Game of Tones

Abstract: Andrew Hedding (University of Washington), John Duff (UCSC), Matthew Kogan (UCSC), and Mykel Loren Brinkerhoff (UCSC) will facilitate the tutorial for Game of Tones. One particular feature of indigenous languages of Oaxaca which is often unfamiliar to native speakers of English and Spanish is tone. Tone is an integral part of these languages—it is used to mark lexical and grammatical distinction—but it is a foreign concept from the perspective of an English or Spanish speaker. With this challenge in mind, in 2018, linguists and community members at UCSC developed the Game of Tones, and interactive card-based game that helps players to learn to differentiate different tones and learn the tonal patterns of a given language. This game was initially developed for a series of workshops led by Natalia Gracida Cruz and Fe Silva Robles, two educators and native speakers of Tu’un Nda’vi Ñuu Ka’nu and Santiago Laxopa Zapotec respectively. At these workshops, community members with interest in indigenous languages of Oaxaca (especially heritage speakers and educators) learned about various aspects of the languages, including their tonal inventory.

Game of Tones is a gamified version of Pike’s Method for determining tonal inventories. Specifically, players listen to recordings of spoken words and sort the corresponding cards into different piles according to their tonal melodies. For pedagogical purposes, the game is played in rounds: players are first given a set of words that correspond to just two tonal melodies, then in subsequent rounds, more tonal melodies are added. Since the original creation of the game in 2018, linguists at UCSC have create an online, customizable version of the game that we hope can be used by other native speaker activists and linguists in other contexts.

In this tutorial, we are going to walk the audience through the steps of creating a version of Game of Tones. This tutorial will include instructions on a) how to set up Game of Tones for a language; b) editing Javascript files; c) recommendations of best practices to clean up the data; d) how to host the game on a webpage for availability online. Participants will be able to adapt ideas and strategies form the Game of Tones designed for Santiago Laxopa Zapotec, or can simply upload their own language materials (clipart, sound files, etc) into a template file. By the end of the tutorial, participants will have created their own version(s) of Game of Tones, which can be easily adapted or expanded depending on the tonal inventory of the language or the needs of the project.

This tutorial intends to demonstrate the versatility of online language games, and provide further insight into implementing and developing accessible material for speakers, linguists, and curious minds alike.