Changes between Beta and Gamma

This was an overview of changes that happened between the Public Beta version of Toaq (2017) and Toaq as spoken circa 2021.

This list is now both outdated and superfluous: the current description of the language at https://toaq.net/ is up-to-date.

Sounds and spelling

  • An update to the tones: the ǎ tone for relative clauses is now "rising glottal", and it is spelled ä. The ã tone for adverbs is now "falling glottal".
  • There are new consonants z /d͡z/ and nh /ɲ/. There is a new vowel y /ə/.
  • There are some new syllable endings, like uoı. They aren't fully set in stone yet.
  • Syllables may start with an unwritten glottal stop, like elū (elephant). Within a word it's written with an apostrophe: elū'āı.

Vocabulary

  • The interjections ha, hıa, hue are gone. Future interjections will probably look like: á, è, .
  • A few common words have moved: toaq (language) is now zu. deoq (talk) is now koy. suo (broken) is now zuy.

The quantifiers update

  • Quantifiers now precede a falling-tone predicate phrase: sa rảı instead of sa ráı.
  • sa kủnē binds a variable that may be referred back to using kúnē.
  • do (the special variable name word) is no longer used, because every word can act like a variable name.
  • baq is now a quantifier. baq pỏq means "people", the kind, rather than "a person" or "some people".
  • hoı ("the aforementioned…") is now a quantifier.
  • Unofficial but popular: You can omit rảı after a quantifier, e.g. Gỉ tu da. "Everything is good." This may or may not bind ráı, depending on who you ask.

The Small Grammar Update

  • Adverbs no longer work like sủaq dẽ = dẻ sûaq. Instead they just embellish the assertion (like sủaq, na ru dẻ hôq).

The new pronoun system

  • This is pretty big! Make sure to read the blog post.
  • ho is now always "anaphoric": it refers to someone mentioned earlier in the text. The new "exophoric" third-person pronoun is nhao.
  • ta is now a pronoun referring to adjectival descriptions like sa dẻ. There's no new 4th-slot tag to follow fı go cu.

Miscellanea #2

  • lu now works the same in every tone (it didn't quite before), and always binds hoa.
  • la now starts a declaration the way ma starts a question. The fate of "old la" is undecided.
  • Instead of , say now.

Miscellanea #3

  • ju takes a full sentence.
  • lu is terminated by ky, and relative/content clauses are terminated by cy.