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Examines the languages of Mandarin and Vietnamese and how people who speak these languages are more likely to have perfect pitch. Includes various studies performed and poses an interesting question to think about.

"the researchers discovered, the more data-dense the average syllable is, the fewer of those syllables had to be spoken per second - and the slower the speech thus was. English, with a high information density of .91, is spoken at an average rate of 6.19 syllables per second. Mandarin, which topped the density list at .94, was the spoken slowpoke at 5.18 syllables per second. ... Despite those differences, at the end of, say, a minute of speech, all of the languages would have conveyed more or less identical amounts of information."

Ben Blatt, _Slate_ journalist, shares and reports on some maps of the United States that incorporate data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey regarding the languages spoken in American homes. One map shows what language, after English, is most commonly spoken in each of the 50 states (Spanish, for the most part), and another, the second most-spoken language. I personally question the veracity of the data for Hawai'i, which lists Tagalog as the second-most spoken language behind English. Surely it's Hawai'i Creole English (HCE), but perhaps it's because survey respondents don't know HCE= its own language. Also, Ilocano seems to be more commonly spoken than Tagalog in the 808, but maybe because Tagalog= the language of school instruction in the Philippines, it's universally spoken by everyone who speaks some Filipino variant. Some caveats on the construction of these maps. A language like Chinese is not counted as a single language, but is split into different dialects: Cantonese, Mandarin, Shanghaiese and treated as different languages. If those languages had been grouped together, the marking of many states would change. In addition, Hawaiian is listed as a Pacific Island language, so following ACS classifications, it was not included in the Native American languages map.

A study has shown that children who were born in China but adopted and raised in France picked up on Mandarin tones, even if they no longer understood the language.

Why one syllable words spoken at different pitches can have seven meanings. People don't generally speak in a monotone.

Recent studies may reveal that the advantages of bilingualism arise with any combination of language varieties that differ enough to challenge the brain. They could be dialects of the same language, two related languages such as Italian and Spanish, or as diverse as English and Mandarin Chinese. Systematically switching between any two forms of language, even quite similar ones, seems to provide the mind with the extra stimulation that leads to higher cognitive performance. What our research suggests - contrary to some widely held beliefs - is that, when it comes to language, plurality is an advantage and in this respect dialects are under-recognised and undervalued. This kind of research can make people appreciate there is an advantage to bi-dialectalism - and this may be important when we think about our identity, how we educate children and the importance of language learning.

Do genes cause a preferance for tonal or non tonal languages? Possibly. Researchers have discovered ASPM and microcephalin, two genes that are linked to brain growth, may cause a preference for tonal languages.

Researchers have looked into how tonal languages are processed in the brain. They have found that lexical tones are processed in the right hemisphere while consonats are processed in the left hemisphere,

Introduction: There is not one single Chinese language, but many different versions or dialects including Wu, Cantonese and Taiwanese. Northern Chinese, also known as Mandarin, is the mother tongue of about 70% of Chinese speakers and is the accepted written language for all Chinese.

This article talks about the differences between Chinese and English regarding the alphabet, phonology, and grammar. Chinese doesn't use an alphabet, but a logographic system where the symbols themselves represent the words. This causes Chinese learners to have difficultly reading English texts and spelling words correctly. Because Chinese is a tonal language, the pitch of a sound is what distinguishes the word meaning whereas, in English, changes in pitch are used to emphasize or express emotion and not give a different word meaning to the sound. Chinese grammar is also very much different from English grammar. For example, English uses a lot of auxiliaries and verb inflections, but Chinese is an uninflected language and conveys meaning through word order and shared understanding of context. For example, time in Chinese does not go through the use of different tenses and verb forms, which makes it difficult to understand the complexities of things like is/are/were and eats, eat, ate, eaten.

Scientists are reporting in the journal Science that they have identified specialized brain cells that help us understand what a speaker really means. These cells do this by keeping track of changes in the pitch of the voice. "We found that there were groups of neurons that were specialized and dedicated just for the processing of pitch," says Dr. Eddie Chang, a professor of neurological surgery at the University of California, San Francisco. Chang says these neurons allow the brain to detect "the melody of speech," or intonation, while other specialized brain cells identify vowels and consonants. "Intonation is about how we say things," Chang says. "It's important because we can change the meaning, even - without actually changing the words themselves." The identification of specialized cells that track intonation shows just how much importance the human brain assigns to hearing, says Nina Kraus, a neurobiologist who runs the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University. "Processing sound is one of the most complex jobs that we ask our brain to do," Kraus says. And it's a skill that some brains learn better than others, she says. Apparently, musicians, according to a study conducted by Kraus, are better than non-musicians at recognizing the subtle tonal changes found in Mandarin Chinese. On the other hand, recognizing intonation is a skill that's often impaired in people with autism, Kraus says. "A typically developing child will process those pitch contours very precisely," Kraus says. "But some kids on the autism spectrum don't. They understand the words you are saying, but they are not understanding how you mean it." The new study suggests that may be because the brain cells that usually keep track of pitch aren't working the way they should.

A common occurrence in text messages is the emoji. More people use emojis worldwide than the amount of people that are fluent in the world's most popular language, Mandarin. With the evolution from "keyboard emojis" [i.e. :) and >:( ] to what we currently know as emojis (the little pictures of faces and whatnot), we have developed these "unwritten definitions" for each distinct emoji, such as the different meanings behind each of the smiling emojis (

In many languages, pitch is as important as consonants and vowels for distinguishing one word from another. In English, "pay" and "bay" are different because they have different starting sounds. But imagine if "pay" said on a high pitch meant "to give money," while "pay" said on a low pitch meant "a broad inlet of the sea where the land curves inward." That's what it feels like to speak what linguists call a tonal language. At least a billion and a half people worldwide do it their entire lives and think nothing of it. The article goes on to talk about which areas of the world have the highest concentration of tonal languages and reasons why that might be, also some of the advantages of speaking a tonal language.

This goes into Chinese "chengyu" or four-character idioms used heavily in mandarin, much like our "two birds, one stone." Like English idioms, origins vary between chengyu, but often they're old stories and have been used for ages in colloquial language.

This study looks into how cultural learning can affect or improve second language acquisition, specifically looking into mandarin-speakers acquiring english.

Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings. This article explains what homophones are in the Chinese language, how it impacts Chinese culture, and provides examples.

This article talked about the relationship between music and language. For a while, it was believed that language and music used different hemispheres of the brain, but this article looked into various studies that proved otherwise. One example that it explained was that growing up speaking a tonal language, such as Mandarin, can make people more sensitive to pitch changes and interval differences between notes.

This article describes how music and language affect each other in the brain, as well as ways that they can influence other aspects of learning. It also describes their similarity in brain activity.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, which owns Facebook, wants to break language barriers across the globe using artificial intelligence (AI). Meta announced an ambitious AI driven project, which will be key to building its Metaverse. The company said that it is building a universal speech translator, along with an AI powered virtual assistant. CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in an online presentation, stated, "The ability to communicate with anyone in any language - that's a superpower people have dreamed of forever, and AI is going to deliver that within our lifetime.For people who understand languages like English, Mandarin, or Spanish, it may seem like today's apps and web tools already provide the translation technology we need. Nearly half the world's population can't access online content in their preferred language today. No Language Left Behind is a single system capable of translating between all written languages. "We're also working on Universal Speech Translator, an AI system that provides instantaneous speech-to-speech translation across all languages, even those that are mostly spoken," said the company in a blog.

Beginning with Gangnam Style, followed by the success of K-pop groups such as BTS, interest in Korean popular culture has skyrocketed in the past decade. One way this has manifested is through a steep rise in individuals learning the Korean language. According to a study conducted by the Modern Language Association, U.S. college student enrollment in Korean language classes has risen 78% from 2009 to 2016, reaching 15,000, while total enrollment in language classes has plateaued in recent years. The only other widely learned language with significant growth in the span was American Sign Language, which increased enrollments by 37%. Despite this trend, East Asian Studies departments have struggled to accommodate the increasing demand for Korean classes. This is because Korean language classes have been historically limited and under-resourced due to the fact that language programs in East Asian Studies have traditionally focused on Mandarin and Japanese. Experts say that K-pop is the main reason for this trend, coupled with the success of several Korean TV shows and films such as Parasite and Squid Game. The current growing trend of interest in the Korean language and culture has also been an opportunity for South Korea to engage Americans in a variety of other sectors relating to the country including business, politics, economics, and history.