What language/s can convey a complete meaning in using just one syllable?

Question

I've learned that Chinese is one of them:

"Ma ma ma ma ma?" (using five different tones) it means:
"Is Mother's hemp to scold the horse?" or something like that...

PLEASE, NO NONSENSE ANSWERS!

Another one, this conversation is in Tagalog (the major Philippine dialect):

A scene in an elevator/lift lobby....
"Baba ba?" (Going down?)
"Bababa." (Yes, going down.)

Answer 1

Hey you are wise! All Chinese characters have only one syllable,so Chinese can do that.In my mother tongue (my family is of Chinese ethic group),which is similar with Thai language," ma ma ma ?" means "is it a horse or a dog?" And I think " ma ,ma" means "Come here,doggy" in Thai.
PS. all of the three languages have at least 4 tones
I bet no language can do this except Chinese:
施氏食狮史
石室诗士施士,嗜狮,誓食十狮。氏时时适市视狮。十时,适十狮适市,是时,适施氏适市。氏视十狮,恃矢势,世是十狮逝世,氏拾十狮尸,适石室,石室湿,氏使侍拭石室。石室拭,氏使始食十狮尸。食时,始识是十狮尸,实十石狮......
Write in Pinyin,it's like this:
shi shi shi shi shi

shi shi shi shi shi shi,shi shi,shi shi shi shi.shi shi shi shi shi shi shi.shi shi,shi shi shi shi shi,shi shi,shi shi shi shi shi.shi shi shi shi,shi shi shi ,shi shi shi shi shi shi,shi shi shi shi shi,shi shi shi,shi shi shi,shi shi shi shi shi shi.shi shi shi,shi shi shi shi shi shi shi.shi shi,shi shi shi shi shi shi,shi shi shi shi...
Translation:
History of Shi Eating Lions

A poet lived in a stone house ,whose family name was Shi,Liked to eat lions,and he vowed that he would eat ten lions one day.Shi often went to the market to see if there was any lions.
Ten o'clock,there were ten lions being sold,at the moment,Shi was on the market.He saw the ten lions and killed them then pick up the bodies.
He went back to the stone house,and it was wet there.So he asked his maid to clean it.After the house was cleaned,Shi began to eat the lions.When he was eating,he found that the ten lions were made of stone...
Any other passages in different languages?????

Answer 2

Yes, it makes sense in mandarin ---but it is an exception. each ma in here is a different character and tone...characters can be thought of more as syllables than words...although each of these ma's is a word---usually a word is of more than one syllable. Note also that the same tone of the same word can have a different character.

Answer 3

hm..being totally serious, I would have to say the language that couples have between each other. My fiance and I were eating lunch with a friend and all he said was, "Mm." and I said, "Hm" and we knew exactly what the other meant while our friend just looked at us like we were crazy.

Answer 4

american language is as full of non verbal content as any language in the world=my folks had a look and this was converted into meanings of course i was deaf and the messages were telepathic but at six years old you know what u know

Answer 5

Arabic
there are quite a few letters in arabic which are meaningful even when used alone.
Eg: wa - and
ka - like
fa - so, thus, therefore
hu - ( pronounced as who ) his
ha - her
ka - your
e - my
na - our
........................ lots more !!!....:-))

Urdu is another such language
Eg : haan - yes
to - so
.....

Hey dosen't english have such words too??
Eg : so, NO( that definitely a complete sentence !!), bee, tea, sea, ..............

Good question....:-}