It's all in the tone

Monkolé is a tonal language, which means that someone's tone of voice rising, staying the same, or lowering on one syllable of a word can change the whole meaning of the word. A simple example is the following word pair:

ajá (with rising tone on the final "a") means "dog"

ajà (with low tone on the final "a") means "market"

The tones are not crucial most of the time in Monkolé. Someone who heard me say, "I went to dog to buy some tomatoes" would pretty easily figure out what I meant, though they might have a bit of a laugh at my expense. For this reason, the majority of tones don't need to be marked when Monkolé is written – and it's a good thing too, as the page would look very messy!

Sometimes, though, we can get tripped up.

In Isaiah 30:13, the Lord is speaking to the people of Judah who are seeking Egyptian help rather than relying on Him. He says to them:

"this sin will become for you

like a high wall, cracked and bulging,

that collapses suddenly, in an instant." (Isaiah 30:13, NIV)

Our draft Monkolé translation says:

Kurara iyi bɛ á yɛi bi tu ŋɛ

bɛi bindi kugboka iyi í la,

nɔ í cuku anu akã.

When I first read this, I understood it as "this sin will be to you like a high wall which is big, and which falls all of a sudden". 'í la' is a common construction meaning 'it is/was big', and although the 'la' is said with a rising tone, it is unnecessary to mark the tone.

So I said to the translators, "I think we need the idea of the wall being cracked already."

Pastor Samuel said, "But we do!" and I suddenly remembered another use of 'í la' (with low tone) and said, "Oh, that's what this 'í la' means, isn't it?"

I was feeling a bit silly for not realising, until Philémon said, "Oh, but that's how I read it too!"

So we decided we needed to write this 'í la' with a low tone, ie. 'í là', to prevent other readers reading the most common meaning of 'í la'.

This shows how we sometimes have to spend three or four minutes just discussing one tiny mark over a letter! Yet that mark can change the meaning significantly.