Re: Conlang dialects

According to the Tokana Reference Grammar, there are
six dialects of Tokana (rather a lot for a speaker-base
of only 35,000), but for the most part I haven't fleshed
out the differences between them.  Only a few details
have so far been 'discovered':

The various dialects are distinguished almost
entirely by minor differences of pronunciation and
vocabulary, rather than differences of grammar.
In general, the two Coastal dialects tend to be more
innovative while the four Inland dialects tend to be
more conservative (with the easternmost Outikfe dialect
being the most conservative).  The Coastal dialects are
distinguished from the Inland dialects primarily in
that the latter have lost the phoneme /f/, replacing
it for the most part with /h/.  For example, the word
for "accompany" or "go with" is /afana/ in the Inland
dialects and /ahana/ in the Coastal dialects.  The
Outikfe dialect (which is spoken by only one village)
is distinguished from the others in that it retains
the /h/ phoneme in word-final position, while the
other dialects have lost this sound.  Thus, the word
for "day", which I transcribe "loh" on this list, is
pronounced /loh/ by Outikfe speakers and /lo:/ (with
a long vowel) by other Tokana speakers.

Vocabulary differences include the choice of second
person ergative pronoun in informal speech.  In formal
speech (and writing), all dialects use /aku/.  In informal
speech, the form /auk/ is used by Outikfe speakers and
a few speakers of the neighbouring Tenmothai dialect, while
/ok/ is used by most other Inland dialect speakers, and
/ak/ is used by most Coastal dialect speakers.  Also,
speakers of Inland dialects (especially Outikfe) are more
likely to use archaic words like "niai" for "blood" (standard
Tokana is "san") or "nam" for "land" (standard Tokana is
"niolh").

Matt.