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Posted

Many languages don't have tones, but many have (some African languages, many SEA languages and of course, Chinese)

So, what do you think? How do tones evolve in some languages but not the others?

Posted

According to the International Phonetic Association's handbook (I think), the majority of languages are tonal. So maybe we should be asking the question "How do toneless languages evolve from tonal ones?" (I'm only half joking). To me it seems perfectly natural to distinguish between phonemes using tones.

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