What resources are there on tone system creation? Resources could include
- Documentation on conlangs that have tone systems
- Guides on tone system creation
- Resources on tone in natural languages, for a posteriori naturalistic conlang creation
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2 Answers
Artifexian has a decent pair of videos (#1, #2) on tones which discusses various types of tone systems, how they work in natural languages, how they developed there, and ways you could work them in to a diachronic approach to conlanging. I don't think it discusses conlangs that do have tone systems though.
The Wikipedia page for Four Tones (Middle Chinese) also does a decent job of discussing the evolution of tone across the Sinitic languages.
There is a recently (November 2024) added resource at fiatlingua.org, namely Gabriel Swai. 2024. "A Guide to Constructed Tone Languages." FL-00009E-00, Fiat Lingua. The author, a native speaker of Massai, a tonal language, discusses tone hierarchy and phenomena occurring in natural tonal languages, diachronic tone, and finally gives a case study of a tonal constructed language (Classical Arettian). The 19 pages paper also has a comprehensive list of references.
