Tone systems

The two tone languages, Ndyuka and Saramaccan, have high tones H (marked by acute accents) opposed to low tones L (unmarked). Saramaccan also has changeable tones, which must be regarded as underlyingly unspecified ∅. These occur in words of European origin, and represent generally the old unaccented vowels in those words, as well as some epenthetic and all anaptyctic vowels. These are subject to raising under a combination of phonological and syntactic conditions. Unmarked vowels in words of African origin are lexically low.

Examples of tone contrasts would be the following: