In the summer of 2010, our family was at the University of North Dakota, where I (Adam) was taking my first round of linguistics courses to prepare for Bible translation work. Overall I did well in the coursework, bu there was one quiz in my Phonetics class that I completely bombed. That quiz was on tone. I had to listen to different words being pronounced and then say whether the tone was rising or falling or high or low or level, and so on and so forth. Throughout high school, college, and graduate school, I don't think I ever did as poorly on a quiz as I did on this one. I just could not hear the differences. (Those who have heard me sing are probably not surprised that I did not do well on the quiz!) And I thought to myself, “I sure hope that I do not end up working in a tonal language.”
Well, the hope that I would not work in a tonal language was shattered when I agreed to work with Enga (although my hope was not shattered completely). Enga is a tonal language, but its tonal system is not quite as complicated as a language like Mandarin. Mandarin has four tones (level high pitch, rising, falling then rising, and falling), and each syllable of a word has one of those tones. So, in Mandarin, tone is associated with the syllable. In Enga, tone is associated with the word, not the syllable. Each word has its own tonal pattern, and there are only three main patterns: level, falling, and peaking (that is, rising then falling). This makes life a lot easier on a tonally-challenged person like me. I still have difficultly hearing the differences, but thankfully I can record Enga speakers and then use software to chart the pitch and see what is happening.
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| A graph of the level-tone word “yuu” (ground) |
Now for a language to be considered tonal, a word's meaning has to be affected by the tone. This means that you can have the same letters in a word, but the tone with which those letters are pronounced changes the meaning. For example, the word dii in Enga changes meaning depending on the tone. If dii is pronounced with a level tone it means fruit. If dii is pronounced with a falling tone it is the command give. If dii is pronounced with a peaking tone it means you gave. So, to communicate correctly, you must pronounce each word with the correct tone. This is particularly important for some words. For example, when the word kenge is pronounced with a falling tone, it means name. But when it is pronounced with a level tone, it means buttocks. So, you have to be very careful when you are introducing yourself to someone and saying, “My name is…” Otherwise you might inadvertently be telling people what your buttocks is called, which would be quite embarrassing (not to mention strange)!
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| A graph of the falling-tone word “kenge” (name) |
While a foreigner like me often has difficulty remembering which tone pattern to use for each word, it comes quite naturally to Enga speakers. As we translate the Enga New Testament, we do not mark the words for tone, because ninety-nine percent of the time, the context is sufficient for determining which word is intended. When context is not sufficient, we can usually figure out another way to say the same thing to avoid confusion. The only case that consistently causes problems is the phrase epena lao, which can mean tell to come or say it is good. There is no good work around for that, and when we record the Enga New Testament next year, we will have to be sure that we are always pronouncing the word epena with the correct tone.
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| A graph of the peaking-tone word “akali” (man) |
You can see from the graphs above that the tone patterns are not perfect. In other words, the level tone is not perfectly level, and the falling tone does not fall at a perfect angle, and the peaking tone does not rise and fall at a perfect angle or with perfect symmetry. Nevertheless, the three patterns are clearly distinct.
So, do you think that you can do better on a tone quiz than I did in my Phonetics class at the University of North Dakota? I have prepared a short video for you so that you can test your skills. Click on the video below to take a very short video quiz in which you will hear three different Enga words. You will hear each word three times, and you will have to decide if it is level tone, falling tone, or peaking tone. After you hear each of the words three times, you will then hear the words again while also seeing the graph of the tone as well as the answer telling you which tone it is. Click below to give it a try.
Well, hopefully you did better than I did on my tone quiz. Please pray that God will use this tonally-challenged person to use the right tone of voice as I communicate with the Enga people.
