zompist bboard

Hathe sechihā [setʃi̥hɒˤː] Rimelsó sétchaa [ˈsettʃʰɑː]
Hathe setèsēhū [setə̥sæˤːɦʊˤː] Rimelsó séthääquu [ˈsetsæːhuː]
Hathe tèsechihā [təsɛtʃi̥hɒˤː] Rimelsó tesetchaa [ˈtɛsɛttʃʰɑː]
Hathe tanatèsiū [tanatə̥sɨ̥ʔʊˤː] :>Rimelsó tanatsiʼuu [ˈtɑnɑtsiʔuː]

I am familiar with cardinal numbers and ordinal numbers, but I don't know much about the grammar of numbers used as labels or "nominal numbers", such as "Route 66" or "Speculative Grammarian number 14". Japanese uses a suffix for them, most often 号. How do other natlangs handle these?

Kgáweq’ ekełeré‘ [ekeɬeˈɾeʕ] Rimelsó ékʼéqléréʼ [ˈekehl̥ereʔ]
Kgáweq’ kawsáwl [kawˈsawl] Rimelsó koosool [ˈkɔːzɔːl]
Kgáweq’ kaysáwl [kajˈsawl] Rimelsó keesool [ˈkɛːzɔːl]
Kgáweq’ doy‘ [dojʕ] Rimelsó tiiʼ [tiːʔ]

Ziotaki only took the ʔuuleomoh direct forms.

ʔuuleomoh čič [tʃitʃ] Ziotaki čičə [ˈtʃitʃə]
ʔuuleomoh ceň [tseɲ] Ziotaki sejə [ˈsɛɟə]
ʔuuleomoh ʔæt [ʔæt] Ziotaki etə [ˈɛtə]
ʔuuleomoh tuh [tux] Ziotaki tuxə [ˈtɯxə]

The only interesting pronunciation of mine is "century": [ˈsɛn̠.t̠ɕɚ.iː] Yes, I'm a native speaker of American English, really. (At least that's how I think I say it; my command of IPA is shaky. There is definitely an affricate in the middle, and it is definitely not [tʃ]; this one is pronounced wit...

It took me a long time to "get" ejectives until I learned that English final pre-glottalized /p/ and /k/ are often realized as ejectives, and so now I can do them very easily. For me, the main breakthrough was the notion of a /k/ and a glottal stop said at the same time; even if it's not phonologic...

This is my rating, on the not entirely objective scale of "how often does my limited/nonexistent competence in this language frustrate my desire to read something?" 0. English (my L1, but I suspect it would top the list if it weren't) 1. French (severely limited proficiency and common in 19c English...

I find it peculiar that pretty much anyone who knows their IPA is happy to tell you that <j> in English is pronounced [d͡ʒ], while in my opinion, it sounds a lot more like [dʲ]. I'm a fossil that retains pronunciation of "long u" as /ju:/ and to me <do> /du:/, <dew> /dju:/, and <Jew> /d͡ʒu:/ are al...

Also it seems like they describe 애 and 에 as [æ] and [ɛ] respectively, while from every speaker I've heard it's [ɛ] and [e]. When did 애 and 에 raise to [ɛ] and [e]? I went back and looked at the FSI Basic Course from 1968, and it describes the vowels as [æ] and [ɛ]. It is entirely possible the author...

English has the diminutive suffix -ie/-y /i:/, but it's not freely productive, especially for inanimates. I've said "bookie" when looking for a missing book, but normally it's a diminutive form of "bookmaker," a person who accepts bets on sporting events. I think the problem is that diminutives lexi...

Well, I don't know about British English, and I'm not sure what kind of "merger" you're referring to without a sound sample, but in American English it seems standard that the our /r/ is labialized. That is, if you say "red", you actually purse/round your lips at the beginning when you say "r". I e...

Yo aprendí un poco del castellano en el colegio, y no entiendo ni una palabra de lo que escribieron Lyra y Izambri.

Funny, I was going to post the exact same thing but didn't have time. Now when I try to speak French, the instant I can't recall a French word, the Japanese one tries to jump in. My brain also only has two slots, it seems. Ditto. When I started learning Japanese, Japanese took over my Foreign slot ...

Again, no research, but Bantu languages use prefixes for marking person/gender on the verb, and they're heavily right-branching and tend to SVO. Not sure how much evidence Bantu is collectively.

Ziotaki: n. ľateseiþeko "swim hole"

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I'm not sure Ethiopia, Teotihuacán, and Tawantinsuyu are great examples, since they're (mostly) based in tropical highlands and their near-temperate climates. What about Java and the classic Maya? There is a bias in the historical record; in tropical climates, anything but metal and stone rots away ...

(In China the kanji aren't so hard, because they usually only have one reading each... I'm surprised how widespread this notion is among students of Japanese. Is there any particular textbook where you read that? First-year Japanese students are taught that the on-yomi (音読み) is of Chinese origin an...

Read/write comfortably: Latin, Hiragana/Katakana, Arabic, ~500 kanji (Japanese shinjitai style), Tengwar (nerdy but true) Read uncomfortably: Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Hangul, another ~250 kanji (and the preceding 500 in Chinese traditional/simplified styles), Nasta'liq Arabic (it's as hard to read f...

As I vaguely recall, the doctrine of original sin was still new and not firmly entrenched in AD 325; its greatest exponent, St. Augustine, wasn't born yet. At any rate, the last time I checked, two Catholic priests working as astronomers for the Vatican had spoken on different sides of the debate. O...

Does it have any diphthongs? Are there syllables other than (C)V?

In Slavic languages adverbs come from adjectives in neutrum , with grammatical ending -o , -e . This reminds me of Standard Arabic, which except for a handful of inherent adverbs derives all its adverbs from adjectives in the masculine singular indefinite accusative -an . I vaguely recall something...

IIRC, Occitan uses the interpunct · to separate vowels in hiatus so they aren't interpreted as a diphthong. There's also the diaeresis (two dots above, like naïve) and, in more recent orthographies and many conlangs including mine, the apostrophe. So yes, there are lots of methods to indicate non-co...

How on earth is that a problem? That's not even an irregularity! Maybe it's just me, but when I make con-alphabets, I have a strict "each phoneme gets its own unique letter, no exceptions" policy. Of course, this can also backfire--Adari would require 73 letters for its phonemes (50 vowels, 23 cons...

My second conlang, Rimelsó: Consonants: m n ɲ ŋ p t tʃ k q ' p h t h tʃ h k h q h p' t' tʃ' k' q' m b n d ɲ dʒ ŋ g (pf) (ts) (kx) (qχ) (ts h ) s ʃ h (v) (z) (ʒ) (ɣ) w y r (ɾ) l ʎ Vowels: i(ĩ) u(ũ) e o ɛ(ɛ̃) ɔ(ɔ̃) æ ɑ Sounds in parentheses are allophones only. Syllable structure: (C)V(:)(N)(r|L)(C) O...

Even in Arabic script, there's the hamza. I understand a lot of authors dropping initial hamza's, but for a class I read a few tales from the 1001 Nights from a reprint of an early 1800s Egyptian edition and the printers must have been out of hamza's that month because they didn't include a single o...