0 a language in which the same series of sounds can represent different meanings, depending on how high or low they are spoken: --
Tones are phonemic in tone languages.
The literature, including broad surveys of tone systems and detailed treatments of particular tone languages, manifests virtually every imaginable position that could be taken on the phonological representation of tone.
To avoid potential conflict between the two, tone languages resort to strategies that are not commonly used in non-tonal languages.
Zapotec is a tone language, which means that the meaning of a word is often determined by voice pitch (tonemes), essential for understanding the meaning of different words.
And that it uses no appropriate, conformist tone language, a language to be seriously understood today, seems to me its greatest mistake, indeed, may be a fatal one.
In addition, she is highly acclaimed for her work on absolute pitch, or perfect pitch, which she has shown is far more prevalent among speakers of tone language.
Thus, tone languages do not generally have complex intonation systems.
Although the same or similar tonological processes are attested in geographically unrelated tone languages, this is not to say that all tone languages are alike.
