East and Southeast Asia:
* Mandarin Chinese: Has four main tones and a neutral tone, which are crucial for meaning. Words like "ma" can have different meanings depending on the tone used (e.g., "mother", "hemp", "horse").
* Cantonese: Similar to Mandarin, Cantonese uses tones extensively, with six tones and a neutral tone.
* Vietnamese: Has six tones, and changing the tone can change the meaning or grammatical function of a word.
* Thai: Five tones, which can alter the meaning of a word significantly.
* Lao: Similar to Thai, Lao uses five tones for different meanings.
* Burmese: Three tones that are integral to understanding the language.
* Korean: Though considered a language with minimal tone usage, Korean does have a "high" and "low" tone distinction that influences meaning in some words.
Africa:
* Yoruba: Uses three tones, each with a specific function and meaning.
* Hausa: Has two main tones that are essential for distinguishing between words.
* Igbo: Three tones that change the meaning of words.
* Tiv: Four tones that are fundamental to the language's structure.
Other:
* Pinyin (Romanization of Mandarin): Uses tone marks to indicate the tones in Mandarin words, even though it is not a spoken language.
Note:
* Tone is not an "all or nothing" feature. Some languages have a very subtle tonal system, while others have a system that is highly complex and impacts meaning significantly.
* While the languages listed above rely heavily on tone, this doesn't mean that other languages don't use tone at all. Many languages, including English, have some degree of tonal variation in intonation, though it doesn't impact meaning as drastically as in tonal languages.