FAQ

This page answers some frequently asked questions about Toaq.

Getting started

Where do I start learning?

Try Toaq with Ease or the Grammar overview. The most complete resource is the refgram.

"Complementizer"? "Covert"? I don't understand the refgram at all!

Don't worry, that's okay! It was written for an audience of linguists, not language learners. Focus on the example sentences if you feel lost in the jargon. If you don't understand a concept, try searching this wiki. You can also ask questions on Discord.

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

See Input methods.

What's the word for...

You can look it up on Toadua, the community dictionary.

Speaking and writing

How many tones are there? What does each tone do?

There are four tones, but each one has various uses depending on the part of speech they are used with. Simplifying things a lot, is for particles and verbs, is for particles and (pro)nouns, marks subordination, and is for adverbs. See Tone for a thorough overview.

How do you pronounce…?

Please refer to https://toaq.net/refgram/phonology/.

What's up with the letter q in this language? Pronunciation of q

q is somewhat special and its pronunciation may not be immediately obvious. It is pronounced like English ⟨ng⟩ (IPA [ŋ]). The use of the letter Q is a nod to Rex May’s Ceqli, an international auxiliary language with loglang elements; it’s also found in natural languages such as Fijian (where it represents [ᵑɡ], to be exact).

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. See Latin writing system.

Grammar

Can I fill fewer slots than a verb has?

Probably! See Underfilling.

How do I skip slots? (What's the equivalent of Lojban's FA?)

Toaq intentionally doesn't have this feature. Just fill the slots with pronouns.

How does bọ work? What is the meaning / place structure of bọdo?

Semi-officially, it moves the direct object to the front, and removes the old subject. See bo-.

How do numbers work?

The official number system is that numbers are just verbs: saq means "___ are three in number", so Saq jío means "the buildings are three" and sá jıo saq means "some buildings that are three" (three buildings).

A more elaborate unofficial number system is described at User:Loekıa/Numbers.

How do I refer back to sá without a following verb? Does it bind ráı?

No, you have to use hụ́sa.

Tools and resources

Is there a way to check whether my sentence is correct? / Is there a translator from Toaq to logic notation?

You can use Kuna's web interface here.

How can I join the Discord server?

Use this invite link.

Is there a frequency list?

Yes! See frequency-list.txt in the corpus repo.

Is there a list of translated sentences?

This spreadsheet has up-to-date example sentences in the "Refgram examples" and "A sentences" sheets.