In a crazy study (well, a normal study with crazy results) conducted by some folks at UC San Diego, it was found that music students who grow up speaking toned languages, like Mandarin Chinese, are whoppingly more likely to have perfect pitch than non-toned speakers.
(A toned language is one where the pitch of spoken words partly determines their meaning.)
The foci of the study were groups of young adult music conservatory students in the U.S. and China. The difference in perfect (or "absolute") pitch possession, where both groups had begun musical training between the ages of 4 and 5 was... ready?...
74% for Mandarin speakers vs. 14% for Westerners.
And here we all thought only a few special ingenues could do that. The authors suggest that, contrary to what most of us thought, most anyone can acquire perfect pitch if they are exposed to performatively important tone differences in their early years. Want to raise a Mozart? Try hiring a Chinese nanny.
The paper, by the way, is here.
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