Search found 122 matches

by 8Deer
Sun Feb 12, 2017 9:53 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: How do languages stay agglutinative?
Replies: 6
Views: 2676

Re: How do languages stay agglutinative?

It should be noted that an apparent lack of conditional sound changes is likely a consequence of analogy, due to analogy encouraging originally conditional sound changes to be either generalized or reversed, resulting in a language with only seemingly unconditional sound changes. I think this is wh...
by 8Deer
Fri Feb 10, 2017 10:58 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: How do languages stay agglutinative?
Replies: 6
Views: 2676

Re: How do languages stay agglutinative?

Is this due to a low number of conditioned changes (I doubt it), crazy amounts of leveling (seems more plausible), both, or something else entirely? Since Salish consonant clusters have been brought up, I will say that there very few conditioned sound changes in that family in general, and almost n...
by 8Deer
Sun Oct 23, 2016 11:36 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: any language families with kh/S correspondence
Replies: 23
Views: 6371

Re: any language families with kh/S correspondence

For *k - ts, there is Halkomelem. Most other Coast Salish languages have the correspondence *k - tʃ: Proto-Salish */kalax/ "hand" > Sliammon /tʃajəʃ/, Halkomelem /tseləx/.
by 8Deer
Fri Jun 10, 2016 11:09 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Hapax Phonoumena
Replies: 36
Views: 10521

Re: Hapax Phonoumena

If we're including loanwords, than the affricate /dʒ/ occurs in Halkomelem only in the word kinjaj meaning "Englishman" (I think this is may be from Chinook Jargon, ultimately from English "King George").

Very interesting topic, I'll have to see if I can dig up any more.
by 8Deer
Tue Apr 05, 2016 6:25 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Haida and Na-Dene
Replies: 161
Views: 63728

Re: Haida and Na-Dene

Altaic is what I call a "language cluster": a group of language families that show similarities that are certainly meaningful and not just coincidence, but it is hard to tell whether it is a language family or a Sprachbund. But we are digressing from the topic. I know virtually nothing about Haida ...
by 8Deer
Mon Apr 04, 2016 11:35 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Haida and Na-Dene
Replies: 161
Views: 63728

Re: Haida and Na-Dene

First, a population of less than "a few tens of thousands" hunter gatherers could potentially speak several languages, even languages of different families. While isolated in glacier-bound Beringia for 5,000 years? Why not? Languages diversify internally all the time and 5000 years is a hell of a l...
by 8Deer
Mon Apr 04, 2016 12:54 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Haida and Na-Dene
Replies: 161
Views: 63728

Re: Haida and Na-Dene

EDIT: For the record, there is experimental evidence against the "conlang" idea.I remember reading a study where they showed that very young infants couldn't learn languages with "unnatural" grammatical rules in artificial languages, whereas natural rules were easy for them. Since we all know what ...
by 8Deer
Sun Apr 03, 2016 11:39 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Haida and Na-Dene
Replies: 161
Views: 63728

Re: Haida and Na-Dene

First, a population of less than "a few tens of thousands" hunter gatherers could potentially speak several languages, even languages of different families. While isolated in glacier-bound Beringia for 5,000 years? Why not? Languages diversify internally all the time and 5000 years is a hell of a l...
by 8Deer
Sun Apr 03, 2016 8:15 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Haida and Na-Dene
Replies: 161
Views: 63728

Re: Haida and Na-Dene

Interesting. I'm completely ignorant about genetics, but this seems to fit very well with the archaeological data. Although, I am skeptical about the implications of this research for the existence of an "Amerind" family. First, a population of less than "a few tens of thousands" hunter gatherers co...
by 8Deer
Thu Mar 24, 2016 1:40 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Haida and Na-Dene
Replies: 161
Views: 63728

Re: Haida and Na-Dene

And the antiquity of the pacific coast doesn't explain anything - in fact, it poses more questions. If the pacific coast was, as seems reasonable, such an easy route for travel, why is that where we see the most diversity? Multiple migrations=multiple languages/language families=more diversity? Plu...
by 8Deer
Wed Mar 23, 2016 8:13 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Haida and Na-Dene
Replies: 161
Views: 63728

Re: Haida and Na-Dene

The linguistic picture of North America as a whole is pretty weird. East of the Rockies, aside from a few smaller families and isolates, you basically have Algonquian, Iroquoian, Siouan, and Muskogean. Macro-Siouan, which Mithun considers "suggestive," would reduce that list further, and if Gulf is...
by 8Deer
Wed Mar 23, 2016 6:50 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Haida and Na-Dene
Replies: 161
Views: 63728

Re: Haida and Na-Dene

My understanding is that reindeer domestication happened relatively late, so maybe there just hasn't been enough time for reindeer-herding pastoralists to spread their languages.
by 8Deer
Tue Mar 22, 2016 5:35 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Haida and Na-Dene
Replies: 161
Views: 63728

Re: Haida and Na-Dene

I'm currently in a field linguistics class and our consultant is a Haida speaker (probably the last native speaker of the Masset dialect). I wish I had more to contribute to this discussion, but I will say that the language does seem quite different from other Northwest Coast languages that I am fam...
by 8Deer
Tue Mar 01, 2016 11:32 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Weird natlang phonologies
Replies: 121
Views: 34502

Re: Weird natlang phonologies

Vijay wrote:
8Deer wrote: Interestingly, none of the languages have a shift *q > k or *kʷ > k to fill in the missing velar series.
Which then helps keep the uvulars and palatals more auditorily distinct from each other, right?
I would assume so, but *qʷ *kʷ are perceptually quite similar, and yet they don't shift at all.
by 8Deer
Tue Mar 01, 2016 8:56 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Weird natlang phonologies
Replies: 121
Views: 34502

Re: Weird natlang phonologies

Klallam has no k but k w and e but no o The k thing seems to be a general palatalisation trend of the Central Northwest Coast, also being found in the related North-Straits Salish and in Quileute. I did research for a paper on this very topic, never ended up writing it tho. The velar series (*k *k'...
by 8Deer
Sun Feb 28, 2016 3:47 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: European languages before Indo-European
Replies: 812
Views: 193151

Re: European languages before Indo-European

Speaking of Etruscan, I've always found the distribution of Etruscan, Rhaetic and Lemnian to be pretty odd. A migration from the east does seem most plausible given Lemnian and the evidence of diffusion between Anatolian and Etruscan, but it seems strange that they would end up in Northern Italy and...
by 8Deer
Fri Feb 05, 2016 2:50 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Ejectives in Zulu
Replies: 7
Views: 2095

Re: Ejectives in Zulu

Oh, thank you so very much. I've been wanting to justify a shift of /d t/ to /t t_>/ unconditionally (with similar shifts for the other stops) for a while now and I just couldn't quite convince myself that it would happen. I'm still not entirely comfortable with it, since ejectives would outnumber ...
by 8Deer
Sun Dec 27, 2015 1:36 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: Sound Change Quickie Thread
Replies: 2827
Views: 613804

Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

If I may break the conversation flow to ask a quick question, I am interested in learning more about sound changes, but my book, "Historical Linguistics: And Introduction" by Lyle Campbell only has about thirty pages about the types of sound changes (which, considering the scope of the book, makes ...
by 8Deer
Fri Jun 05, 2015 10:21 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: Sound Change Quickie Thread
Replies: 2827
Views: 613804

Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Would you say that the shifts ç > x and ʃ > x are about equally plausible?
by 8Deer
Sat May 30, 2015 11:26 am
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: !ha-Barikií
Replies: 2
Views: 1487

Re: !ha-Barikií

Vardelm wrote:
Shemtov wrote:/ᶢʘ ᶢǀ ᶢǂ/ <gʘ g! gǂ>
What exactly are these sounds? I haven't seen the ᶢ before.
Its just the IPA symbol for a voiced click. Also, seems interesting Shemtov, I always like langs with clicks.
by 8Deer
Mon May 18, 2015 11:22 am
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: Sound Change Quickie Thread
Replies: 2827
Views: 613804

Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

uCV iCV > CuV CiV is quite common initially in Paman apparently. In some languages, even /a/ metathesises when followed by /i u/, which then become the corresponding glides, so /ati/ > /tay/.
by 8Deer
Sat Apr 04, 2015 3:32 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: Sound Change Quickie Thread
Replies: 2827
Views: 613804

Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

All of those seem perfectly plausible. Though, the consonants, taken together - why is it that z ʒ (and no others) are being devoiced, when all the other fricatives are moving back? It seems more likely to have s z > ʃ ʒ. Not that z ʒ > s ʃ isn't possible, even in the context you describe. But it j...
by 8Deer
Tue Mar 24, 2015 8:42 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: Sound Change Quickie Thread
Replies: 2827
Views: 613804

Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

How plausible is b d g → m n ŋ / _r ? I think the opposite happens in either Proto-Celtic or Gaulish. Which makes sense because it increases the sonority distance between the two elements of the cluster. The reverse change seems implausible to me, but I'm sure someone will now find an example of it...
by 8Deer
Sat Mar 21, 2015 1:13 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: Sound Change Quickie Thread
Replies: 2827
Views: 613804

Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

I seem to recall recently seeing a suggestion that high vowels have the potential to cause affrication of stops, which would (if true) help explain Japanese /tu/ > [tsu], for example. So, I was wondering, could this change be extended to affect all plosives within a language, e.g. /p t k/ > [pɸ ts ...
by 8Deer
Thu Mar 05, 2015 11:39 am
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: Sound Change Quickie Thread
Replies: 2827
Views: 613804

Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

I think something similar happened in Chilcotin, so you could look into that.