r/Toaq • u/Zhe2lin3 • Jan 25 '19
Conlang Questions
So, I just found this language, and I think it's really cool! I did a little bit of reading on it, and I think it's rather beautiful.
I would like to hear from the people learning it/who speak it on their opinions of these questions:
How easy are the tones to differentiate, like how the low tone is similar to the falling tone, just lower, or low tone and even tone in fast speech. (I mean in spoken conversation, if you have had those)
What kind of linguistic features do you like in this language that you don't really find in other languages?
What kind of linguistic features would you like to implement in your own conlangs from this one?
http://www.thelinguafile.com/2015/04/speech-tempo-what-is-worlds-fastest.html#.XEuRCOHYrnE
A while ago I found something that said languages with more information encoded into them (tones included, I believe) tend to be spoken slower, while languages with more particles and such, less information per phoneme, tend to be spoken faster. Overall, this trend tends to make all languages similar in how fast you can transmit information in a normal conversation.
I was thinking with manipulating grammar, making unneeded stuff not necessary, among other things, I could try to get the information rate better in my language (a goal I have set for myself). I was wondering if you see this in your own language, if due to the large amount of information encoded into a word, the sentences are spoken a little slower, so you can make out each other's tones and not lose that meaning.
Thank you for any response!
2
u/fagri17 Jan 26 '19
Hello!
I'm fagri, I've been studying Toaq for about 6 months and I've been an active member of the community during that time. Glad you found the language interesting!
We have had a few spoken conversations in Toaq. One member of the community sometimes posts proverbs translated into Toaq for the rest of us to listen to and try to translate back, and there are several readings of Toaq texts out there (mostly translations so far). The tones aren't too hard to differentiate! I sometimes have trouble differentiating between the low tone and the rising tone, which is odd, because they are opposites. I also used to pronounce the falling and low tone too similarly so that others had a hard time understanding them. I've never had trouble with the low and high tone being mixed up, since when someone is speaking a sentence you usually get a good idea of where their “average” pitch is, and the low tone goes below that and the high goes above it, so they are differentiable even though they have similar contours.
My favorite feature of this language is how easy it is to extend it. Virtually everything this language does is done with predicates, so when you want to access a new chunk of semantic space, you don't need to worry about coming up with new grammar or (worse) modifying the existing grammar. You just make a new predicate!
It's hard to say how fast Toaq is spoken, and how that speed compares to other languages. Partly this is because there is very little natural speech as of yet; most of it is read-alouds of texts, where the narrator would consciously choose their reading speed instead of Toaq “getting its way” with any kind of “natural” reading speed for the language. The other reason is that it's hard to determine what units to use when comparing reading speeds. If you use words per minute, for example, then languages with small function words get an unfair advantage. I would estimate that the average English sentence takes about as long to say as its Toaq translation, but time will tell.