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Why does speaking east Asian languages involve so much shouting? Usually it seems it's the Vietnamese folks who are loudest, but just now I passed by a group of people on the cafeteria stairs making an enormous ruckus in Chinese (and as far as I could tell it wasn't any kind of argument). Something about the tonal qualities of these languages (especially all the nasal stuff in Vietnamese) makes them carry further, or resound more, than people shouting in English or Spanish or what-have-you, too.