ABSTRACT
43. If one compares these three commonplace expressions—mâ drí my hand, mâ drì my head, mádrí my, mine—it appears evident that the musical tone or pitch with which a word is pronounced is an essential part of it, since, in numerous cases, tone alone distinguishes one word from another, for example, dri may mean either head (drì), hand (drí), or to warm (drï). Compare also: tí (cow), ti (mouth, to give birth), tì (rise—of a river), or sí (tooth), sí (hail), sì (to knock), shttps://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315107080/f0f97db3-c15a-41d0-86e8-3442e5bee540/content/img5.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> (with), si (to build). Such instances are extremely common in Logbara. The importance of tones must thus become clear to everybody. If a person speaks without regard to tones, it will mean that the native hearers will have to be more ingenious than the speaker and discover from the circumstances or context or from his gestures what he is trying to say; the native will have to learn the Logbara of the foreigner: a poor expedient which must lead to impoverishment of the language.
