Re: Rating Languages

Quoting BP Jonsson <bpj@...>:

> At 08:46 2001-09-22 +0200, Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
>
> >On
> >the other hand, if you can't memorize a few thousand characters
> >and are tone-deaf, then Chinese must be hard.
>
> Just a thought: do tone-deaf people have a handicap in societies
> speaking a tone-language?  Then again maybe not.  I'm pretty
> tone-deaf myself, and I manage the two Swedish word-tones...
I'm not sure, but I gather that all children are born with
what has been termed (perhaps incorrectly) perfect pitch,
so maybe not. There was a New York Times article to that effect
about two years ago or so, and I remember posting it to the
list, and a flurry of discussion about it, but don't remember
if there were any experts at that time to affirm or deny the
claim.

==============================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...>

"Aspidi men Saiôn tis agalletai, hên para thamnôi
  entos amômêton kallipon ouk ethelôn;
autos d' exephugon thanatou telos: aspis ekeinê
  erretô; exautês ktêsomai ou kakiô" - Arkhilokhos