2479: Swedish Tones Sep 25, 2021

While people tend to associate tonal languages which use pitch to distinguish between words otherwise pronounced the same with East Asia, there are languages around the world, such as Swedish (with Norwegian included), which also have some form of this. Swedish has two tones, the acute and grave tones, which are often distinguished by stress, as in English 'a rebel' and 'to rebel' but in Swedish there are genuine, noticeable pitch changes in terms of the individual vowels outside of mere stress. As a result, there are pairs of words differing only by these tones that have totally unrelated meanings, like 'boken' (the book) with acute tone, and 'boken' (spoilt) with a grave tone. In Swedish dialects spoken in Finland, these pitches are virtually nonexistent.

2291: Stress in Tonal Languages Mar 25, 2021

It would be reasonable to assume that tonal languages, which already rely on changes in pitch to distinguish between words don't have stress or meter since those functions also involve volume, length, and even pitch. This assumption would be incorrect however. While it is true that these features are less relevant than in certain non-tonal languages, stressed syllables have been found in Mandarin for example by utilizing change in the fundamental frequency of the pitch (i.e. the swing in pitch of one individual tone) greater than that of the unstressed syllable, which would therefore have a more narrow change in pitch by itself.