FAQ

The grammar seems very simple. Am I overlooking something?

✅ It is simple! You do not need to learn a lot of rules to be able to say a lot. More bang for your buck.

How many tones are there?

✅ 7 full tones and 1 neutral tone.

What does tone X do?

✅ See the following table:

#     Name                           Mark      Creates/Used with
1️⃣ Even tone                  :t1:           compound
2️⃣ Rising tone                :t2:           argument phrase
3️⃣ Rising glottal tone    :t3:          relative clause
4️⃣ Falling tone                :t4:          predicate phrase
5️⃣ Rising-falling tone    :t5:          content clause
6️⃣ Low tone                    :t6:          preposition
7️⃣ Low glottal tone       :t7:          adverbial phrase
8️⃣ Neutral tone              :t8:          particle

How do you pronounce X?

✅ Please refer to this tool: http://toaq.org/letters/

Is there a way to check whether my sentence is correct?

✅ Yes, using one of the online parsers:

http://toaq.org/parser/

http://toaq.herokuapp.com/

If you're on Discord or Telegram, you can also use the %miu command to talk to the parser bot.

How do I type the tone marks/symbols/diacritics?

✅ Please see http://www.toaq.org/#autohotkey and https://github.com/acotis/autokey-toaq-tones

Where does the Toaq logo come from?

✅ It's original.

Is "Toaq" based on the word "tongue" or "tone"?

✅ It is not, in fact. But that's an interesting coincidence. Might be a good mnemonic.

How are roots created?

✅ A priori, based on my intuition. I usually have to think long and hard and feel my options out before I decide what root to assign to a concept.

Where can I find a dictionary?

✅ Here: http://www.toaq.org/dictionary/ and here: https://uakci.pl/toadua/#. The latter is a collaborative dictionary to which everyone can contribute.

How do I answer a yes/no question in Toaq?

✅ In ascending order of verbosity and formality:

Yes                  No
 
jẽo                  bũ
Jẻo hóq da.          Bủ hóq da.

Is Toaq easy/difficult/hard?

✅ If you can handle the tones, which I believe anyone can, then it's really not a difficult language to become decent at.

X seems to be missing from the language. Why does Toaq not have X?

✅ Part of the philosophy behind the initial design was that I didn't want to over-engineer the language. Lojban (to name a random example) started out with a boatload of complicated rules that turned out not to be beneficial. I would rather start out with too few rules and only add extensions when it's clearly needed, avoiding clutter. In doing so, I'm also giving the language the chance to grow organically with the help of its speakers.

Is there really a glottal stop in the ã-tone?

✅ Yes.

How new/old is Toaq?

✅ The current version was published in September 2017. The very first version alpha version was published in 2013.

What's the difference between ceo and sho?

✅ sho means something undergoes a change such that it ends up satisfying the second place.

ceo says that a thing begins to be the case, which can be said of things that don't priorly exist or are the case. sho on the other hand can be said of things that already exist; they merely undergo a change that makes them become such that they now have a certain property they previously did not. Both are appropriate in most situations.

What's the process for creating taxonomic vocabulary (animals/plants)?

✅ The process follows these steps:

Find the scientific name of the animal or plant

Let's use butterfly and spider as examples.

Check the etymology of the name.

For "butterfly" the order is called "Lepidoptera", for "spider" we get "Araneae"

If the name is a compound, make a calque of the compound.

This is the case for "Lepidoptera", which is put together from λεπίς (lepís, "scale") and πτερόν (pterón, "wing").

Translating "scale wing", we arrive at the Toaq word for butterfly: tiqshōaı.

If the name is not a compound, follow the etymology as far back as possible, then borrow that word.*

This is the case for "Araneae", which can be traced back to Ancient Greek ἀράχνη (arákhnē). Toaq-ifying yields arānē, which is our word for spider.

What's the vowel order?

✅ A U I O E Y

How can I join the discord server?

✅ Use this invite link: https://discord.gg/qDqDsH9

How can I join the Telegram groups?

✅ Use these invite links:

☑ general

https://t.me/joinchat/CWpuWUMl0JeW7-TdO6PnAQ

☑ chiejio

https://t.me/joinchat/CWpuWUPKUdAiT7KR6SiE7w

☑ toaq-only

https://t.me/joinchat/CWpuWUSC9pqnzPyufkQsrA

☑ toashuaq

https://t.me/joinchat/CWpuWUvrHSdLL3JneDjp9Q

☑ off-topic

https://t.me/joinchat/CWpuWVJC8_-EMukIAjMfYQ

What's a tonal pangram?

✅ In the broadest sense, a tonal pangram is a sentence that contains each tone at least once. In a more narrow sense, it is a sentence that contains each tone exactly once. The latter is a form of Toaq poetry.

What's the terminator of X?

✅ Please refer to this table:

Structure  Terminator
mı         ga
po         ga
mo         teo
kıo        kı
lu         ceı
prenex     bı / pa
statement  na

Is there an automatic interpreter of Toaq? Is there a translator from Toaq to logic notation?

✅ Indeed there is! Go to http://toaq.herokuapp.com/, hit the blue button, then select LOGIC.

How do you say "I'm making some coffee" in Toaq?

✅ 404

What does ku ("focus") mean?

✅ Here's an explanation: https://toaqlanguage.wordpress.com/2018/06/01/on-the-logic-of-ku/

Is there a way to mark contrastive focus or emphasis?

✅ Yes, by using beı in front the word.

What's the system for referring to nationalities/languages/countries?

✅ This is the system: Take the country's native name or the native adjective describing the nationality and borrow it. This borrowing now refers generically to anything having to do with the country or its culture.

For example, Juqgūo ("China") means "to be Chinese, to be of China, its languages or people".

Farāqsē means "French".

To refer more specifically to the country, add gua ("country").

Juqgūogūa, "China".

Farāqsēgūa, "France".

To refer to a language, add toaq ("language").

Farāqsētōaq, "the French language".

Juqgūotōaq is ambiguous between the many languages of China, "a Chinese language".

What are the numbers from 1 to 10?

✅ They are as follows:

1⃣ shı
2⃣ gu
3⃣ saq
4⃣ jo
5⃣ fe
6⃣ cı
7⃣ dıaı
8⃣ roaı
9⃣ neı
1⃣0⃣ heı

What are the numbers from 20 to 99?

✅ They are as follows:

20 = guhēı
30 = saqhēı
40 = johēı
50 = fehēı
60 = cıhēı
70 = dıaıhēı
80 = roaıhēı
90 = neıhēı
21 = guhēıshī
34 = saqhēıjō
83 = roaıhēısāq

What's with the ı / i without dot / dotless i?

✅ Writing ı without the dot distinguishes it more from an i that carries a tone mark, it also makes more room for an adjacent tone mark. Overall, it just makes things easier to read.

How do I do an indirect quote?

✅ Use lû or the fifth tone (:t5: tone) on a predicate and use it with ruaq or duatūa for indirect assertions and duasue for indirect questions: Examples:

Rủaq hó bû tỉ hó chíejīo "She says [that] she isn't at school."

Dủatūa hó jí tî hó hı ráı "He told me where he is."

Dủasūe hó jí bûa jí hı ráı "They asked me where I live."

Is there a memrise deck?

✅ There is: https://www.memrise.com/course/1974691/toaq-simple-predicates-2018-06-03/

Is there a frequency list?

✅ Why yes! Look here: http://toaq.org/chatlogs/frequencylist.txt Newer frequency list (2019/02/02): https://gist.githubusercontent.com/ciuak/d233979c99f83017158e8b97fbbda8f9/raw/f09ec94dc01f3a9cd017f744639f874494d7e451/freqlist-2019-02.txt

What is the meaning of an m with a tone mark?

✅ If you see an m with a tone mark, chances are it's used as an interjection of sorts. We're still experimenting with it. One suggestion was the following:

   m̄ > uhm, thinking...
   ḿ > huh?, wonder, surprise
   m̌ > yeah, agreement
   m̉ > roger, gotcha, ok
   m̂ > aha!, discovery
   m̀ > slight disappointment
   m̃ > no, disagreement

Is there a list of translated sentences?

✅ We are working on it! See: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bCQoaX02ZyaElHiiMcKHFemO4eV1MEYmYloYZgOAhac/edit#gid=1395088029

Is there a subreddit?

✅ Yes: https://old.reddit.com/r/Toaq/

What's the hashtag?

✅ We're using #miToaq for now.

What are the personal pronouns?

✅ Toaq's 'pronouns' are verbs. Instead of a word for "I/me", there's a verb meaning "to be me". These are the personal reference predicates:

jı  "to be me",                                  jí "I"
suq "to be you",                             súq "you"
ho  "to be him/her/them",          hó "he/she/they"
maq "to be it (the object)",          máq "it"
hoq "to be it (the situation)",       hóq "it"
suqjī "to be us (you + me)",         súqjī "we"
suqhō "to be you (you + him/her/them)", súqhō "you"

súq, hó, máq and hóq can be singular or plural. When necessary, plurality can be expressed by using puq (e.g. púq hỏ "they").

How do you make a plural? How do you pluralize a noun?

✅ Toaq nouns are not inflected for grammatical number. Any noun can refer to one or more things. When necessary, singular and plural can be made explicit:

To specify a singular, use shı ("one") as the head of a serial predicate.

Example: shí jỉo "the [one] building" (explicit singular)

To specify a plural, use puq ("multiple") as the head of a serial predicate.

Example: púq jỉo "the [more than one] buildings" (explicit plural).

Marking number is never required. It is usually obvious (or not terribly important) whether something is one thing or more than one thing. When in doubt, read a bare noun as plural unless context suggests otherwise.

Why do I sometimes see words ending with consonants other than q? / What is vietoaq? / What are these weird word shapes?

✅ Vietoaq is a way of encoding tones without diacritics. Each tone is marked via a specific consonant at the end of a syllable. For closed syllables (q in the coda), the voiced equivalent of the same consonant is used.

See

https://uakci.pl/wiki/vietoaq

Lıq's Vietoaq practice tool

http://foldr.moe/vietoaq/

Why are some tones missing from this text and some are not? Sparse tonal marking

✅ It was discovered that it's possible to write Toaq without explicitly distinguishing :t1:, :t4: and :t8:. Each of those three tones can be written as a diacritic-less syllable and the tone of the syllable can be deduced by the following rules:

• If the syllable is not the first syllable of a space-separated block, it carries the :t1: tone.
• If the syllable is a contentive (predicate word / root word), it carries the :t4: tone.
• If the syllable is a particle, it carries the :t8: tone.

Examples:

Kaı jí da -> Kảı jí da ("I write")

Kaqgaı súq hı ráı moq -> Kảqgāı súq hı ráı moq ("What do you see?")

De ní rua -> Dẻ ní rủa ("This flower is beautiful")

As long as the text retains spaces between words, it remains fully unambiguous. This style can be seen as a less formal way of writing, useful if one is lazy or if one doesn't have easy access to :t1: and :t4: diacritics on one's input device.

What does it mean when a function word is written in all caps? / What function word classes are there?

✅ In discussions about Toaq grammar, a function word in all caps usually refers to a function word class. Function words that share the same grammar are grouped together in a class. This class is usually named after its most prominent member. For example, the words da, ba, ka and moq have the same grammar, and their class is named DA. We say, for instance, that "moq is in DA".

Knowing these classes is useful, because once you have learned how to use one member of a class, you automatically know how to use every other member of the same class, too (syntactically speaking). If a sentence is grammatically correct with one member of a class, then substituting it with any other member of the same class will retain the same grammatical structure. The grammar does not distinguish between individual members of a class.

These are the classes and their members:

DA (da, ba, ka, moq)

SA (sa, sıa, tu, ja, ke, hı, co, baq, hoı)

RU (ru, ra, ro, rı, roı)

TO (to)

LU (lu, lı, ma, tıo)

JE (je, keo, tıu)

BI (bı, pa)

PO (po, jeı)

JU (ju, la)

GO (go, cu, ta)

KU (ku, beı)

HU (hu)

KIO (kıo)

KI (kı)

MI (mı)

MO (mo)

TEO (teo)

SHU (shu)

NA (na)

GA (ga)

CEI (ceı)

What's up with the letter ⟨q⟩ in this language? Pronunciation / allophones of ⟨q⟩

✅ ⟨q⟩ is somewhat special and its pronunciation may not be immediately obvious. It is usually pronounced like English ⟨ng⟩ (IPA [ŋ]), but it has the optional allophones [n] and [m], following these rules:

The default pronunciation is IPA [ŋ], and it keeps this pronunciation before k, g, l, m, n, r, f, h, s, sh, and at the end of a breath group.

Before t, d, c, ch, j, it is pronounced [n].

Before p, b, it is pronounced [m].

Examples:

kaqgaı -> [kʰaŋ.gaɪ] ("to see")

jaq de -> [d͡ʑan.dɛ:] ("to be very beautiful")

baq bego -> [bam.bɛ.go] ("beech trees in general")

Again, these allophones are optional; it is acceptable to use [ŋ] in all positions.

What are the words for the days of the week and for the months?

✅ The names for the days of the week are based on the colors of the rainbow, starting with red on Monday and ending with purple on Sunday:

Mon

kıachāq

Tue

narāqchāq

Wed

luechāq

Thu

riqchāq

Fri

kuaochāq

Sat

miochāq

Sun

loachāq

The months use compounds of the number of the month + jūe ("month"):

January

shıjūe

February

gujūe

March. saqjūe

April

jojūe

May

fejūe

June

cıjūe

July

dıaıjūe

August

roaıjūe

September

neıjūe

October

heıjūe

November

heıshījūe

December

heıgūjūe

What's the difference between an indirect question and a "lú" phrase?

✅ The distinction is extremely important logically speaking, but English usually conflates the two, so many people overlook the difference. The following example illustrates the difference:

1) Dủa jí chî súq hı rảı - I know what you believe

2) Dủa jí lú chỉ súq hóa - I know what you believe

Let's say that what you believe is [God exists].

1) says that I know that you believe [God exists], because I know what it is that you believe

2) says that I know [God exists], because I know that which you believe.

Does Toaq have a flag?

✅ This is a candidate design: