This question sounds easy and simple, but the real answer has many more layers to it. Tonal languages are languages where words can differ in meaning in tone or tone changes, in addition to consonants and vowels. There are probably at least a couple thousand of tonal languages in the world, each with differing complexity, levels, and contours. Where most of these are concentrated, is typically in Sub-Saharan Africa, China and Southeast Asia, and Central America.

Before we start, however, there are some definitions we have to set out. A tone is a pitch that is used to distinguish between words or grammatical meanings. There are several types of tones, but the most commonly encountered ones are the register tone, and the contour tone. The former refers to level tone, or tone that is just, flat or constant. The latter refers to the change of pitch in a syllable, for example. This contour can rise, fall, peak, or dip, and most of the world’s tonal languages have a combination of register and contour tones. Now let us get back to trying to answer the question.

To get our answer, one might be quick to point towards Cantonese as the language with the most tones. There is a total of 9 tones, so that is a lot! But hold your horses, there is a rather big asterisk to the 9 tone system Cantonese has been purported to have. You see, three of these tones are exclusively for “checked” syllables, or syllables with a short vowel, or syllables that end with an oral or glottal consonant. In traditional analyses, the high stopped tone, mid stopped tone, and mid-low stopped tone are assigned the tones 7, 8, and 9 respectively. Tones 1-6 are given to the other syllables, and these tones are, in numerical order, high level tone, high rising tone, mid level tone, mid-low falling tone, mid-low rising tone, and the mid-low level tone. This gives us three unique register tones, and three unique tonal contours, totaling six distinct phonemic tones. Modern analyses by linguists seem to agree on this, and so, the six-tone system is the one we would accept in our little dive.

So, to one-up Cantonese on tones, would be some members of the Kam-Sui languages spoken in Southern China. The Kam language, notably, has 9 tones, with an extra 6 more that apply to checked syllables, making a total of 15 tones in traditional analyses. The 9 tones are the three unique register tones, high, low, and mid, and six contour tones, namely, high rising, dipping, low rising, low falling, high falling, and the peaking tones. This surpasses the Hmong language in number of tones, which, when I was reading up for this week’s post, I had previously thought had the most tones in Asian languages at least.

Perhaps we would find our answer in Central America, which have been proposed to have more complex tonal systems than the ones we see in East Asia. One of these examples are the Oto-Manguean languages, a language family known for its wide variety of tonal systems of varying complexities. Some languages can have as few as two or three tones, while the upper limit is under debate.

This is where we encounter the Triqui languages, which are known for their extensive tone inventories. For instance, Copala Triqui is the most studied among the Triqui languages, and is documented to have 8 tones. But, other Triqui languages can go way beyond that. Itunyoso Triqui has been assessed to have 9 tones, and Santo Domingo del Estero Triqui is proposed to have 11 tones. Oh, we are actually getting into the double digits now.

That leaves us with one more Triqui language to be discussed, and that is Chicahuaxtla Triqui. Like the other Triqui languages, Chicahuaxtla Triqui is spoken in Mexico, and has a rich tone system. It has 5 register tones alone, with the low tones being tones 1 and 2, and the high tones being 3, 4, and 5. The exact number of contour tones, however, is under debate. The earliest attempt to identify contour tones was done by Longacre in the 1950s, who suggested there were 15 contour tones, split into 7 rising, 6 falling, and 2 dipping tones (or more complicated tones). But in his more recent analysis, he revised it down to just 11 contour tones, classified as 6 rising and 5 falling tones. The most conservative estimate lists 6 contour tones, making an absurdly wide range of tones, from 15 to 20 tones. This still far surpasses the tonal inventories of the other Triqui languages, and stands out as a strong contender for the language with the most tones.

Last, but not least, we shall explore a bit in the tonal languages of Africa. Many Nilotic languages and the languages of the Kalahari are tonal, but the exact number for some languages is difficult to analyse. For example, tones in the ǂʼAmkoe language spoken in Botswana may be affected by consonants and vowels, although three register tones have been identified. How contour tones may be identified is under debate, with one linguist suggesting 6 tones for the ǂHȍã dialect. In some languages, such phonologies are poorly transcribed, or have lacking phonological data, resulting in difficulties properly assessing tones. This forms a knowledge gap which could cloud the real answer to this week’s question. The Sandawe language is probably the language on Africa which has the most tones, at 7, though this answer could change as phonological research progresses in the continent.

So, to conclude today’s exploration, the answer is definitely not Cantonese. The language with the most tones could be Chicahuaxtla Triqui, which could have as many as 20 in total. Second place likely goes to Santo Domingo del Estero Triqui with 11 tones, and a joint third place would go to the Kam language and Itunyoso Triqui. The Sandawe language deserves an honourable mention for its 7 tones, making it one of the African languages with the most number of tones. Perhaps this answer could change, as phonological analyses progress, perhaps settling some uncertainty or debate in tonal contours, or gathering more data for tone analyses.

Further reading

Some more recent field notes on the Chicahuaxtla Triqui language

Elliott, A. R., Cruz, F. S. and Rojas, F. S. (2012). Notes from the Field: Chicahuaxtla Triqui Digital Wordlist and Preliminary Observations. Language Documentation & Conservation. 6, pp. 208-236. oai:scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu:10125/4509