Tone vs Pitch Accent: Is Japanese a tonal language?
I’ve been teaching Japanese pronunciation and pitch accent for a few years now, and sometimes I get questions about whether pitch accent and tone are the same thing.
So today, let’s answer that question!
No matter what language it is, there’s always some kind of flow when you speak it. Sometimes it comes in the form of stress, like in English for example, where we have stressed and unstressed syllables. Other times it comes in the form of changing pitch though tone or pitch accent. We use this flow to indicate changes in things like meaning, emphasis, emotion, and contrast.
Today, we’ll focus on tone and pitch accent.
Tone
The most commonly used example of a tonal language may be Mandarin, but there are many other languages that are tonal. This category includes but is not limited to: Punjabi, Yoruba, Cherokee, Vietnamese, Hmong, Thai, Igbo, and Cantonese. Essentially, what happens in these languages, is that each syllable has a pitch contour assigned to them, so that we can differentiate meaning between sounds that may otherwise be the same.
Let’s look at what might be the most commonly used example of tone in Mandarin with the 1-syllable word, “ma”. Mandarin has 5 tones, and depending on which one you use, the meaning completely changes. Using the first tone will result in the meaning for “mother”, the second tone, “hemp”, third tone, “horse”, and the fourth tone, “scold”. The fifth tone is an interrogative particle, meaning we use it to indicate that we’re asking a question.
Here they are together, with the pinyin, traditional character, simplified character, and meaning in English:
ma (嗎/吗) (an interrogative particle)
Pitch Accent
Pitch accent languages, on the other hand, usually have one syllable that contrasts in pitch.
So in tonal languages, basically every syllable has a different pitch pattern, whereas in pitch accent languages, there’s basically just one pitch change in a word. Of course, this explanation is a little oversimplified, and different languages will exhibit these patterns in different ways. So if you want to learn about how tone and pitch work in a specific language, please look up that specific language.
Languages categorised as pitch accent languages include, but are not limited to, Japanese, Slovene, Ancient Greek, Turkish, Persian, Norwegian, Vedic Sanskrit, and Western Basque.
Let’s look at how pitch accent works in Common - or Standard - Japanese.
There are two pitches: high and low. They are relative pitches, not absolute pitches, like we have in music. So, "high" and "low" pitches are simply higher or lower than what came previously.
There are 4 different pitch accent patterns. They are: 頭高（あたまだか/atamadaka) which means head high, 中高（なかだか/nakadaka) which means middle high, 尾高（おだか/odaka) which means tail high, and 平板（へいばん/heiban) which means flat. When trying to figure out the pitch accent pattern for a word, we often want to take the particle that comes after the word into consideration.
Let’s look at one example word for each pattern:
雨が（あめが/ame ga) - This is an 頭高（あたまだか/atamadaka) pattern where あ (a) is high and め (me) is low. The particle が (ga) is also low
あの人が（あのひとが/anohito ga) - This is an 中高（なかだか/nakadaka) pattern where の (no) is high and the rest are all low, including the particle
花が（はなが/hana ga) - This is an 尾高（おだか/odaka) pattern where は (ha) is low, な (na) is high, and then the pitch drops again for the particle が (ga)
桜が（さくらが/sakura ga) - is a 平板（へいばん/heiban) pattern where さ (sa) is low, and くら (ku, ra) are high. In this pattern, the pitch of the particle is also high
The “accent” part of the pitch accent refers to the drop in pitch that we find in words. And as you can see, only 3 of these 4 patterns actually have a drop in pitch, so this means that some words in Common Japanese are categorised as “accentless”. These are the 平板（へいばん/heiban) words.
The Importance of Pitch Accent
If you want to sound more like a native speaker or you want to use Japanese for work, I highly recommend you put a bit of extra effort into learning pitch accent. But if you’re struggling with pitch accent, know that even if you get it wrong, most people will understand what you’re saying based on context.
If you’re looking for some additional resources to help with your pronunciation and pitch accent in Japanese, please check out:
This free workshop that’ll help you perfect your Japanese pronunciation and pitch accent
This YouTube playlist on Japanese pronunciation and pitch accent
Quick Review
Let’s review what we’ve discussed.
In tonal languages, each syllable has a pitch contour assigned to them. So that means that one word will have multiple pitch changes. In pitch accent languages, words usually have one syllable that contrasts in pitch. In the case of Japanese, the ‘accent’ in a word is the downstep of the pitch, from high to low, like we saw in 雨が.
Both tone and pitch accent refer to the changes in pitch in a word, which affects meaning, but each does this in a different way.
One Last Thing…
Before we end, I want to make this discussion a little more exciting by adding one last piece of information. There is an argument that pitch-accent is a variation or subcategory of tone, but this idea isn't necessarily agreed upon by all linguists.
What are your thoughts about this argument? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below!
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