Danny Wier wrote:
-----<snip>-----
>
>3) Toq: A language spoken by the agriculturalists (citrus, coffee,
tobacco,
>bananas) of the Lowlands in the back country (within the ring
formed by Tech
>City). Most distinctive feature is the simplification of the
massive
>inventory of stops and affricates, and the appearance of tones
(five in all:
>three level plus one rising and one falling), which replaced
>plain-aspirate-ejective distinction. However, tones are not
indicated; the
>language is written exactly as in Qotilian. Toq is intermediate of
Qotilian
>and Ma`ou. Written in a number of scripts, but there is a movement
toward
>the standard Coptic alphabet used by Qotilian.
Just a question. I was under the impression that the Techians just
moved to the island rather recently in their history. So has the Toq
dialect evolved on the island by 2nd (3rd, 4th, etc.) generation
agriculturalists on the island? Or was the Toq dialect already
developed by agricultural Techians before they moved to the island?
Incidentally, some of the Boreanesian languages also developed tones
in what appears to be a similar way to the Toqians. In this case,
the loss of the distinction between stiff and slack phonation in
syllable final consonants. Words whose cognates in standard
Boreanesian ends in a stiff phonation is pronounce in some dialects
with a falling tone, while those with cognates in standard
Boreanesian ending in a slack phonation is pronounced with a high
tone.
-kristian- 8-)