Toda language
Toda | |
---|---|
தோடா | |
Native to | India |
Region | Nilgiri Hills |
Native speakers | 1,600 (2001 census)[1] |
Dravidian
| |
Tamil alphabet(Brahmic)[2] | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | tcx |
Glottolog | toda1252 |
ELP | Toda |
Todais aDravidian languagenoted for its manyfricativesandtrills.It is spoken by theToda people,a population of about one thousand who live in theNilgiri Hillsof southernIndia.The Toda language originated fromToda-Kotasubgroup of South Dravidian. Krishnamurti (2003) doesn't consider a single Toda-Kota branch and says Kota split first and later Toda did as Kota doesn't have the centralized vowels of other Tamil-Toda languages.[3]
Phonology
[edit]Vowels
[edit]For a Dravidian language, Toda's sixteen vowels is an unusually large number. There are eight vowel qualities, each of which may occur long or short. There is little difference in quality between the long and short vowels, except for/e/,which occurs as[e]when short and as[æː]when long.[4]
Front | Central | Back | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unrounded | Rounded | Unrounded | Rounded | Unrounded | Rounded | |
Close | i〈i, i·〉 | y〈ü, ü·〉 | ɨ〈ï, ï·〉 | u〈u, u·〉 | ||
Mid | e〈e〉 | ɵ〈ö, ö·〉 | o〈o, o·〉 | |||
Open | æ〈e·〉 | ɑ〈a, a·〉 |
Consonants
[edit]Toda has an unusually large number of fricatives and trills. Its sevenplaces of articulationare the most for any Dravidian language. The voicelesslateralsare true fricatives, not voicelessapproximants;theretroflex lateralis highly unusual among the world's languages.[4]
Voicelessfricatives areallophonicallyvoicedintervocalically in Toda. There are also the invariably voiced fricatives/ʒ,ʐ,ɣ/,though the latter is marginal. Thenasalsand/r̠,ɽr,j/are allophonically devoiced or partially devoiced in final position or next to voiceless consonants.[4]
Labial | Denti- alveolar |
Apical alveolar |
Apical post-alveolar |
Laminal post- alveolar |
Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
plain | sib. | plain | pal. | plain | pal. | plain | pal. | ||||||
Nasal | m〈m〉 | n̠〈n〉 | ɳ〈ṇ〉 | ||||||||||
Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p〈p〉 | t̪〈t〉 | t̪s̪〈c〉 | t̠〈ṯ〉 | tʃ〈č〉 | ʈ〈ṭ〉 | k〈k〉 | |||||
voiced | b〈b〉 | d̪〈d〉 | d̪z̪〈ɀ〉 | d̠〈ḏ〉 | dʒ〈j〉 | ɖ〈ḍ〉 | ɡ〈g〉 | ||||||
Fricative | voiceless | f〈f〉 | θ̪͆〈θ〉 | s̪〈s〉 | s̠〈s̠〉 | ʃ〈š〉 | ʂ〈ṣ〉 | x〈x〉 | |||||
voiced | ʒ〈ž〉 | ʐ〈ẓ〉 | (ɣ) 〈x〉 | ||||||||||
Lateral | ɬ̪〈ɬ〉 | ɭ̊˔〈ꞎ〉 | |||||||||||
Approximant | l̪〈l〉 | ɭ〈ḷ〉 | j〈y〉 | w〈w〉 | |||||||||
Trill | r̘〈r〉 | r̘ʲ〈ṛy〉 | r̠〈ṟ〉 | r̠ʲ〈ṟy〉 | ɽr〈ṛ〉 | ɽrʲ〈ṛy〉 |
All of these consonants may occur in word-medial and word-final positions. However, only a restricted set occur word-initially. These are/p,t̪,k,f,s̪,m,n̠,r̘,l̪,j,w/,in boldface above.
Unlike the other dental consonants,/θ/isinterdental.Similarly,/f/islabiodentalwhereas the other labials arebilabial.[citation needed]
The palatalized rhotics are only mentioned by Spajić and Ladefoged (1996), previous descriptions like of Emeneau (1984) and Krishnamurti (2003) only have the 3 plain ones as the rhotics.
Apical consonants are either alveolar or postalveolar. The actual feature that distinguishes/r̘/and/r̠/is uncertain. They have the same primary place of articulation. Spajić and colleagues have found that the rhotic that may occur word initially (erroneously called "dental"in previous literature, perhaps because Dravidian coronals tend to be dental by default) has asecondary articulation,which they have tentatively identified asadvanced tongue rootuntil further measurements can be made. This analysis is assumed in the transcription/r̘/.[citation needed]
Another difference between them is that/r̘/is the least strongly trilled, most often occurring with a single contact. However, unlike aflap,multiple contacts are normal, if less common, and/r̘/is easily distinguishable from the other trills when they are all produced with the same number of contacts.[citation needed]
The retroflex consonants aresubapical.Retroflex/ɽr/is more strongly trilled than the other rhotics. However, it is not purely retroflex. Although the tongue starts out in asub-apicalretroflex position, trilling involves the tip of the tongue, and this causes it to move forward toward the alveolar ridge. This means that the retroflex trill gives a preceding vowel retroflex coloration the way other retroflex consonants do, but that the vibration itself is not much different from the other trills.[citation needed]
The palatalization of the slided consonant ɽ͢rʲ does not affect the initial retroflex articulation, ɽ is not simultaneously coarticulated with ʲ.
Grammar
[edit]Verbal Morphology
[edit]As described by Murray B. Emeneau, in his "Toda Grammar and Texts,"[5]the entire Toda verbal system is based on the addition of many suffixes to the two base verb stems, stem 1 (henceforth, S1) and stem 2 (henceforth, S2). There are fifteen classes of verbs in Toda, each of which uses one of four suffixes to form its S2from its S1.A short summary is given below:
Class | Example | Suffix | S2 |
---|---|---|---|
Ia | ko·ṭ- "to show" | -y- | ko·ṭy- |
Ib | koc- "to bite" | -y- (c- > č-) | koč- |
Ic | oɀ- "to fear" | -y- (ɀ- > j-) | oj- |
IIa | nen- "to think of" | -θ- | nenθ- |
IIb | kïy- "to do" | -θ- (-y > -s) | kïs- |
IIc | ïr- "to sit" | -θ- (-r > -θ) | ïθ- |
IIIa | kwïṛ- "to give (to 3rd)" | -t- | kwïṛt- |
IIIb | ko·y- "to bear fruit" | -t- (-y > -c) | ko·c- |
IIIc | soy- "to die" | -t- (-y > -t) | sot- |
IIId | kaɬ- "to learn" | -t- (-ɬ > -ṯ)1 | kaṯ- |
IIIe | wïṟ- "to undertake" | -t- (-ṟ/-l > -t-) | wït- |
IVa | kwïḷ- "to hatch" | -d- | kwïḷd- |
IVb | mi·y- "to bathe" | -d- (-y > -d) | mi·d- |
IVc | sal- "to belong to" | -d- (-l > -d) | sad- |
V (irregular) | pï·x- "to go," o·x- "to become" | - | pi·-, o·y- |
1Emeneau lists the rule "S1-ṟ/-ɬ/-ṛ/-ꞎ/-ḍ/-x + -t- = S2-ṯ/-ṯ/-ṭ/-ṭ/-ṭ/-k; S1-r/-l/-n/-s̠/-ḷ/-ṇ + -t- = S1-d/-ḏ/-ḏ/-ḏ/-ḍ/-ḍ "for this class.
To each of these stems, further suffixes may be added to create verb forms indicating different tenses and moods. The following table summarizes them:
Function | 1sg. | 1pl. excl. | 1pl. incl. | 2sg. | 2pl. | 3 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Present-future I | S2-pen | S2-pem | S2-pum | S2-py | S2-tš | S2-t |
Present-future II | S2-n | S2-m | S2-m | S2-ty | S2-tš | S2-u |
Past I | S2-špen | S2-špem | S2-špum | S2-špy | S2-š | S2-č |
Past II | S2-šn | S2-šm | S2-šm | S2-č | S2-š | S2-šk |
Tenseless | S2-en (Class I: S1-nen) | S2-em (Class I: S1-nem) | S2-um (Class I: S1-num) | S2-y (Class I: S1-ny) | S2-š (Class I: S1-nš) | ? |
Dubitative | S1-špen | S1-špem | S1-špum | S1-špy | S1-š | S1-č |
Voluntative | S1-kin | S1-kim | S1-ku | S1-ky | S1-kš | S1-kθ |
Imperative | - | - | - | S1 | S1-š | S1-mo· |
Negative | S1-en | S1-em | S1-um | S1-y | S1-š | S1-oθ |
Negative voluntative | S1-šn | S1-šm | S1-šm | S1-č | S1-š | S1-šk |
Negative imperative | - | - | - | S2-oṭ | S2-oṭṣ | - |
See also
[edit]- E. E. Speight,who was compiling Toda grammar in the period before his death[6]
- Murray B. Emeneau
References
[edit]- ^TodaatEthnologue(18th ed., 2015)(subscription required)
- ^Toda language and script,Omniglot.
- ^Krishnamurti (2003).
- ^abcSpajić, Ladefoged & Bhaskararao (1994).
- ^Emeneau (1984)
- ^Walsh, R R (15 April 1953). "Ernest Speight - A Portrait".The Sunday Statesman.
During his retirement he lived alone, devoting himself to the care of his fascinating library and extensive collection of Japanese art treasures and antiques. and the study of the language and customs and mythology of the Nilgiri hill tribes, the Badagas. He was compiling a Toda grammar when he died
Bibliography
[edit]- Emeneau, Murray B. (1984).Toda Grammar and Texts.American Philosophical Society, Memoirs Series, 155. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society.ISBN9780871691552.
- Spajić, Siniša; Ladefoged, Peter; Bhaskararao, P. (1994).The rhotics of Toda.UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 87: Fieldwork Studies of Targeted Languages II.
- Spajić, Siniša; Ladefoged, Peter; Bhaskararao, P. (1996).The trills of Toda.Journal of the International Phonetic Association. Vol. 26. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–21.JSTOR44526193.
- Krishnamurti, Bhadriraju (2003).The Dravidian Languages.Cambridge Language Surveys (1 ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-77111-5.