Conlangery #81: Tone

Conlangery #81: Tone

Published: Mon, 21 Jan 2013 11:49:51 +0000 \

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Transcript

utterance-id1 that'll come to climb lung goody deport cost on <unk> on the <unk> [noise] walk 'em to calm library departure aspect constructed languages people great i'm george carlin [noise] ah with me down the road away william and low and up in maine is mike my team hello was that slow enough for you yeah [noise] i <unk> i was teasing george for saying that <unk> i'm just used to say in it so i i said the way i see it anyway so uh we we uh aborted one one instance of this episode already so i may have yeah we i may have some of that in the outtakes but for now we just need to really just jump right into our topic for today which is tone sin tonal language is yeah um so i wanted to start out just by going over a few of the basics and a little terminology uh we're going to talk about so there's different types of turns systems first of all um many towns just have many tunnel languages are just based on relative <unk> uh uh those those are like the two tone in three tones systems that uh williams probably more familiar with me but uh [noise] uh and then there's also <unk> systems where each syllable has not just a pitch attached to it but a sort of i uh uh a maybe a <unk> or a falling tone or those that they're more uh complex [noise] your voice is moving between different <unk> um and uh just uh uh small note on how we're going to talk about towns um usually when wing linguists are classifying tones we use uh a scale of one to five um which [noise] the way i learned it was five is the highest and one is the lowest but apparently they are different conventions where we'll use that use it that way right now for right now [noise] and um basically you just normal speaking boy she divided into fight pictures and then for the the regular old like uh but just pitch tone systems you just name one of those pictures and then <unk> you name all the pictures that hits in order so for example mandarin third tone is uh <unk> is uh labeled as three one two for uh [noise] because it sort of falls and then <unk> <unk> not perfect um i think based on subjective sort of experience that different speakers have different sort of ranges of towns but here you know as as i want her re emphasizing something you said george [noise] take the normal range of you're sort of average speaking voice and divide that into fine it's not like you need to move to the very height of your natural voice range for five yeah yeah right uh i suppose it's not like right now it's just my ma right yeah <unk> you know the the one is like uh uh uh and then right if i was like uh uh uh for my voice anyway yeah so uh and that's that's a good good point because ah one thing just to throw out to uh to um to be bump a misconception out there [noise] tonal language is are not singing [laughter] no it is is just the pictures of your normal speaking voice and it's all relative there's no uh there's no absolute pitch involve now there are some little things like <unk> speakers of tonal language is they may each speaker i._d. luckily my sort of have be consistent in how their pictures are distributed but it still is a lot of variation and there's there's things like um speakers of tonal language is native speakers of turn languages are slightly more likely to have perfect pet but it's not a requirement or anything to understand how <unk> right and anyone who claims they're tone deaf is lying well not lying but they're misinformed there's no such thing as <unk> really um and if you were a speaker english and clean your tone desk then i would like you don't mean to be how did you understand when someone is asking you a question [laughter] mm yeah i think um probably everyone can at least understand relative differences and pets right absolutely yeah i think people who claim that their tone deaf or or or have other people claim that they're trying to have problems with musical ability <unk> it's not so much you know it's not judging what pitch is this when you're talking about tones and specially chinese <unk> um just like an english <unk> say you know you want if you're asking someone you know chicken courses chicken there's no question about which way to tell us going and same <unk> uh <unk> in chinese as well not electrical level and the other total i'm use at a much more you know same mental level that's <unk> yeah we don't we don't we don't need to get too far into this this sort of basic explanation but i just wanted to to to highlight that for people because you know we might have some people who are not to um [noise] not too familiar one other uh a couple of other simple things there's off um we'll talk probably about ten cindy later but yeah <unk> um uh i <unk> i want to know also that very often towns will get reduced in running speech [noise] so the the mandarin third time that i i just uh talked about the uh you don't hear that full time zone in running speech very often use heavily you hear what ever [laughter] right we're not this thing and then we never hear it again yeah you only ever actually hear that fool tone uh articulated in like poetry reading <unk> because um there's a a particular uh way to read uh chinese poetry that draws out the town [noise] <unk> yeah sometimes when careful speech but in running speech um you <unk> it's basically always reduced to a short low tone with <unk> uh yeah so but it's it's possible for like the sort of <unk> values of your tones to be reduced as well so that's that's another thing but after that sort of bit of little bookkeeping let's get into the whole um a bit about town so we talked about super thick mental is way back an episode thirty three we talked about tone a little bit [noise] um but not as much as we were talking about today um one thing i have long noticed is there are not too many <unk> that used tone there's some um i am ludicrously funded them much more fun of them than probably is um matches then reality but then i looked at <unk> and in their numbers which includes five hundred plus languages about two thirds of their languages are total to some degree that's that's actually a little bit surprising that a lot of languages and like almost the entire day of summer and africa has is tony languages oh okay um and there are there hot spots of toned as well that's that's that's pretty darn serious yeah right right um so i was talking about tunes talks about too uh simple versus complex tuned systems <unk> um the simple ones are more common uh significantly more common than the complex systems and the simple systems have either a two way or a three way split mm so that to waste <unk> is simply <unk> low and languages like now the who and know bein <unk> and then you have a three way split which is high mid low um a good one is <unk> um you should be able to find information about that pretty well it has a three way system mhm [noise] and then for the complex systems is when you have more contrast and especially when you have tuned contours yeah i i feel like if you have more than three you're necessarily going to have at least one <unk> i don't know if that's true but it seems pretty they're likely yeah i i mean that would be a good sort of rule of some to follow 'cause it would be a little difficult to distinguish like uh for for five as opposed to a three and a five right well one of the things you talk about and disappears and based on some of the reading i did for the show it really seems like some nation changes and tune changes go together a lot more than i fully appreciate it before so you might get creaky boys are breath the boys um technically when you have a mix system like this it's called the pitch register system mm so at this point i would argue that mandarin chinese and to pitch register system because when you actually speak it like a normal chinese human being the third tone is either <unk> either way and it sounds like a second tone or you get the <unk> yeah [noise] um right um so i it doesn't it wouldn't surprise me to get a system of more than three tones where they were flat but there was some other information change i'm just guessing you know not actually seen something that does that [noise] um me [laughter] but look this number of toes in a single language i was able to find is the <unk> language in africa which claimed to have fourteen according to what analysis it freaked george <unk> when we were getting ready for the show yeah so this <unk> this is really weird because like previously i thought like cantonese was weird with six towns right but this has fourteen different tone distinctions and like i'm like almost skeptical of analyzing it this way because uh uh some of these distinctions but ah it's ah it's possible [laughter] right and he has four level tone in addition to a massive contours [noise] yeah um [noise] uh and then and then another related language with ten nearly ten tones is um way um they're both in the same family and i've got links to those unfortunately we don't have more detail about them i mean <unk> yeah um so one thing we so that's it you're gonna have a simple system or a complex system um and we'll just go from there so the next thing that can happen is tone sunday yeah um people familiar with chinese will will notice very well <unk> well no i'm in <unk> there is one sunday rule that at least that you learn in uh in classes yeah which is um when you have to third comes together the first one turns into a second town so the very first word you probably learn a new how uh me is third town and hall his third town but uh because they come together no one ever says <unk> how <unk> how that's really difficult to perhaps actually so it turns into <unk> right <unk> sunday for those who don't know it's a linguistics germ borrowed from sanskrit refers to changes it happened when sounds run into each other mhm and no tone sunday is just when two syllables with different turns run into each other what can happen in chinese has a little bit of tone sunday some languages and very crazy harry complex tone sunday yeah and they make a sad vietnamese there <unk> rational people who have no tone sunday at all [laughter] okay so it's it's possible to have <unk> yeah um and uh interestingly for people who are interested in history [noise] uh it seems like sort of tone sunday if you get a lot of it can be sort of up past toward pitch accent 'cause some people have <unk> have thought that uh <unk> or um well the the chinese language that includes chinese um has so much tons sunday that it's like turning into a <unk> system right so it's <unk> it's really uh sort of an interesting thing for a store process yeah um i'm not going to discuss all the different kinds of tone sunday you can look that up yeah it'll <unk> it'll go uh that's probably going to be a giant rabbit hole yeah 'cause you know it's gonna be as much as any other assimilation processor exactly <unk> all sorts of fucking go in there [noise] um so and the kinds of tone processes can happen in the language in languages like er mandarin or vietnam means typically a <unk> a <unk> a word in a syllable or a multi syllable word how tone and that's it they're always going to have that always in forever ignoring sunday changes however especially an african languages it seems to me [noise] various kinds of grammatical things can be marked by tone switches mhm you know we're so a few episodes go i mentioned that all that was left the definite article in some african language is is a tone change at the beginning or the end of a word yeah [noise] um sometimes actually things like aspect marking or tens marking or number marking might um be indicated by tones which <unk> mhm um uh no bean which is ah a newbie in language um there are several kinds of <unk> um and there's one kind of plural is especially preferred with dice elastic words that have either <unk> or a low honey tone pattern oh interesting right so tone can get really involved in your grammatical process is a lot my <unk> all sorts of all those sorts of things you might imagine and typically historically and we're going to get to that the minute that represents the loss of something [noise] yeah yeah more than just a tone typically well we'll get into what what the well that can sort of be a segue into what about uh one other thing i just wanted to mention that i thought it was neat okay i'm in no bean you can get lots of now compounds and typically what will happen is the first element all of the bottles or of switch to low tone and then only the last element of the word the new combined word keeps it's <unk> oh that's interesting yeah so you can have a lot of a fun little process as if yeah a lot of a lot of tonal hanky panky as possible and and we're talking about i mean so many so often we're used to tell language we immediately think chinese so we think <unk> um like scenes for the most part mhm yeah like vietnamese but it african languages you could have easily multi <unk> eastwood their own particular speech pattern this is also true not let them write each where it has its own toned pattern and this is not you know it's across <unk> [noise] this is not simply <unk> ah my muscles thirties a sort of uh from from what i understand there's actually sort of a continuum uh that where um complex tone systems simple syllable structures and analytics uh type policy all sort of go together and chinese is way far close to one end of that spectrum [laughter] so um but you can you can dial it back to bed and have multi slavic words little slightly more civil complex and still have town [laughter] yeah um another thing and i forgot to look this up ah vietnamese especially has all sorts of crazy modified read implication patterns to fund lexical things mhm um in tone can get involved in that as well okay so did we duplicated syllable may have particular um patterns ah tones to match the tone of the some of the word being were duplicating um so that that's just something to look up if you're interested in um another possibility for fun grammar and it was tone [noise] and then before we get to the historical stuff i just wanted to say as we've rented that before [noise] toned and <unk> changes go together a lot yeah um especially i think uh creaky voice gets associated with low towns not always [noise] not all you can be but sometimes you can get <unk> which surprised me the first time i ran into it must be there must be some interesting historical stuck on yeah i would guess so both <unk> voice and creaky boys often get involved in these systems especially for the complex tone systems i don't think it happens too often with simple you know to waste systems but with the more complex tone system that's very likely to happen mhm all right [noise] are we ready for historical process is yeah i think saw and did toto genesis which <unk> which sounds like an enemy series [laughter] oh [noise] so yeah uh sunday is one of the captain [laughter] so [laughter] yeah absolutely [laughter] somebody's going to make that now but ah it turns your this is just how on earth to these tones come in to be um and typically it is the <unk> it's it's uh a result of conditioned variation running off on its own so for example you might get a tone split in syllables between whether they're following a voice stop or a voice let's stop mm and then the language might lose the boys in contrast in constance altogether and the only thing you have less than tons which is yeah i think the the main uh i think ah get a little bit into the theoretical on here it's it's basically like if you look at a spectrograph you will see that the the pitch a vow gets bent a little bit at the end where there were they interact with the <unk> yeah and that sort of bending years where the tone comes from it's sort of like you have several generations of babies that hey more attention to that tone bending than to the consummate and i was just going to make a joke about how about the constant love each other very much and then they make a tone [laughter] and then the positive those <unk> right from the south florida yeah well [laughter] circle of life circle of like [laughter] [noise] so they've chosen now that'd be a horrible yes now all we have a single <unk> single now let's see well tones [laughter] uh yeah it's cool [laughter] and another thing that can happen as george's mentioned there's these um this bending [noise] if you want some sort of effect that's happening to bottles when they climb constant you might have a language or the simple temp system that will become complex by the same process oh habits to tone system and then something funky will start happening after your voice confidence um and then you'll lose the switch and then you've got no a complex toned system and a loss in <unk> in your confidence mhm [noise] um right so an example that i've been getting so far as the the voice to stop um in a syllable unsaid causes a lower tone in the phone syllable and it goes way um counter tones it seems to me are somewhat more likely to happen on long bubbles mm i mean you can get contour tones in a simple uh language or a simple tone system such as <unk> still has things that looked like contour tones because it has <unk> oh yeah that's that's another thing you often get like a a fallen counter rising town and uh but it was it's it's i don't <unk> those aren't like not funny make hardly [noise] uh that's a good question they might i mean they're important i don't know <unk> <unk> now that would be something that we need to look up so it's sort of [noise] um at least you get like these these sort of issues where like some biological process causes i calling tone on along vow or something like that [noise] um some of that was happening as i recall cherokee <unk> it could have been a simple temp system in making a complex [noise] um conditioned conditional complex yeah sometimes it'll be <unk> it's a little bit difficult to analyze this so when you're looking at natural language is you might have disagreements on the analysis yeah on certain certain languages there's there's some that are well studied and and pretty well it's pretty well understood what tons of them is but yeah yeah [noise] um so another thing that can cause tons to come into existence is bea <unk> confident that is the the you know the confidence that occur at the end of a syllable um especially thing global things cause all sorts of mayhem so <unk> h. or global stop um a good one [noise] <unk> in the at the baskin languages we have some languages that have tone and some languages that do not have tone yeah and what has happened is that it languages without tone can have <unk> uh um like each active as coated but the languages with tone and gotten rid of all the atomic elements at the end of a syllable man and objective kinda is gotta be insane [laughter] it's pretty easy no problem i yeah you can it's not that hard to say but little interesting it's interesting it's kind of like we <unk> <unk> right in front of a different <unk> run together anyway [laughter] um and we've got this really magnificent paper antonio genesis which goes into things much much more than we are going to go into here i'm in uh drifted in it for his especially historical you know how to take a plane boring non tonal language making tonal <unk> um yeah <unk> it surely it really seems like a very common development leading you too complex system is first you have simple totally genesis you know hyper slow and then you have a tone split that happens from you know it changes from due to your initial confidence yeah yeah um i really um [noise] what am i thinking what was i think um i i think um probably a very important thing to to realize is that if you're going to be driving turned historically you probably aren't going to end up with you probably weren't going to want to start with slightly more complex <unk> then you're planning to end up with yeah um ah more and more complex depending on how complex you want your conscience to be because um [noise] like if you look at reconstruction of old chinese but go back to before tone existed it was very very complex syllable structure compared to mandarin compared to compared to what mandarin has it it was um i don't know <unk> um probably about as complex as english is with the uh ability to have like three constantly it's on either side of the <unk> but um [noise] uh don't quote me on that so you know research it for yourself but basically uh those that complex a constant uh structure that complex syllable stricter simplified and left behind tone and also <unk> [laughter] yeah <unk> the yeah technical term <unk> system yes yeah [laughter] and nobody really understands what <unk> what's going on there but that's that's that's for a different show yeah um and then <unk> this great paper on that than i am the link to um the author kingston basically thinks that most often it's <unk> confidence that caused turner genesis and then all on sets caused tone splitting which takes you from a simple too complex temps as <unk> <unk> that's the simple lesson he's trying to drive and it doesn't matter if he's right because the papers just full of all sorts of the great examples with pretty good um historical examples yeah so it's it's <unk> a good thing to be looking at to to try to figure out exactly if you're going to do historically and actually do the turn of genesis <unk> than uh probably important to figure out you know different ways of approaching that problem [noise] anything else about two hundred genesis uh no not really i think people can read the paper yeah or browse the paper yeah so the next thing is or fog or iffy this how are you going to write your tones this is gonna be a serious [laughter] this this can be a serious issue if you if you plan on doing complex towns right so if you have a <unk> system you're much more likely to be in for a hard time yeah they certainly if you have as george calls a wacky bowl system if you have lots of uh vowel contracts about qualities rather that might also traditionally be march my accent then you're in a world of hurt [laughter] yeah yeah yeah <unk> that that way lies what is it in vietnam <unk> yes yes or vietnamese [noise] um so in the simplest world something like now the who um two toned bottles system uses an acute accent for high tone and doesn't marking about little for low that's very easy that's my preferred system for teaching system that's what <unk> does if we're gonna talk about invented language and yeah and also um just to to know uh when you get the situation of uh a following are rising turn on a long <unk> and you just <unk> one of them [noise] right right so typically <unk> who does this is well it writes long by <unk> by writing about we'll twice mhm which is very simple to do [noise] um and then any tone contours um it happened and and they're just mark you mark one or the other about what we're both of them you can have a long time ago too mhm [noise] um so one grammar of this language i've been talking about several times called know bean and i keep using it 'cause there's a good we keep u._t. article on it um the author who wrote the standard modern grammar very strangely uses a great extent to market low and an acute x. men tomorrow hi which means that every single freaking bottle has an accent mark mhm if you are one of those coming or she likes accent mark there you go yeah um what what um mandarin pinion does this uh two i'm sorry i missed i missed what language you were talking about no mean oh okay well i mean if you have a complex tone system and every single syllable has tone you kinda have to yeah um we have something that's so called neutral tone which gets <unk> but that's a little weird yeah harry um for a three toned system acute hi no marketing for middle and big grave accent promote yeah up works um and that's what uh you are but does and you <unk> does have both high and low mid vowels so <unk> and <unk> and all and it just uses the <unk> for that distinctions that you have you know and eat it backwards little <unk> [noise] um or normal epsilon and oh and backwards upside down see actually quite likes that system ah it's convenient and especially if you're into our town then you don't have to try to figure out some way to mark or to distinguish high and low tone from high and low level articulation yeah getting into sort of ah more when you are doing more complex tuned systems uh there's there's several things to um one one problem you may run into a few like lots of different uh vowels and super signals and your <unk> gets a situation like vietnamese where you have to put some diet critics underneath yes that's because uh they have um is it vietnamese <unk> vietnamese has six times yeah hi is the one that has um tony <unk> isn't it uh-huh do think so there's there was some language that has tone and <unk> oh god yeah so in that situation and there are some languages that didn't want to do die critics so they made use of other letters to indicate nasal station um sometimes in the <unk> stuff you'll see something that looks like an <unk> you know the end with the tail opposite for that and that does not in fact mark <unk> in fact marks nasal sanction [noise] um because they need to mark uh stress <unk> some language or looked at that did that then that maybe um if you if you look at i p._a. it has some interesting stuff for tone so that you can use a <unk> complex which is like a little hat for falling tone and <unk> which is like a little v. for rising tone and that standard if you don't have a super complex temp system yeah um another thing this is maybe not something that you would want to using your con lying honestly because it's kind of just like pure happenstance that it worked out this way but [noise] mandarin was able to basically choose dire critics that look like the contours of town so right first town is a mac wrong because it's uh hi flat second tone is um a cute accent right because it's rising right third tone is [noise] uh uh <unk> no it's uh the opposite of circumspect such a hot check yeah it's a hot <unk> over a vow ah because it <unk> has that yep and then fourth town is a grave accent because it's falling but that's just because men grand just happens to have four tones that looked like that and whoever decides opinion uh ended up uh just choosing new unlocking out yes so uh [noise] you you you may end up with a situation where you can do that if you do uh a <unk> system but uh nah you can't always count on that right [noise] um and other crazy example but my kids know sent me excited about is among [laughter] i remember the name yeah spoken spoken by quite a few people around this area and ah <unk> in uh wisconsin but uh for for interesting reasons um but yes they add letters that um they basically have illegal <unk> constant it's that they just stick on the mean <unk> [noise] yeah it's <unk> so that things like uh the uh bowl with a high school with a uh a high town is written p. o. b. <unk> and then <unk> with a low town is written p. o. s. so [laughter] that's that's that's an interesting uh thing to do [noise] um one thing i would say about that as opposed to using the critics is like um if you are con lining for fiction or literature don't do it that way no because like if you have dire critics the worst thing is people will ignore the critics and pronounce it without town which most readers will do anyway because um uh english speaking readers just don't get town yeah with the mom method you end up with people doing bizarre horrible bad pronunciations so you you might you might just want to avoid that [laughter] right um [noise] and so the next system um a bunch of languages southeast asia got their writing system from india which makes a whole mess of continent articulation distinctions that are not used in their own languages so what they did is they decided they were going to have five different ways to write a particular sound um and that your choice of confidence to mark that tells you what tone to use for the bottle yes [noise] so <unk> is a good example law was another one if you choose version one okay then the pitches or the tones are you know wanting to if you use the second one and your tones are three and four um [noise] that only applies to the stops things like residents l. m. l. l. m. r. things like that wine and w. <unk> don't have that distinction so there are still typically <unk> in these writing systems they're just not used as often as you might like [laughter] [noise] um [noise] <unk> yes george assigned that was how i felt the first time i realize what was going on in low <unk> um uh so if you're inviting your own inventing your own writing system this is a possibility you could have is this you know a a double or triple set of constant symbols um that in terms of the tone of the bottle another interesting one i'm going to pay this another interesting one using letters is uh this one while you <unk> oh is that how horrible thing houston oh yeah that's the one that i'm not a teacher was talking about <unk> yeah and basically it spells leave vows differently uh i i think some of the cops and it's too mhm based on the tone [noise] and this was for mandarin which has crazy vows and the first place so it's it's god awful hard to understand [laughter] oh wow <unk> i mean they have no problems remembering the death <unk> okay that yeah but it's it's gonna cause a weird pronunciations um nice [noise] definitely [noise] i've seen the system before but i disapprove anyway [laughter] [laughter] yeah so so basically those are your different options we we'd obviously prefer some over others because we live in a world with unit code you do not need to cram your language into what can be done by a smith in west <unk> smith in west mix guns who makes typewriters um i._b._m. used too yes the old boring i._b._m. typewriter you didn't have enough <unk> oh yeah you you have you have more options available to you [noise] <unk> yeah so yeah definitely definitely that's uh not the uh the our preferred method is too used by credits and a smart like don't don't use more than you knew too and ah just ah understand that ah all but also understand as <unk> as you get more and more complex temp systems you might need more and more of them [noise] um [noise] some <unk> but it you can't think of interesting things for the native or soccer fee if you are designing a rating system for your language um there's languages like pie and uh tibet mm that mark tone with uh with um phantom confidence uh often for historical reasons uh so so you can you can do um some interesting things that way if you want to invent a language or this building system as awful as english or lost in tibet <unk> yeah if yeah for um for the the native we're <unk> we have we have our own <unk> but uh we we are suggesting diet critics for [laughter] just just you can make your your native north are free as crazy <unk> looted as you want in fact i encourage that especially if you are making a rating system that supposedly has existed for a thousand years or more oh yeah you can have all sorts of fun using these historical process is two and a genesis tone splitting all of that you could have you know a word that looks like it's spelled you know <unk> you know it's pronounced <unk> yeah yeah just just have all sorts of fun yeah <unk> it's definitely that's that's definitely a an interesting uh thing you can you can think about that [noise] um i don't know do we have any other particular tips or <unk> i can't think of anything and just um [noise] we talk about this in the last episode i think probably most american <unk> don't do toned very often so at one uh [noise] flourishing lee tonal language that i'd forgotten about for coming says is quill inexperienced incarnation has been tunnel to a greater lesser degree [noise] um but there aren't too many of them there are some um but give them a try there are lots of them in the world <unk> it'll be fun it'd be easy yeah one um one suggestion and i say this we we mentioned this in the last episode when we uh i actually read the the person who's exhausted this um is if you feel like you have difficulty hearing town and it is something you have to climates how's yourself to uh to to ah understand it um learnt tried to start learning a ton of language and listen make sure that you do a lot of listening practice uh it's really easy to get materials for chinese um and there's a lot of other languages you can choose from ah ah william had uh something we attached to the <unk> the last episode of uh people reading the weather in <unk> so you could hear the tones and that yeah some are on line i'll see if i can find it is a pronouncing dictionary of navajos well so you can see that were written and then click a button and hear um he <unk> version of someone pronouncing it yeah more <unk> more listening practices is for tone is is always better and then and then as you are creating your words sort of sound them out and and see if you can [noise] um and and see if you can get good enough at the towns that you can start actually you know saying full sentences and do tones plus your regular sentence intonation and stuff right [laughter] well one thing i want to mention now that i'm you know we're talking about crazy citizens of marking tone [noise] some of the tools we have available to us to generate words you know something like awkward mhm sometimes chokes hard on die critics oh yeah so awkward <unk> or <unk> yeah you couldn't general or you find yourself typing in a high tone a mid tuned a falling to own a low rising to an end you you're typing a fifteen different weight or you know to a comedy oh your tones [noise] in that situation you might want to make up a system of illegal <unk> [noise] i just to make it easier to <unk> was actually one way i've done that is um and we haven't mentioned this uh sometimes uh for uh like chinese they you know chinese oh so i talk about first town second time third town uh in chinese those are um the those are traditional ah traditional numbering of those towns right you could use those numbers and very often in environments where dire critics are inconvenient uh people just put those numbers after the civil yep for your awkward generation you can just have like a list of numbers and say okay but i'm randomly put one of these at the end of each syllable yep yep so there there's there's different ways you can deal with anything else about tone [noise] <unk> yeah i think i think it's a ah a cool idea um so why don't we move onto our feedback and this is another suggestion but i was holding onto for a while but realized that i probably should just read it um it says hi george and co after several months i've finally caught up with all the <unk> i'm very impressed that you've kept them going so long and and kept the standard uh can i suggest another area you might like to look at language contact particularly creoles in pigeons a lot of <unk> model chained within a family but there's not many con lines with more than one ancestor uh creoles and pigeons with their restricted vocabulary morphology and word order might be good for beginners or for someone looking for quick fun project yet they can form larger projects too easy if different registers or taking it kept uh you could base one on you could based one on real world languages work on line [noise] uh there's some theoretical debates be had here to bicker ten and other universe <unk> versus those who favor socio cultural excellent [noise] yeah and it's interesting the problem for me <unk> doing something like this is that i would have to invent a bunch of language and <unk> yeah this the the the issue with i don't think uh creoles would pensions aren't necessarily that much easier to do just because [noise] basically you got to invent at least two languages and the first place and then combined them um but it it could be an interesting topic [noise] it's a little bit of a a con worldly topic too because obviously if you have creoles and pigeons than these have to exist within some world where you have some story about how we used to languages came into contact it might be easier to pull off if you decided to make it as you said you mean use <unk> you know yeah [laughter] i'm glad you still have to print study both languages right fairly in debt so i mean there's there's there's references to this um <unk> came into existence in amongst shorts or canada on the north east of to to do to calm fishing oh um which someone needs to recreate 'cause that's just a brilliant idea [laughter] what happens when you <unk> you know [noise] if you just my mind just goes blank just trying to learn and there are actually quite a few on liners that do that sort of thing ah as i understand that the uh few people who um [noise] uh who have created sort of creole languages [noise] oh really yeah well it's a it's a small contingent that that have have done a few of these things it's an idea that pops up on the forums often well it's going to go through with them and get something large enough for us to talk about let us know i mean we we have lots of these [noise] when i've been calling vulgar language right these historical languages you take language a. and run into this sound languages yeah same with me but i i didn't think a hard time thinking if any of these worked out sort of fantasy creoles i don't know i i have heard of of a few um um probably probably should look at uh people who do the quote unquote lost lines [noise] shore um which a lot of those or burger lines but i think there may be some some creoles in their looks and welsh miners ended up <unk> yeah [laughter] yeah you can get you can have lots of crazy fun i think uh uh you know it it it well she miners who you would simply get <unk> [laughter] oh dear [laughter] i'm hoping <unk> anyway sorry i i think uh a a good um [noise] i have been thinking about this for a while but a really good option for making some interesting sort of weird contact stuff i think would be to set your con world in a generation ship and put several different languages in there oh sure absolutely um you know they [noise] to me like the generations ship is is great because it's just like it's a city and i can it's right shake shake vigorously to mix and yeah so you just you just put a bunch of uh a couple of different language group sitting there and they're completely isolated from anybody else so you don't have to worry about other outside influences just take what the languages are like [noise] now or at some hypothetical point in the future and yeah shake rigorously the problem is you're going to have important signs like don't go out the <unk> are going to be in your going to have lots of textual material putting a break on the change unless you hit the uh if you could easily have interesting socio linguistics stuff where maybe one official language has has a higher prestige and the creole is like the low man on the total <unk> okay yeah i don't know it's it's <unk> it would be an interesting project to think about it's it's one that i've been thinking about doing for a while but uh to be a very big <unk> i'm busy i'm ah ah most of my con laying that i've been doing has been in my fantasy world so i haven't really been thinking the haven't been working on that ah so anyway that does it for this episode of kahn library william do you have any final words of wisdom make it to tell him nine which uh mike um yeah i'd say ah some of those that earlier listens to pull languages 'cause [noise] you know i stay away from <unk> a lot of south a robot china you know <unk> <unk> ah [noise] the guys will <unk> do [noise] food out and they won't be someone natural just wasn't that listen to yeah uh not lines <unk> [noise] [noise] yeah i i will i will reiterate that <unk> you know [noise] it's very important it's it's easy to like forget that tonal language is also had sense level intimation too and ah listening to them [noise] a little bit helps you somehow <unk> town yeah it's it's sort of a gift stalled thing you have to get it there's not much ah [noise] easy way to explain it's like so [noise] with that i'm going to say <unk> thank you for listening to con lingering you could find our our cars and <unk> dot com you can send questions comments <unk> topic or featured language suggestions [noise] to <unk> to submit upon langhorn outlying rooting for the top of the show see are contributing hatred detailed [noise] <unk> provided by the language creation society and our steam music is by no the vice [noise] are we ready to go yet okay in three two one welcome to con longer the <unk> languages and the people who create them i'm george carlin a with me down the road a ways is william address hello um for people who are just turning into tuning into the pot catch me and well you're my both in uh madison wisconsin and george is getting his first taste of wisconsin winter [laughter] yeah my apartment usually is quite warm but not today <unk> it's been getting cold recently i don't know why [laughter] 'cause it's nine zero out yeah <unk> uh <unk> up in up in maine we have my clint team hi there doesn't it doesn't get pretty cold in maine or do currents help with that well it gets <unk> um according to <unk> check on this i don't uh <unk> uh yeah actually the currents might actually 'cause doesn't occur come up come down from the arctic to maine but it's still water that holds a lot of heat energy so typically along the coast pretty far north and still moderate temperature nicely [noise] okay so see i thought that i i was just thinking that that current might be like going uh counter clock wise it doesn't matter no water <unk> in a block of her dry i currently uh this uh sixteen degrees here with the low this week thing like negative too right so we're all getting smacked by this lovely thing yeah [noise] just another yeah me to stay inside and play with my new benjamin yes well i got a uh a very good coat and a scarf and they had [noise] and loves <unk> way over christmas [laughter] we're not <unk> student and i worked in a lab and we had this poor guy from southern india who was wearing <unk> already in october [noise] yeah that's not me you know there's not that old october no [laughter] [laughter] oh yeah uh he's <unk> he's from one of those places where they don't get snow oh no no <unk> [laughter] so anyway uh <unk> i i enter deuce mike right okay hello let's uh let's let's get onto the business and we're gonna talk about ranges than others so it may not be exactly right to divide things that way but it makes it easier to talk about hello okay and nobody can easily now but it was very garbled earlier william i couldn't hear them i didn't hear you but it's it's a disaster mm oh dear uh do you wanna try restarting the conversations <unk> routing problem yeah okay i can i can do that hello hello hello okay that sounds better okay <unk> well <unk> now you guys some slightly down sampled leather [noise] slightly muscling i really hope i don't have to restart by computer [laughter] uh i don't know because you guys you i can't hear what i sound like do you guys so you guys have to i i don't know what to do really except we probably sound the same to you you sound to us no you guys sound fine <unk> [noise] yes both of you sound very down sampled to me well <unk> what you'll get me out a bit in georgia i used to be on a bit so i don't know how <unk> you were you were down sampled for a little bit but now you're fine [noise] weird annoying all weather out there or something no let me know if i'm if i'm cutting out george <unk> you're always cutting out i <unk> i'm having a <unk> okay never mind i'm going to tried shit okay can you hear me now a little bit better yeah uh uh [noise] it's getting a bit but no i was following me no i'm going to restart my computer alright let's um delete that and i will give uh uh uh fun name let's make yet uh george <unk> through your <unk> name [noise] there we go ooh sounds so spacey [laughter]

Tags

  1. Conlangery Podcast
  2. Podcast
  3. conlang
  4. language
  5. linguistics
  6. tone

Conlangery Podcast/Conlangery 81 Tone (last edited 2017-09-08 22:06:07 by TranscriBot)