![\"Diacritics](\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/blog\/tones.gif\")
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There’s an interesting article about tonal languages<\/a> in The Atlantic that I came across today. It explains that most tonal languages are found in East and Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa;, and in Mexico, and speculates that this might have something to do with climate – I think that unlikely.<\/p>\n It also explains how words can come to be distinguished by tones. In some dialects of Khumu<\/a>, an Austroasiatic language spoken in parts of Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and China, tones are used, while in other dialects they aren’t. <\/p>\n In the Khmu Rook dialect of northern Laos, for example, there are six tones. In other dialects pok<\/em> means \u201cbite\u201d and bok<\/em> means \u201cto cut down a tree\u201d – there may be a slight difference in intonation between them, but this is not used to distinguish them. In Khmu Rook b and p have merged and these words are only distinguished by tones: pok<\/em> with a high tone means \u201cbite,\u201d and with a low tone means \u201cto cut down a tree\u201d. <\/p>\n