Carrying On His Great Grandfather's Work, A Kansas Professor Helps Keep Their Language Alive

Also, subtle differences in tone can create words or phrases with drastically different meanings. "Linguists have been struck, for example, by the difference between two words, each one spelled, roughly, "a ho," but with different punctuation.
One means "thank you" (àhô!). The other (à hó:!), spoken with an ever-so-slightly different inflection, means "kill him.”"