>>24816455
Tone has less functional load in Mandarin, mch lk hw y cn ndrstnd Nglsh wrttn wtht vwls wtht t mch dffclt. (Chinese Braille also mostly doesn't record them unless necessary in context.) In Cantonese, which has more distinct tones and distinguishes them more rigorously, tones do have to match the melody, and if they don't the lyrics often end up sounding like something else- there's a Christian song that runs "He's able, He's able, I know He's able" (in Cantonese, zyu2 nang4gau3, zyu2 nang4gau3, ngo5 zi1 nang4gau3) but because of the mismatch of tones to melody it comes out sounding more like "He's fucking stupid, He's fucking stupid, goose hemmorhoids, He's fucking stupid" (zyu2 nan2gau1, zyu2 nan2gau1, ngo4 zi6 taa1 nan2gau1).