English's Two TH Sounds, Explained

Also, does singing play havoc with a tonal language?

Does singing play havoc with a tonal language?

Our first question this week is from Luke J., who wants to know how speakers of tonal languages are able to convey meaning in song. In other words, in many languages the pitch you utter a word on makes the difference between one word and another: in Mandarin, shi can mean time, “to be,” send or teacher depending on the pitch. So Luke is wondering whether singing would interfere with this and make it hard to understand what is said.