The Lesser-Used Sounds

[finlay]

but I'm fairly sure this is true, to the point where if I hear a pure monophthong /i/ or /u/ I think the person is either Scottish or South African.

...Or a somebody with Spanish as their L1.

Well, I'm more thinking of native speakers, but yeah, perhaps. I have indeed been interacting a lot with Spanish-L1s recently because I've been teaching them English (although it's kinda stopped since the beginning of December, which is a shame!)

[Lyhoko Leaci]

but I'm fairly sure this is true, to the point where if I hear a pure monophthong /i/ or /u/ I think the person is either Scottish or South African.

...Or a somebody with Spanish as their L1.

From my observations asking local natives (making the repeat a monosyllable like "me", "cue"), it seems pretty clear to me they have diphthongs, even more so with /u/, which has some observable ongoing rounding as the vowel is pronounced. I'm not sure if they'd let me record a video though... (but I'm seriously contemplating it).

Why don't some American users here make a recording?

"Cue"? Try with "boot" or something. To me /i/ and (a true) /u/ are monophthings. Or at least they sound a lot more like monophthongs than /e/ and /o/. Using /ju/, which is what "cue" has, will mess things up, and that one is a diphthong to me.

[Ser]

LOL at "a somebody" (an anacoluto from "a person who...").

"Cue"? Try with "boot" or something. To me /i/ and (a true) /u/ are monophthings. Or at least they sound a lot more like monophthongs than /e/ and /o/. Using /ju/, which is what "cue" has, will mess things up, and that one is a diphthong to me.

Or "two", or whatever.

[jmcd]

Made even worse since /i/ and /u/ are very often diphthongs too (in GA

No.

Hmm, Canepari for instance describes them that way, though I could find better sources.

I wouldn't trust Canepari as a source.... but I'm fairly sure this is true, to the point where if I hear a pure monophthong /i/ or /u/ I think the person is either Scottish or South African.

Oh do the Irish not have monophthongs there as well?

[finlay]

i'm exaggerating slightly. I can't remember what the irish do.

[Drydic]

i'm exaggerating slightly. I can't remember what the irish do.

Drink.

[Herr Dunkel]

i'm exaggerating slightly. I can't remember what the irish do.

Drink.

And then get bloody drunk and make retarded shit up that never should've been made up.

[Birdlang]

Since the thread is starting to fall down the page, it might be a good time to summarize the results.

Czech's weird rhotic "/r_r/" was surprisingly common for a sound which nobody's sure what it really is.

Consonants at pretty much every POA are common, except:

• Only doctrellor used any labial-velars (/k_p g_b N_m/). In the real world they're fairly common.
• Only tengado used the epiglottal stop />\/, and only CGreathouse had an epiglottal fricative /H\/.
• Only kodé used linguolabials (/t_N d_N T_N/). They're found in some languages of Vanuatu, and apparently developed out of original bilabials when followed by a front vowel. And they're fairly easy to pronounce, so I wonder why more people haven't used them.
• Only JohnQPublik used a bidental fricative.
• Only Curlyjimsam used that Swedish fricative /x\/. But it's thought by some that that one might not actually exist. (Why not? I don't know. Ask them.)
• Only FSI used a non-high semivowel (/e_^/).
• Nobody used any labial-alveolars (/t_p d_b n_m/) or labial-postalveolars (/t_-_p d_-_b n_-_m/). Yeli Dnye of PNG contrasts both with labial-velars.
• Unsuprisingly, nobody used epiglotto-pharyngeals (made by putting the epiglottis on the pharynx), which are only known from one language, Ami of Taiwan.
• One can't really tell when someone reports having /t_d/ whether they mean their /t/s are pronounced like in Romance languages, or whether they contrast /t_d/ and /t/. But I will say that contrasting dentals and alveolars is cool, well-attested and you should do it.

However, not every manner of articulation was exploited for every POA.

• Nobody used velarization on anything other than /5/.
• Only Zhen Lin (/p_p\/) and Anguipes (/b_v/) had labial affricates. This is, of course, attested in German.
• Only Anguipes had a dental affricate (/t_T/). Saanich, a North Straits Salish language, has /t_T_>/ (but not /t_T/).
• Only JohnQPublik used retroflex affricates (/t`_s` d`_z`/). These are reasonably common in the real world.
• Only Nuntar (/c_C J\_j\/) and JQP (/c_C_>/) used palatal affricates. These, too, are reasonably common, though I don't know how common contrasting them with /c J\/ is.
• Only cathbad (/k_x q_X/) and JQP (/k_x_> q_X_>/) used dorsal affricates. /k_x/ exists in dialects of German, and /q_X/ is common in Salishan and elsewhere.
• Several people used the voiceless alveolar affricate /t_K/, but only Nuntar used the voiced version /d_K\/, and only chris_notts used the ejective /t_K_>/. I think in the real world the ejective might actually be more common, since I know several language that have /t_K_>/ but not /t_K/.
• Nobody used any non-alveolar lateral affricates! Dahalo has a palatal ejective /c_L_>/, and Zulu has a velar ejective /k_L\_>/. Now these are cool sounds.
• Similarly, non-alveolar lateral fricatives were missing. Plenty of approximants, but only Primordial_Soup used a palatal fricative /L_0_r/, and nobody used the velar. EDIT: It turns out /C\/ is Z-SAMPA for /L_0_r/. So add JhemethaEqiv and Mr Saturday.
• Two bilabial approximants /B_o/ (Zhen Lin and Nuntar), two unrounded velars /M\/ (JQP and Kuvdamos), one uvular /R_o/ (Dingbats).
• Only Primordial Soup and kodé used the bilabial trill /B\/, and neither of them seems to have paired it with /t/ as /t_B\/ like Oro Win does.
• Only Curlyjimsam used the retroflex flap /r`/.
• Only Pie Man used the labiodental nasal /F/, but that's okay since I don't know of any languages that actually use it.
• Nobody used bilabial or labiodental flaps.
• Nobody used /h~/. Rhinoglottophilia FTW!

And then there were some kinds of articulations that were hardly used at any POA:

• Only cathbad and Pechel tefalla made use of nasal released stops / prestopped nasals.
• Only Nuntar and Wycoval used /K\/, and nobody used voiced lateral fricatives at any other POA.
• Only Arunas and Radagast used the "voiced aspirates" / breathy voiced stops.
• Only Varamannato and Pechel tefalla had a voiceless flap /4_0/, and nobody had any voiceless trills.
• Only Arunas and pfainuk used any clicks. And of course Eddy, who didn't bother to participate.
• Only Radagast used the "velar aspiration" found in Lakhota.
• Nobody used trill-released stops. (i.e. /tr/ as a single phoneme)
• Only Finlay used a reverse affricate (/s_t/). I've never heard of a natlang using them but they sound kind of cool.
• Nobody used non-explosive stops (i.e. stops without a pressure build-up and release). Which is fair enough, though, since I only just heard of them myself. Ikwere developed them out of /k_p g_b/.
• Nobody used voiceless implosives.

So, if you want something new and unique for your lang, this can be a start.

Corrections/additions welcome.

I made five languages with tB\ and three with the fricative trill. And velar aspiration on fricatives and stops in my Fakeic language Fake German (yes all Fakeic languages are Fake plus a real language's name), but only f, s, p, t and k, and it contrasts pharyngeals, uvulopharyngeals, epiglottals, and pharyngeoepiglottals, all which include voiceless stops and it has the voiced bidental fricative.

[Genome]

What exactly is a "Fakeic" language?

[Birdlang]

What exactly is a "Fakeic" language?

My conlang family spoken by aliens with ridges on their back that kind of look a little like Quagsire in the face. They are humanoid though.

[Pogostick Man]

Does anybody ever use a bidental fricative? Wikipedia says the only known language to have this as a phoneme is Shapsug Adyghe and that it's reconstructed to have come from earlier [x].

[Nortaneous]

speaking of Adyghe: "In the Kfar Kama dialect the ejective consonants became pharyngealized consonants."

[Hallow XIII]

That Shapsug Adyghe thing is, however, not sourced, and I couldn't find anything else about this supposed fricative in Shapsugh with the cursory search that I did. I'd put that on the suspect list until somebody finds where that claim is from.

[sirdanilot]

I suppose one could look it up in an Adyghe grammar.

I think that even if you don't find it in there, the bidental fricative thing might be an allophone of another morpheme.