tone language

tone language

n. A language, as Mandarin or Somali, in which pitch or the pitch contour distinguishes the meanings of words that are otherwise the same phonologically.

tone language

n (Linguistics) a language, such as Chinese or certain African languages, in which differences in tone may make differences in meaning

tone′ lan`guage

n. a language, as Chinese or Yoruba, in which words that are otherwise phonologically identical are distinguished by having different pitches or pitch contour. [1905–10]

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

tone language - a language in which different tones distinguish different meaningstonal languagenatural language, tongue - a human written or spoken language used by a community; opposed to e.g. a computer languagecontour language - a tone language that uses pitch changesregister language - a tone language that uses different voice registerstonal system, tone system - the system of tones used in a particular language or dialect of a tone language

Translations