Lola Cortes

Ms. Chawkat

Independent Research

January 24, 2023

Brunelle, M & Kirby, J 2015, Re-assessing tonal diversity and geographical convergence in

Mainland Southeast Asia. in N Enfield & B Comrie (eds), Languages of Mainland

Southeast Asia: The State of the Art. Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 82-110. DOI:

10.1515/9781501501685-004

In this paper, the authors explore different factors that may affect the development of

tonal languages such as, geography, population, tone, and vocal quality. When it came to

geography, in the end, they found that the geographical distribution of tonality is very skewed.

They found that languages tended to have more tones the farther north they went, such as in

Northern Vietnam. In contrast, in the more southern regions like southern Vietnam and

Peninsular Malaysia, languages tended to be more atonal. In between each area was a smooth

gradient.

The authors, Marc Brunelle and James Kirby, are qualified to discuss the development of

languages because they are both academic researchers at the University of Ottawa and the

University of Edinburgh, respectively. The University of Ottawa is one of the top ten research

intensive universities in Canada and the University of Edinburgh is consistently one of the top 50

universities in the world. However, there is no contact information for either author anywhere in

the paper. Written eight years ago, this source is current on the topic of the development of tonal

languages and how geography might affect them. The authors of the article evaluated all sides of

the issue by showing how the findings of this paper might be against some popular belief and
acknowledging that what they have found in the data may not be solid evidence for everything.

This inclusion shows that the authors acknowledge that this data may be unpopular, but still have

some confidence. It also shows that they are willing to admit if they had made a mistake in their

findings. The purpose of the paper is to show how there are many different ways that tonal

languages can develop and how language family and geography seem to be factors that show

how these languages will develop. The audience for this paper would be researchers who want to

try and understand how tonal languages develop and if there are any factors that are able to

predict how they develop.