Linguistics

Speakers of tonal languages are far more likely to have perfect pitch

In languages like Mandarin and Vietnamese, the pitch you say a syllable at can completely change its meaning. Psychologist Diana Deutsch found that native tonal-language speakers were dramatically more likely to have absolute pitch, the rare ability to name a musical note without a reference tone, than speakers of non-tonal languages with equivalent musical training. She argued that growing up needing precise pitch to understand words trains the same skill music does.

Diana Deutsch, Absolute pitch, speech, and tone language — Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2006

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