Editing Tone (linguistics) (section)

===Summary===
Languages that are tonal include:
* Over 50% of the [[Sino-Tibetan languages]]. All [[Sinitic languages]] (most prominently, the [[Varieties of Chinese|Chinese languages]]), some [[Tibetic languages]], including the standard languages of [[Tibet]] and [[Bhutan]], and [[Burmese language|Burmese]].
* In the [[Austroasiatic languages|Austroasiatic]] family, [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]] and other members of the [[Vietic languages]] family are tonal. Other branches of this family, such as [[Mon language|Mon]], [[Khmer language|Khmer]], and the [[Munda languages]], are entirely non-tonal.
* Some of the [[Malayo-Polynesian languages|Malayo-Polynesian]] branch of [[Austronesian languages]] in [[New Caledonia]] (such as [[Paicî language|Paicî]] and [[Cèmuhî language|Cèmuhî]]) and [[New Guinea]] (such as [[Mor language (Austronesian)|Mor]], [[Ma'ya language|Ma'ya]] and [[Matbat language|Matbat]]) plus some of the [[Chamic languages]] such as [[Tsat language|Tsat]] in [[Hainan]] are tonal. 
* The entire [[Kra–Dai languages|Kra–Dai]] family, spoken mainly in China, Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos, and including [[Thai language|Thai]] and [[Lao language|Lao]], is tonal.
* The entire [[Hmong–Mien languages|Hmong–Mien]] family is highly tonal.
* Many [[Afroasiatic languages]] in the Chadic and Omotic branches have tone systems, including [[Hausa language|Hausa]].
* The vast majority of [[Niger–Congo languages]], such as [[Ewe language|Ewe]], [[Igbo language|Igbo]], [[Lingala language|Lingala]], [[Maninka language|Maninka]], [[Yoruba language|Yoruba]], and [[Zulu language|Zulu]], have tone systems. The [[Kru languages]] and [[Southern Mande languages]] have the most complex. Notable non-tonal Niger–Congo languages are [[Swahili language|Swahili]], [[Fula language|Fula]], and [[Wolof language|Wolof]].
* All [[Nilotic languages]] such as the [[Dinka language]], the [[Maa languages]], the [[Luo languages]] and [[Kalenjin languages]] have tone systems.
* All [[Khoisan languages]] in southern Africa have tone systems; some languages like [[Sandawe language|Sandawe]] have tone systems like that of Cantonese.
* Slightly more than half of the [[Athabaskan languages]], such as [[Navajo language|Navajo]], have tone systems (languages in California and Oregon, and a few in Alaska, excluded). The Athabaskan tone languages fall into two "mirror image" groups. That is, a word which has a high tone in one language will have a cognate with a low tone in another, and vice versa.
* [[Iroquoian languages]] like [[Mohawk language|Mohawk]] commonly have tone; the [[Cherokee language]] has the most extensive tonal inventory, with six tones, of which four are contours.<ref name= "Cherokee">{{cite thesis |last=Montgomery-Anderson |first=Brad |date=May 30, 2008 |title=A Reference Grammar of Oklahoma Cherokee |type=Ph.D. |publisher=University of Kansas |page=49 |url=http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/4212/umi-ku-2613_1.pdf;jsessionid=37CBA1DB07BC9860F19A7737A89B3F70?sequence=1 |access-date=2015-01-30  |archive-date=2016-03-16  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160316152954/https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/4212/umi-ku-2613_1.pdf;jsessionid=37CBA1DB07BC9860F19A7737A89B3F70?sequence=1 |url-status=live }}</ref> Here the correlation between contour tone and simple syllable structures is clearly shown; Cherokee phonotactics permit only syllables of the structure (s)(C)V.
* All [[Oto-Manguean languages]] are tonal. In some cases, as with [[Mixtec languages|Mixtec]], tone system variations between dialects are sufficiently great to cause mutual unintelligibility.
* The [[Ticuna language]] of the western Amazon is strongly tonal. Various [[Arawakan languages]] have relatively basic tone systems. 
* Many languages of [[New Guinea]] like [[Siane language|Siane]] possess register tone systems.
* Some Indo-European languages (notably [[Swedish language|Swedish]], [[Norwegian language|Norwegian]], [[Lithuanian language|Lithuanian]], [[Latvian language|Latvian]], and [[Serbo-Croatian]]) as well as others possess what is termed [[pitch accent]], where only the stressed syllable of a word can have different contour tones; these are not always considered to be cases of tone language. However some languages, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family, are tonal such as [[Punjabi language|Punjabi]] and [[Dogri language|Dogri]].
** Some English dialects, such as [[Scouse|Liverpool]] and [[Ulster English#Belfast and surroundings|Belfast English]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=English intonation in the British Isles |url=http://www.phon.ox.ac.uk/files/apps/old_IViE/ |access-date=2023-12-19 |website=www.phon.ox.ac.uk}}</ref>
** Some European-based [[creole language]]s, such as [[Krio language|Krio]],<ref name="Finney 2004 pp. 221–236">{{cite book | last=Finney | first=Malcolm Awadajin | title=Creoles, Contact, and Language Change | chapter=10. Tone assignment on lexical items of English and African origin in Krio | series=Creole Language Library | publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company | publication-place=Amsterdam | year=2004 | volume=27 | issn=0920-9026 | doi=10.1075/cll.27.11fin | pages=221–236 | isbn=978-90-272-5249-4 |url=https://doi.org/10.1075/cll.27.11fin }}</ref> [[Saramaccan language|Saramaccan]] and [[Papiamento]], have tone from their African [[Stratum (linguistics)#Substratum|substratum]] languages.

In some cases, it is difficult to determine whether a language is tonal. For example, the [[Ket language]] of [[Siberia]] has been described as having up to eight tones by some investigators, as having four tones by others, but by some as having no tone at all. In cases such as these, the classification of a language as tonal may depend on the researcher's interpretation of what tone is. For instance, the Burmese language has phonetic tone, but each of its three tones is accompanied by a distinctive [[phonation]] (creaky, murmured or plain vowels). It could be argued either that the tone is incidental to the phonation, in which case Burmese would not be [[phoneme|phonemically]] tonal, or that the phonation is incidental to the tone, in which case it would be considered tonal. Something similar appears to be the case with Ket.

The 19th-century [[constructed language]] [[Solresol]] can consist of only tone, but unlike all natural tonal languages, Solresol's tone is absolute, rather than relative, and no tone sandhi occurs.