Are Yoruba and Igbo language tonal languages? If yes, please explain.
Yoruba and Igbo are both tonal languages belonging to the Volta-Niger branch of the Niger-Congo family.
Except for Swahili, and some languages of the Atlantic branch such as Wolof and Fulani and the notorious Swahili (Bantu branch) almost all Niger-Congo languages are tonal.
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words.
All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emphasis, contrast and other such features in what is called intonation, but not all languages use tones to distinguish words or their inflections, analogously to consonants and vowels. Languages that have this feature are called tonal languages; the distinctive tone patterns of such a language are sometimes called tonemes, by analogy with phoneme. Tonal languages are common in East and Southeast Asia, Africa, the Americas and the Pacific.
Ásụ̀sụ́ Ìgbò
Tone varies by dialect but in most dialects there seem to be three register tones and three contour tones. Igbo words may differ only in tone. An example is ákwá "cry", àkwà "bed", àkwá "egg", and ákwà "cloth". As tone is not normally written, these all appear as ⟨akwa⟩ in print.
In many cases, the two (or sometimes three) tones commonly used in Igbo dictionaries fail to represent how words actually sound in the spoken language . This indicates that Igbo may have many more tones than previously recognised. For example, the imperative form of the word bia "come" has a different tone to that used in statement O bia "he came". That imperative tone is also used in the second syllable of abuo "two". Another distinct tone appears in the second syllable of asaa "seven" and another in the second syllable of aguu "hunger".
Èdè Yorùbá
In Yorùbá Language is a tonal language with three-level tones and two or three contour tones. Every syllable must have at least one tone; a syllable containing a long vowel can have two tones. Tones are marked by use of the acute accent for high tone (⟨á⟩, ⟨ń⟩) and the grave accent for low tone (⟨à⟩, ⟨ǹ⟩); mid is unmarked, except on syllabic nasals where it is indicated using a macron (⟨a⟩, ⟨n̄⟩). Examples:
H: ó bẹ́ [ó bɛ́] 'he jumped'; síbí [síbí] 'spoon'
M: ó bẹ [ó bɛ̄] 'he is forward'; ara [āɾā] 'body'
L: ó bẹ̀ [ó bɛ̀] 'he asks for pardon'; ọ̀kọ̀ [ɔ̀kɔ̀] 'spear'.
Apart from the lexical and grammatical use of tone, it is also used in other contexts such as whistling and drumming. Whistled Yoruba is used to communicate over long distances. As speakers talk and whistle simultaneously, the language is transformed: consonants are devoiced or turned to [h] and all vowels are changed to [u]. However, all tones are retained without any alteration. The retention of tones enables speakers to understand the meaning of the whistled language. The Yoruba talking drum ‘Dùndún’or 'iya ilu' which accompanies singing during festivals and important ceremonies also uses tone.
