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Re: [engelang] Re: Fwd: preliminary remarks on Toaq Dzu




On 5 Dec 2014 07:04, "gleki.is.my.name@hidden.email [engelang]" <engelang@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
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>> > I think a loglang with IALish aspirations to acquire many users should probably eschew tone, 
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>> > even if that is only because of pandering to tonophobia. 
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>> > Other than Solresol, I can't think of any IALs with tones, and assume that tones could be an impediment to wide adoption.
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>> I think an IAL should have tones just as English and Chinese have tones.

As you know, English doesn't have lexically contrastive tones, unlike Chinese. As for whether it has phonologically contrastive tones at all, I think it probably has two, but it could have none (and some think it has about seven). So if an IAL were to have tones just as English has tones then firstly this would be very different from having tones just as Chinese has tones and secondly it would mean having tones that are at best pretty marginal in the language.

Did you have anything specific in mind vis a vis the use of tone?

--And.