Toki pona accent (polynesian).

Language learning: How to speak Toki Pona, translation problems, advice, memory aids, tools and methods to learn Toki Pona and other languages faster
Lingva lernado: Kiel paroli Tokiponon, tradukproblemoj, konsiloj, memoraj helpiloj, iloj kaj metodoj por pli rapide lerni Tokiponon kaj aliajn lingvojn
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janU
Posts: 14
Joined: Sat Mar 03, 2018 4:44 pm

Toki pona accent (polynesian).

Post by janU »

I’ve been trying to design a naturalistically flowing accent for toki pona without breaking any rules or phoneme distinctions, since strictly sticking to the IPA guidelines can sound a bit choppy and artificial.

Many of toki pona’s words resemble Polynesian languages. I was originally considering using a Polynesian like allophony.

This is my improved allophony for toki pona. It fixes the problems with the stress from my old one.

The Tongan language is phonologically similar in some ways. The closest example would be copying this while nasalizing long vowels:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGW0z-Y6fNM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf2RDTplWs4

Nasal vowels:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdiGD6ZE20A

Free variation allophones:
/ɛ ~ e/, reduced to /e/ on unstressed vowels.
/a ~ ə/, reduced to /ə/ on unstressed vowels.
/v ~ w/
/ɾ ~ l/
/s/ has a low stridency and can be debuccalized in free variation. This can make it undetectable when someone speaks with a lisp.
Aspiration of plosives, /t/ tends to be strongly aspirated, /p/ and /k/ tend to be unaspirated.


/j/ is pronounced as a single mora and becomes part of a vowel sequence.
Examples: jan [iãː], ijo [iio], linja [linia].
It has nasalization as consequence of vowel length, so a final /n/ results in a long nasal vowel.
An example of nasalization is American English [kʰæ̃ʔt] "can't".
Not everyone can nasalize vowels, which is fine. In dialects of Mandarin nasalization is interchangeable with a final /n/.
Either /kõː/ or /kon/ would work for "kon".
https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/h ... 1343/33425

Stress:
Stress is nonphonemic and placed on the penultimate mora. The exception is words like /kiwen/ which are stressed on the final nasal vowel.
When a adjective follows a noun like in /toki pona/, /tomo tawa/ and /mi mute/ the adjective of these compound words is stressed. The stress on the noun becomes secondary stress or is removed in some cases.

Rough example:

/mama pi mi mute o, sina lon sewi kon/

[mapi mi mutʰe o silõː sevi kõː]

/nimi sina li sewi/

[nimi sili vi]

/ma sina o kama/

[mə sio kamə]

/jan o pali e wile sina lon sewi kon en lon ma/

[iãː o paɾi ɛ vile silõː vi kõː ɛ̃ː ɾõː ma]

/o pana e moku pi tenpo suno ni tawa mi mute/

[o paɛ moku pi tʰẽːpo huno ni tami mutʰe]

/o weka e pali ike mi. sama la mi weka e pali ike pi jan ante/

[o wɛ̃ɛ̃ paɾi ike mi sala mi ɛ paɾi ike pi iãː ãːtʰe]

/o lawa ala e mi tawa ike/

[o laaɾə ɛ mi tʰaike]

/o lawa e mi tan ike/

[o laɛ mi tãː ike]

/tenpo ali la sina jo e ma e wawa e pona/

[tʰɛ̃ːpo aɾi la siio ɛ ma ɛ waɛ pʰona]

/amen/

mɛ̃ː]
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