raise your pitch a little at the end of a sentence when you ask a question? How would you prevent everything being said in English from becoming a statement?

We Australians do that even when we aren't asking a question. crying

Yeah you do! I'm in New Zealand and I find it funny how you do that.

Although, to be fair there are some guys here who do that exact same thing sweatdrop  

[Azaurmyth]

Maggoty Anne

Being tone deaf would become a severe speech impediment, that's for sure. mrgreen

No kidding it would. Lol.

Maggoty Anne

But remember how intonation is used in English to convey meaning? Like how you raise your pitch a little at the end of a sentence when you ask a question? How would you prevent everything being said in English from becoming a statement?

Perhaps because of cultural difference they don't get the raising of tone at the end of a question? I don't know, maybe they should do something different with questions and not understand the toning of other languages.