ABSTRACT
Every language has its own special intonation, i.e. the rise and fall of the voice in sentences, and in every language this characteristic element of speech is important. A tone language is one which makes a particular use of pitch as an element of speech. This special use consists in the employment of pitch for two purposes, viz. to indicate meaning (semantic or etymological tones) and to show grammatical relationships (grammatical or syntactic tones). The tones of a language must be considered in relation to syllables. The vowel of a syllable generally bears the main part of the tone. Vowel elision is extremely common in African languages. Tone in most African languages is an extremely complicated matter. The gramophone in the future is likely to play an important part in the teaching of languages and its use should form part of the technique of African, no less than of European language study.
