Having taught at a school that had a large population of Cambodians, Vietnamese, Thai and Laotian students, I do understand in essence how highly inflected languages differ from English .
But what I don't understand is how the melodiousness of expressive English speakers wouldn't also be a right brain function. Sometimes, for instance, when a speaker drives a point home, it might not be so much the content alone of what he speaks, but also the melodiousness itself--the rise and fall of the voice on certain words, stress, enunciation of particular consonants, rhythmic interspacing, and so on--part and parcel of the actor's craft. How are these musical aids to language well-spoken--ones that require the rise and fall of phrases at least and the delivery of the individual words, even down to the beautifully or forcefully enuniciated consonant--still purely left brain functions?
I do understand how Asiatic inflection is different--I did try to imitate my Vietnamese students' language for their amusement. My incorrect inflection always amused them as they told me what I'd actually said--but isn't there a similarity here at least in our own masterful phrasing, delivery and enunciation?
