Re: Toki Pona survey

Hi!

Muke Tever <hotblack@...> writes:
> On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 18:21:26 +0200, Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> wrote:
> > I dislike:
> >    - sound, as with most minimal phonologies.  It has this typical
> >      minimal phonology sound. :-)
> >
> >      I blame no-one, I think it's inherent: I tried to do minimal
> >      phonology langs as well, but I could not get rid of that very
> >      same typical sound unless I'd have /E, y, 1, M, q, ?\, h, X/ or
> >      something...
>
> I dunno, to me it seems that Toki Pona's phonology is "in
> character".  It puts me in mind of something spoken somewher small,
> isolated, and Polynesian.
Yes.  That's the typical minimal phonology sound. :-)

As I said, I think it's inherent: when the inventory is small, it is
likely to to have /aeiou/ or /aiu/ and then /pktsnl.../ and that's it.
With a syllable structure of V an CV and maybe CVn, it *has* to sound
all the same. #shrug#

**Henrik

PS: Japanese is quite interesting for *not* having that sound although
    the phoneme inventory is really small.  But OTOH, it has
    palatalisation, vowel length, gemination, and pitch tone.