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Tonal conlangs (Re: Trial of the century?)

From:Herman Miller <hmiller@...>
Date:Monday, January 18, 1999, 3:37
On Sun, 17 Jan 1999 02:49:13 +0000, John Fisher =
<john@...>
wrote:

>In message <36A12D25.CF36DFB4@...>, Carlos >Thompson <chlewey@...> writes >>Here in Hangkerimche: >> >>> 1. I didn't inhale. >> >>LIM_MA_ZE_PIN/KEN^HI~PAN~HA\ > >Great! A conlang with tones! Off-hand, I can't think of any other that >has been mentioned here... Unless I'm wrong?
Zirinka has tones (Z=EDr=ED:nk=E1, with the tone marks and vowel = lengthening mark, is a more correct romanization). I've mentioned it on the list before, although I don't remember if I specifically commented on the = tones. There are four tones (high vs. low, and rising vs. falling), and there = are a number of minimal pairs of words only distinguished by tone or vowel length. Examples: j=FA: "to drink" vs. j=FB: "to attack" k=E9 "about" vs. k=E8 "with" r=E1: "fire" vs. r=E2: "family" sai "peace" vs. s=E2i "tail" x=E9 "to stop" vs. x=E9: "to see" ("=E1" high rising, "=E2" high falling, "a" low rising, "=E0" low = falling)