Yeah, I agree that the thread doesn't constitute very strong evidence for that conclusion, but both of us ended up concluding that after the thread.
Your thought experiment is very interesting. It would indeed be very straightforward to invent a language that relied on absolute pitch; modems use such languages, after all. It would be straightforward for humans to use languages which, in this way, would be very difficult to learn as adults.
So I wonder why there aren't any languages like that? As far as I know, all tone languages use relative pitch rather than absolute pitch. Vocal range isn't an adequate answer, since you could transpose the pitches into the octave or two that a particular speaker could cover comfortably.
Your thought experiment is very interesting. It would indeed be very straightforward to invent a language that relied on absolute pitch; modems use such languages, after all. It would be straightforward for humans to use languages which, in this way, would be very difficult to learn as adults.
So I wonder why there aren't any languages like that? As far as I know, all tone languages use relative pitch rather than absolute pitch. Vocal range isn't an adequate answer, since you could transpose the pitches into the octave or two that a particular speaker could cover comfortably.