zompist bboard

/al ʕarabija/ <al řarabija> /b t d tˁ dˁ g q ʔ/ <b t d ť ď g q (')> /m n/ <m n> /ʤ/ <ž> /f s z sˁ ʃ θ ð ðˁ ɣ χ ħ ʕ h/ <f s z č š c cz čz ğ ch řh ř h> /l (ɫ) w j/ <l l v j> /r/ <r> /i iː u uː a aː/ <i í u ú a á> /maɣrib/ <mağrib> /misˁr/ <mičr> /bismiɫːaːh/ <bismilláh> /ʔabduɫːaːh/ <abdulláh> /ʕajn/ ...

Hello again, comrades! I am back to working on this lang, though I have a few questions about phonology that I'l like to hear your opinion on first to determine in which direction I should proceed: Firstly, can uvulars and uvularized consonants affect non-high vowels, and if so, how? I am planning o...

Welp, my last question seems to have been to vague, so how about this one: I want to make Bantu, specifically Swahili, influence to cause development of this post-nasal fortition & voicing: N(f v p) → mb Nt → nd N(s z ts) → ndz N(ʃ ʒ j) → ɲdʒ, with [dʒ] not being otherwise found anywhere else N(k g ...

Because the rest of the voiceless aspirated consonants lenited to fricatives (with the exception of the retroflex one, which became an affricate in an earlier sound change) - the aspirated t is supposed to be the last of its kind, still contrasting with the dental fricative word-initially for educat...

Another one of my future Englishes, this time British influenced by Indian languages. /p b t̪ d̪ tʰ ʈ ɖ k g ʔ/ /m n ŋ/ /tɕ dʑ ʈʂ ɖʐ/ /ɸ β θ s ɕ x/ /ʋ j/ /ɾ ɻ l/ /i e a o u/ ~ /ɪ ɛ ɐ~ə ɔ ʊ/ /aɪ aʊ/ The vowels exhibit a tense-lax harmony that developed partially from diphthong smoothong and partially ...

Actually, speaking of coronals, what are the people's favourite reasonably-bland coronal consonant systems? I've been stumped as to what I want my conlang's to be in the end and so I think I'd just give somebody here the sincerest form of flattery. In terms of general phonology, there's a strong voi...

Is there a separate/ s/ that survives, or is this language entirely without plain /s/? I think Hungarian has/ S z/ as the most common but also has /Z s/ in comparable quantities. /Z/>/z/ moving alone would be most likely if it shifted to a more open articulation than the voiceless . C.f. d turning ...

Would it be possible to have sound changes first result in /s̺ z̺/ > /ʃ ʒ/, and then have /ʒ dz/ > /z/, so that the most common sibilants in the language are /ʃ/ and /z/?

Speaking of stress, I'd like to do some stress-based lentition/fortition of consonants too. How does /w/ → /gʷ/ → /g/ → /ɣ/ and /j/ → /ʒ/ in the onset of stressed syllables and /m/ → /w̃/ → ∅ in codas of unstressed syllables sound? If I go full-bore with the stress-consonant interaction and divide t...

@WeepingElf - Middle English had /x/ and /ç/ as allophones of /h/ in coda and lost them both or, sporadically, merged them with /f/. So perhaps you could restrict them to different positions and then just nuke the one that has /x/? If you want to preserve palatalised and labialised /x/s, I think you...

Nortaneous wrote:I would expect vocalization.

Yeah, that's probably the most plausible option. I do wonder, though, what would the nasals vocalise to? Rhotic will turn into a low vowel, the lateral into a back vowel, but what about the nasals? Nasal vowels? Just /a/?

Zaarin wrote:

mèþru wrote:Metathesis is usually a sporadic change.

While I can't think of examples off the top of my head, it can be regular.

Slavic liquid metathesis was regular as all hell.

@Knit Tie: I find that reasonably plausible myself.

Even the top version, without any schwas?

Would it be possible, in some hypothetical future variety of English, for methathesis to occur thay would switch syllabic sonoranit into the coda of the preceding syllable, e.g.: castle /kʰæsɫ̩/ → /kʰæɫs/ nation /neɪ̯ʃn̩/ → /neɪ̯nʃ/ acre /eɪ̯ʔkɻ̩/ → /eɪ̯ɻʔk/ Or should I go for something more indirec...

Step 3: New Californian Mountain English to Proto-Suraic After intermingling and interbreeding with their Middle Eastern neighbours, the speakers of NCME start to feel the influence of their lingua franca - the prestigious, artificially preserved Modern Standard Arabic - on their own language. The ...

New Californian English isn't actually supposed to be a lingua franca anywhere at this point - it's merely a dialect/descendant of English spoken by Atlantic Coast Americans on that particular space colony at home, which I think would make for a more interesting protolanguage than a GA lingua franca...

General information Surai, officially Ilosean Surai, more officially Southern Ilosean Surai, endonym Suraayee /s̪ʊˈɾɑːjɛː/, spoken on the provisionally-named desert planet of Ilos by as-of-yet undetermined number of speakers of American and Middle Eastern descent a thousand or so years into the fut...

Hello, ladies and gentlemen! This topic will be a scratchpad for me to organise and record my thoughts on my as-of-now current conlang, Suraic. It is spoken in a hard sci-fi setting by descendants of Americans and various peoples of the Middle East on a particularly inhospitable desert planet that m...

Zaarin wrote: So your ultimate goal is that s > ʃ, s̪ˤ ʃ > s? What you posite works, but I think it can be done more simply.

s > s̺ > ʃ
ʃ > s (no intermediate necessary, widely attested)
s̪ˤ > s

So two phonemes can simply switch like that? Without merging?

Nortaneous wrote:s > θ (Zhuang, Turkmen, Burmese)
ʃ > s
θ > ʃ (Biblical Hebrew)

This looks nice, Nort, but I'm not sure if I can exclude the dental /s̪ˤ/ from this change, as I'd like to do. Perhaps I could go with something like this?

s̪ˤ > θ
ʃ > s̻
s > s̺ > ʃ
s̻ > s
θ > s

The dental flap is indeed a variant of the coronal, and I'm trying to get rid of the pharyngealised series as a whole. As for the postalveolars, I'm afraid simply shifting them to /s̪/ won't work, as I'm trying to, essentially, have /s/ and /ʃ/ switch places. Or did you mean something else by that S...

/m n ŋ ɴ/ <m n ng nq> /mː nː ŋː ɴː/ <mm nn nng nnq> /p t t͡ɬ k q/ <p t tl k q> /pː t͡ɕː t͡ɬː kː qː/ <pp tt tch kk qq> /pʼ tʼ t͡ɬʼ kʼ qʼ/ <p' t' tl' k' q'> /ʋ ɺ ɕ ɣ ʁ/ <v l s g r> /fː ɬː ɕː χː/ <ff ll ss xx> /j/ <j> [tɕ] <ch> [f ɬ ɕ χ] <f l s x> /i ɨ u/ <i e u> /iː ɨː uː/ <ii ee uu> /a aː/ <a aa> [qi...

To continue bothering people with my conlang, would you say that /ʕ/ and /ʁ/ merging together into /ɰ/, which then subsequently becomes /ə̯/ in coda to form centralising diphthongs is plausible? Also, how can you turn /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ into /s̪/ through an intermediate without using /ɬ/, and what can you ...

Are we doing batshit natlangs now? Because boy do I have a batshit ntlang for you. Upper Arrernte. /m mʷ n̪ n̪ʷ n nʷ ɲ ɲʷ ɳ ɳʷ ŋ ŋʷ/ /p pʷ t̪ t̪ʷ t tʷ c cʷ ʈ ʈʷ k kʷ/ /ᵖm ᵖmʷ ᵗn̪ ᵗn̪ʷ ᵗn ᵗnʷ ᶜɲ ᶜɲʷ ᵗɳ ᵗɳʷ ᵏŋ ᵏŋʷ/ /ᵐb ᵐbʷ ⁿd̪ ⁿd̪ʷ ⁿd ⁿdʷ ᶮɟ ᶮɟʷ ⁿɖ ⁿɖʷ ᵑɡ ᵑɡʷ/ /l̪ l̪ʷ l lʷ ʎ ʎʷ ɭ ɭʷ/ /ɾ ɾʷ j jʷ ɻ ɻʷ ɰ...

Nortaneous wrote: Aren't true retroflexes very rare outside Dravidian? And do they ever contrast with apical postalveolars?

True, subapical palatal retroflexes are also found almost everywhere in Australian aboriginal languages, where they happily contrast with apical alveolars and laminal palatals.

Travis B. wrote:

Knit Tie wrote:Is it possible to somehow turn palatals into retroflexes, or vice versa?

Alveolopalatals have become retroflexes in various Slavic languages.

Are those true retroflexes, though? As far as I know, Slavic retroflex fricatives are just apical postalveolar.