Next up: The secret to learning ANY language

How do you sing a tonal language?

If you enjoyed the video, consider leaving a like! If you really liked the video, consider subscribing!

Often times, as English speakers, we take singing and song writing for granted. For people speaking tonal languages, this is not the case. Due to the fact that tonal languages require tonality to speak and songs require tonality to sing there becomes a problem when the two mix. What happens when the tones of words do not match the tone of the music accompanying them?

Sources:
Schellenberg, Murray. "Singing in a tone language: Shona." Selected Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference on African Linguistics. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, 2009.

Ladd, D. Robert, and James Kirby. "Tone–Melody Matching in tone-Language Singing." (2020).