Beginner Course
This page is an active work-in-progress.
Additionally, this course is intended for an audience with at least slight to moderate knowledge of linguistics. If you'd like a full beginner introduction to Toaq, check out Toaq with Ease.
Introduction
Toaq is a constructed logical human language (loglang) created by Hoemaı and developed and maintained by a passionate community. It is a tonal language, where changes in pitch of a word shifts the meaning of that word. Toaq is meant to have a fully unambiguous and parsable syntax using predicate logic.
Intimate knowledge of predicate logic is not necessary to learn or speak Toaq, however it is helpful to know some basics. There are pages on this wiki which explain topics related to predicate logic that may interest you if you want to get into the details of how Toaq works at a fundamental level.
About this course
The latest version of Toaq is Toaq Delta, released in December 2022, and this course is written for that version.
This course is intended to develop grammar and vocabulary of learners to accelerate their progress from absolute beginner to an approximate A1 level. Grammar is incredibly important in Toaq as it is essential to the language's design goals. As such, this course will focus mainly on grammar, with complementary flashcards associated with each section.
With the current lack of a developed corpus for Toaq Delta, it is important to supplement this course with active speaking of Toaq—either over text or through voice—and writing in Toaq or translating texts to Toaq. It is also helpful to create flashcards for words you encounter using Toadua Anki, a plugin for Anki to easily create cards through the collaborative dictionary Toadua.
Essentials
Sound inventory
Toaq’s sound inventory consists of 22 consonant sounds, 5 vowel sounds, 4 diphthongs from those vowel sounds, and 4 tones. Here is a table with all of Toaq’s sounds and tones:
| Letter | Pronunciation (English approximation) | Pronunciation (IPA) | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| M/m | the M in "milk" | [m] | |
| B/b | the B in "ball" | [b] | |
| P/p | the first P in "prep" | [pʰ] | |
| F/f | the F in "flower" | [f] | |
| N/n | the N in "north" | [n] | |
| D/d | the D in "dark" | [d] | |
| Z/z | the DS in "toads" | [d͡z] | |
| C/c | the TS in "hats" | [t͡sʰ] | |
| S/s | the S in "sandwich" | [s] | |
| R/r | the TT in American "battery" | [ɾ] | |
| L/l | the L in "like" | [l] | |
| Nh/nh | the Ñ in "piñata" | [ɲ ~ nj] | |
| J/j | the J in "jeans" | [dʑ] | |
| Ch/ch | the CH in "cheese" | [t͡ɕʰ] | |
| Sh/sh | the SH in "sheep" | [ɕ] | |
| Ꝡ/ꝡ | the W in "walrus" or the Y in "yes" | [w ~ j] | |
| Q/q | the NG in "thing" | [ŋ] | |
| G/g | the G in "green" | [g] | |
| K/k | the C in "creek" | [kʰ] | |
| ' | the stop in "uh-oh" | [ʔ] | |
| H/h | the H in "hat" | [h] |
| Letter | Pronunciation (English approximation) | Pronunciation (IPA) | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| A/a | the A in "bra" | [a] | |
| U/u | the OO in "boot" | [u ~ ʊ] | |
| I/ı | the EE in "free" | [i ~ ɪ] | |
| O/o | the AW in British "yawn" | [o ~ ɔ] | |
| E/e | the E in "bed" | [ɛ ~ e] |
| Letter | Pronunciation (English approximation) | Pronunciation (IPA) | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aı/aı | the Y in “cry” | [aɪ̯ ~ aj] | |
| Ao/ao | the OW in “wow” | [aʊ̯ ~ aw ~ aː.o] | |
| Oı/oı | the OY in “toy” | [ɔɪ̯ ~ ɔj] | |
| Eı/eı | the AY in “gray” | [ɛɪ̯ ~ ɛj] |
| Diacritic | Pronunciation (IPA) | Audio |
|---|---|---|
| ◌ (falling) | [˥˩ ~ ˨˩] | |
| ◌́ (rising) | [˧˥ ~ ˨˩] | |
| ◌̈ (glottal) | [˨ʔ˩] | |
| ◌̂ (rising-falling) | [˧˥.˥˧ ~ ˨˩.˩˥] |
Ꝡ/ꝡ is pronounced [w] after E/e and I/ı, and is pronounced [j] after U/u and O/o. These rules still apply even if the vowel is at the end of the previous word. After A/a, Q/q, M/m, and at the beginning of an utterance, it can be pronounced in either way.
Stress always falls at the beginning of a word. For example, the word ahoı is not pronounced like English “ahoy”, but rather with the stress on the first syllable: ahoı.
Orthography
Toaq’s writing system is based on the Latin alphabet, with some additions to reflect Toaq’s unique sounds. There is also a non-Latin writing system called Deranı, which will not be taught in this course. The writing system was shown earlier in the table of sounds, and notes about it are here.
- I/ı is always written without the dot, to distinguish it from Í/í, Ï/ï, and Î/î.
- Ꝡ/ꝡ can optionally be written V/v if the usual character is not available, though some people use W/w instead. This course will use the proper character, Ꝡ/ꝡ.
- Tone diacritics always go on the first vowel of the word carrying the tone. If this vowel is a diphthong, the diacritic attaches to the first vowel letter in the diphthong.
Punctuation consists of the comma ⟨ , ⟩, period ⟨ . ⟩, and question mark ⟨ ? ⟩. Periods end non-question sentences, while question marks end questions or rhetorical questions. Commas surround subclauses. As for capitalization, sentence-initial words, proper names, cultures, languages, and countries are capitalized. In informal settings, such as in the Toaq Discord server, the writer can choose to ignore these conventions.