zompist bboard

Wobé?

These things happen all over the place in the real world. For example in the Vaupés Area in the Amazon, languages of unrelated genetic origin have been structurally influencing each other for years on end, without really extensive vocabulary borrowing. I dont think anyone knows why in South America...

How about this? Stressed short vowels in open syllables become long. ɛː ɔː > eː oː ɛ ɔ > je we ã ẽ ĩ õ ũ > an en in on un ʦ ʣ ʧ ʤ > s z ʃ ʒ z ʒ > s ʃ ʃ > x x > h ʎ > j ɲ > j̃ > j All of those seem perfectly plausible. Though, the consonants, taken together - why is it that z ʒ (and no others) are b...

אקֿמך ארש-הגִנו wrote:How would a voiceless alveolar palatal fricative become a voiceless palatal lateral fricative?

That sounds like something that could happen unconditionally, without any steps in between.

does that dialect not have { > e@ / _{m n}? Well, I just heard the person say a couple of sentences, so I can't be quite sure what dialect they spoke, but I'm in a North Midland area on the edge of Appalachia - though with few actual Appalachian speakers in this locale, as far as I can tell. Lots o...

The other day I heard someone pronounce "dramatic" as [d͜ʒɚ'mæɾɪk] - making it homophonous with "Germanic", assuming they'd flap the /n/. Although I suppose that would likely be [ɾ̃] and not just plain [ɾ]. Still, virtually homophonous.

Is it Cushitic?

Given /a ɛ i o p t k ʔ m n s h r/ and the fact that all syllables are CV, is there any plausible way to split off /u/ as a fifth vowel phonemically distinct from /o/? (This is a pitch-accent language—the "stress" would be on the high-pitched syllable.) You could have /o/ shift allophonically to in ...

Ngu-Qam [ŋu qam): /a e i o u/ /a: e: i: o: u:/ Phonemic high tone vs. low tone /m n ŋ ŋʷ/ /p p’ b t t’ d k k’ g kʷ k’ʷ gʷ q q’/ /f v s z x ɣ xʷ ɣʷ~w/ /ts ts’ kx/ /l r j/ I don't know if this is plausible or not, changes might be necessary, but I want labio-velar distinction and ejectives. Though, I...

IIRC there is a language spoken in the Chinese or Burmese highlands that has a vowel inventory almost identical to that of American English. I can't remember the name, though - I saw it on the forum here a while ago.

Dewrad wrote: Yes. /a/ often seems to be more resistant to loss than other vowels.

Is that really the case? That's interesting. I would've imagined it was more prone to loss due to its propensity to turn into /ə/.

EDIT: Oops I think I made this violate a linguistic universal by having more phonemic vowels than consonants. Actually, Iau has 6 phonemic consonants and 8 phonemic vowels. (Not to mention having 11 diphthongs, 2 triphthongs, and crazy tones.) Oh, huh, I forgot about Iau. Next: <m n mm nn a e i o u...

Next a b d e g i j o u v z /a e i o u ə̃/ <a e i o u v> <b d g j> /b d d͜ʒ g/ devoice to [p t t͜ʃ k] word-initially nasalize to [m n ɲ ŋ] before /ə̃/ <v> devoice and nasalize to [m̥ n̥ ɲ̥ ŋ̥] word-initially and before /ə̃/ <v> /z/ <z> devoices to [s] word-initially rhotacizes to [r] before /ə̃/ <v>...

Tatar?

I have questions about Esperanto. Does the /u̯/ really contrast with /u/? What about /i̯/? It seems to be in complementary distribution with /j/. I've only written this about it. Yes, /u̯/ contrasts with /u/ in Esperanto. All vowels are syllabic except for /u̯/. So <aŭ> is always /au̯/ and <au> is ...

Are we gonna get any more of this? It was looking really good. Uh, heh, maybe. The semester's started and I'm gonna be really busy. But, uh, here, I'll provide a little bit more of something - some speculation on what some of the future, more divergent dialects of Esperntaĉ might look like; I'll ca...

I would suggest using an apostrophe for aspiration - while often used for ejectives, apostrophes also have a long history of use in transcribing aspirated consonants, most notably in the Latin transliteration of Armnenian. Thus you'd have p’, t’, k’, s’, sj’, tj’. This wouldn't interfere with your c...

What are some common conditions under which metathesis occurs?

Is it possible that a particular phoneme could act as a sort of "trigger" for metathesis within a particular phonological system?

Is it something South American?

Herr Dunkel wrote:Cool!

"Nwozi no araparwo made mo. Swode mo puramu wo. Kuniguninwo yasirinwo kamuini nusa maturi. Naku kowe kikeba toki suginikyeri."

It's Bantu, right?

Um...Kinyarwanda?

What sound changes are made more or less likely by a vowel being in a closed or open syllable? For example, I know vowel breaking is more common in open syllables, at least among the Romance languages. Are there other vowel changes, mergers, etc, that are affected by syllables' closed/open-ness?

Is it Coast or Southern Tsimshian? (I think those are close enough to count as one guess.)

Kwak'wala?

Something Tungusic or Paleo-Siberian?

Yi?