Search found 1401 matches

by ----
Sun Jul 09, 2017 4:39 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: List of natural language sound changes
Replies: 4
Views: 2703

Re: List of natural language sound changes

For the purposes of using the SCA software, though, as long as the relationships between the sounds match up, this should not be a problem, right? Again perhaps a notice at the top would be helpful to remind the readers that the sound change list is simplified for the purposes of pairing the modern...
by ----
Sun Jul 09, 2017 12:43 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: List of natural language sound changes
Replies: 4
Views: 2703

Re: List of natural language sound changes

Index Diachronica has some problems. A lot of the sources are out of date, and there are various errors in transcription or symbol interpretation (i.e. the person who compiled it isn't familiar with the literature on certain families and misunderstands what a symbol means in the context of that lite...
by ----
Wed Jun 28, 2017 10:23 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Clicks in Berber
Replies: 30
Views: 9898

Re: Clicks in Berber

I don't think there's any reason to doubt they were--epenthetic schwa insertion is extremely common in those languages in certain contexts such as song and instances where careful enunciation is important (like reading religious texts) Second, languages with extensive consonant clusters tend to simp...
by ----
Wed Jun 28, 2017 6:40 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread
Replies: 3108
Views: 639917

Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

forward - usually [fɔɹd] in speech, but when emphasized, homophonous with:
foreword - ['fɔɹ.wɚd]

forehead - ['fɔɹ.hɛd]
by ----
Tue Jun 27, 2017 11:35 am
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: Sound Change Quickie Thread
Replies: 2827
Views: 613770

Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Could retroflexion become velarization/pharyngealization? I'm doing an African Romance conlang and I'm wondering whether I could go the Sardinian route and have retroflexes arise in certain places; like ll > ɖɖ etc. but then the tongue retraction could be emphasized into a retracted tongue root type...
by ----
Sun Jun 25, 2017 3:22 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 448332

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

Twenty in PIE shows loss of initial *d in the 'two' portion: many branches reflect *wi- or *Hwi-. What's the explanation for this? Is it just plain old cluster reduction or is there some other motivation for this? Do other words show *dw- > *w-?
by ----
Thu Jun 22, 2017 6:29 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Clicks in Berber
Replies: 30
Views: 9898

Re: Clicks in Berber

Surprise, getting someone's attention, calming someone, etc. Telling a person to stop moving is not horse-related. It isn't anymore but that's semantic drift for you. The word originated as a command to stop a horse, and from there generalised to include people, and then further to all the other se...
by ----
Thu Jun 22, 2017 1:18 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Clicks in Berber
Replies: 30
Views: 9898

Re: Clicks in Berber

Surprise, getting someone's attention, calming someone, etc. Telling a person to stop moving is not horse-related. I don't see how you can just assert a priori that woah "doesn't spell" anything if there are in fact people who connect the orthographic representation "woah" with a phonological repres...
by ----
Thu Jun 22, 2017 12:48 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Clicks in Berber
Replies: 30
Views: 9898

Re: Clicks in Berber

This is totally off-topic, but I can't not comment... Woah this is a clickbait. The word you are trying to use there is "Whoa" /(h)wō/ as one would say to a horse in English to get it to stop. Tumblr uses this mangled form "woah" /wō'a/ in many of the "have you seen so-and-so's post" messages they ...
by ----
Wed Jun 21, 2017 1:58 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread
Replies: 3108
Views: 639917

Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

[kʰɹɛg]
['gɹejəm] but also [gɹæm] crackers
I don't know this word
Sumelic wrote:
thetha wrote:['sɪz.hɛt] I've always had a habit of pronouncing cis with a z at the end. I don't know how I came up with it but I can't train myself to pronounce it a different way.
Hmm, maybe analogy with "trans(-)"?
that seems very possible
by ----
Tue Jun 20, 2017 11:37 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread
Replies: 3108
Views: 639917

Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

['sɪz.hɛt] I've always had a habit of pronouncing cis with a z at the end. I don't know how I came up with it but I can't train myself to pronounce it a different way. I also pronounce forlorn and forsake with /o/ in the first syllable. Temperature is ['tɪmpəɹtʃəɹ], the first two syllables being ide...
by ----
Thu Jun 08, 2017 3:37 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Indo-Pacific language family
Replies: 32
Views: 8234

Re: Indo-Pacific language family

I really should've linked the Wikipedia article in the first post to avoid confusion! I was indeed referring to the former: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pacific_language_family some major howlers in the "some more cognates" link: +an example cognate pair is Middle Korean *əraha and "Dravidian...
by ----
Sat Jan 21, 2017 12:31 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Pama-Nyungan origin hypothesis
Replies: 29
Views: 8169

Re: Pama-Nyungan origin hypothesis

Actually upon doing some closer examination of my personal sources on Sino-Tibetan stuff (mainly Matisoff's work) 258 (or something in the higher 200s) does seems to be a reasonable count of them. Not necessarily--if they had a common ancestor about 4-5kya, then the resemblances would be discoverabl...
by ----
Fri Jan 20, 2017 12:18 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Pama-Nyungan origin hypothesis
Replies: 29
Views: 8169

Re: Pama-Nyungan origin hypothesis

Yep. If the two families had a common ancestor in India about 4000 or 5000 years ago, the resemblances would be readily apparent and the relationship firmly established by now. It isn't. Not necessarily--if they had a common ancestor about 4-5kya, then the resemblances would be discoverable, but no...
by ----
Sat Dec 31, 2016 5:21 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread
Replies: 3108
Views: 639917

Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

That's interesting. Perhaps just use the normal velarisation and pharyngealisation marks? If it is pharyngealisation in codas. But is it pharyngealization, that's the question! Is it a pharyngealized lateral in the onset and a coarticulated coronal-pharyngeal in the coda? Mine is either uvular or u...
by ----
Sat Dec 31, 2016 3:12 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread
Replies: 3108
Views: 639917

Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

jmcd wrote:That's interesting. Perhaps just use the normal velarisation and pharyngealisation marks? If it is pharyngealisation in codas.
But is it pharyngealization, that's the question!
by ----
Fri Dec 30, 2016 9:13 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Help your fluency in a nifty way
Replies: 4604
Views: 1116293

Re: Help your fluency in a nifty way

Ma soeur a un chat et j'ai sentiments contradictoires de lui. D'une part, il est très mignon; d'autre part, il se tait jamais >:| J'ai jamais connu un chat qui est si geignard! My sister has a cat and I have conflicting feelings about him. On the one hand, he's really cute, on the other, he never s...
by ----
Fri Dec 30, 2016 8:53 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread
Replies: 3108
Views: 639917

Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Speaking of "dark L", I pronounce all /l/'s as velarized but I also pronounce syllable final L's as different from syllable initial ones. So I'm never sure how to deal with this terminology.
by ----
Thu Dec 29, 2016 11:18 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread
Replies: 3108
Views: 639917

Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

For me /d/-debuccalization only occurs in a couple words--the modal negative auxiliaries wouldn't, couldn't, and shouldn't. I pronounce them [wʊʔɪnt], [kʰʊʔɪnt], [ʃʊʔɪnt] respectively, with further reduction of the second syllable in connected speech of course. This has to be something specific to t...
by ----
Wed Dec 28, 2016 7:07 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: Here is the phonology of the conlang that I am working on.
Replies: 8
Views: 3173

Re: Here is the phonology of the conlang that I am working o

How does this remind you of Tuscarora? They look nothing alike. This conlang has labials, a voicing distinction, no rounded vowels, no glides, no flap, no phonemic stress, etc. which are all stark differences from Tuscarora.
by ----
Sat Dec 17, 2016 11:52 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Chadic Languages [resource request]
Replies: 3
Views: 2272

Chadic Languages [resource request]

Anybody here familiar with the literature on Chadic languages, especially with regards to diachronics/historical phonology? I'd appreciate some texts that are overviews or are otherwise foundational, important, etc.
by ----
Sat Dec 17, 2016 11:24 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 448332

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

There's a hypothesis that posits the existence of "determiner phrases" in which the head of, for example, the phrase "the sentence" is 'the'. I find this idea very silly but it has support from serious people.
by ----
Wed Dec 14, 2016 1:33 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: origin of Arabic /ɟ/ (plus centum/satem musings)
Replies: 18
Views: 6277

Re: origin of Arabic /ɟ/ (plus centum/satem musings)

ts > t : Proto Austronesian to Proto Malayo Polynesian, Proto Austronesian to Kavalan, Amis, Bunun, Siraya ; Mpi, Bola (Sino-Tibetan) s > t : Proto-Oceanic to a variety of languages including groups in the Southeast Solomons, New Caledonia, Micronesia, etc. (these are independent developments); many...
by ----
Wed Dec 14, 2016 1:07 am
Forum: None of the above
Topic: The Contradictory Feelings Thread
Replies: 933
Views: 204894

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

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by ----
Tue Dec 06, 2016 5:24 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: Sound Change Quickie Thread
Replies: 2827
Views: 613770

Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

yes that's very reasonable