Detail #164: A Register in a Tonal Language

In a tonal language, have a specific register with some added complications to the phonology. This register deals with the music theory of the language, and the complications are entirely due to this.

Triads as well as common motifs all are thus given fairly straight. The underlying syllables, however, inform us a bit about the melodic/harmonic structure - so, i.e. "major triad played in first inversion simultaneously" comes out as na.a.a - with the three vowels having the tones of such a chord. An arpeggio is given with an exaggerated pause: naʔ:naʔ:naʔ:. Glissandos are expressed as actual glissandos. Closer details may be given: to specify which degree of the scale it starts and which it goes to, you use the tone's name's syllable and substitute the lexical tone it should have with a pitch (if possible, corresponding to the actual scale tone if a musical context is present), and a glissando upwards.

A lot of the musical terminology is basically more regular lexemes with tonal substitutions that illustrate the musical details. E.g. glissandos in general are the (monosyllabic) words for "jump" or "fall", but with a glissando (rising on jump, falling on fall) instead of the usual tone the words should have.

Chords. motifs, intervals and progressions in general may be given in slightly shortened forms, and with underlying words like "order", "sequence", etc. Such combinations enable theorists to innovate terminology rather efficiently, by reusing the word for "progression" with different tones to obtain different progressions, or the word for chord or motif or melody with added syllables or such to encode different chords, motifs or melodies.

Of course, "sequence" has its own real tone that is used in the rest of the language. These tones are carried over and remain - the "usual" tones of the language are pronounced in a way that is slightly off from the musical intervals, in a sufficiently audible way that a person who has mastered the register can distinguish "sequence" as "sequence" from "sequence" as "I-IV-V progression".