Vowel Systems
- Drydic
- Smeric
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Re: Vowel Systems
Try sounding more smug.
- ObsequiousNewt
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Re: Vowel Systems
Has anyone created or considered creating an equivalent of this thread for consonant systems?
퇎
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Το̨ ανθροπς αυ̨τ εκψον επ αθο̨ οραναμο̨ϝον.
Θαιν. Θαιν. Θαιν. Θαιν. Θαιν. Θαιν. Θαιν.
Ο ορανς τα ανα̨ριθομον ϝερρον εͱεν ανθροποτροφον.
Το̨ ανθροπς αυ̨τ εκψον επ αθο̨ οραναμο̨ϝον.
Θαιν. Θαιν. Θαιν. Θαιν. Θαιν. Θαιν. Θαιν.
Re: Vowel Systems
Ideally something like that would be nice, but I wonder how you could organize something like that, since consonants are much more complex.
- Nortaneous
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Re: Vowel Systems
Maybe for plosive systems?
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Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
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Re: Vowel Systems
Even that's gonna be difficult. Vowels fit into basically 2-3 dimensions. Consonants are something like… well there's also a basic 3d grid of POA × MOA × phonation, but all of those already have more divisions than the main contrasts in vowel systems (backness × height × roundedness), and then you get modifiers like "nasal" "sibilant" "lateral" all over the place.
Here's a very limited survey I did a while ago, which gets quite complex already:
http://www.frathwiki.com/Ejective/Inventories
Here's a very limited survey I did a while ago, which gets quite complex already:
http://www.frathwiki.com/Ejective/Inventories
[ˌʔaɪsəˈpʰɻ̊ʷoʊpɪɫ ˈʔæɫkəɦɔɫ]
Re: Vowel Systems
Better late than never:
It's actually four long vowels. The vowel system is long /i: e: o: a:/, short /i o a/. Also shared with some dialects of Cree. (Apparently the Ojibwe spoken in parts of Wisconsin has[/had] short /e/, though? I don't know the details.)Hallow XIII wrote:Other things include Ojibwe with five long but only three short vowels,
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- Smeric
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Re: Vowel Systems
My conlang "Novemberlang" has just one phonemic vowel, /ə/. But it has a few allophonic vowels (maybe in a later stage more). It has /u/ after /k w/, /i/ after /j/ and /a/ after /ʁ/. Thought about doing /o/ after /p/ or something, but I didn't want to go overboard with allophonic vowels.
[bɹ̠ˤʷɪs.təɫ]
Nōn quālibet inīquā cupiditāte illectus hoc agō
Yo te pongo en tu lugar...
Taisc mach Daró
Nōn quālibet inīquā cupiditāte illectus hoc agō
Yo te pongo en tu lugar...
Taisc mach Daró
- Hallow XIII
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Re: Vowel Systems
I will be brutally honest: I was too lazy to look up how many long vowels Ojibwe has (I only knew it was more than three). Damn those Amerindian u-less systems!Whimemsz wrote:Better late than never:It's actually four long vowels. The vowel system is long /i: e: o: a:/, short /i o a/. Also shared with some dialects of Cree. (Apparently the Ojibwe spoken in parts of Wisconsin has[/had] short /e/, though? I don't know the details.)Hallow XIII wrote:Other things include Ojibwe with five long but only three short vowels,
陳第 wrote:蓋時有古今,地有南北;字有更革,音有轉移,亦勢所必至。
Read all about my excellent conlangsR.Rusanov wrote:seks istiyorum
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Re: Vowel Systems
isn't this lesson 1?Bristel wrote:allophonic vowels.../u/... /i/.../a/.../o/...allophonic vowels.
- Particles the Greek
- Lebom
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Re: Vowel Systems
Inspired by this thread, rather than trying to establish an exhaustive typology, perhaps it might be better to collect some representative systems of various sizes (e.g. less than 10 consonants, 10-20, 20-30, and so on)?ObsequiousNewt wrote:Has anyone created or considered creating an equivalent of this thread for consonant systems?
Non fidendus est crocodilus quis posteriorem dentem acerbum conquetur.
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- Smeric
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Re: Vowel Systems
I dunno, is it? How about explaining that I accidentally used phonetic slashes instead of phonemic brackets?finlay wrote:isn't this lesson 1?Bristel wrote:allophonic vowels.../u/... /i/.../a/.../o/...allophonic vowels.
[bɹ̠ˤʷɪs.təɫ]
Nōn quālibet inīquā cupiditāte illectus hoc agō
Yo te pongo en tu lugar...
Taisc mach Daró
Nōn quālibet inīquā cupiditāte illectus hoc agō
Yo te pongo en tu lugar...
Taisc mach Daró
Re: Vowel Systems
you've been posting here for 4 years though, you must have been taught this four years ago.
- Nortaneous
- Sumerul
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Re: Vowel Systems
Another interesting vowel system is the one on Nuosu / Liangshan Yi, which has a six-vowel system /a ɛ ɔ o i ɯ/ (though /ɛ o/ sound to me like [æ u]) plus four fricated vowels, written <u ur y yr> -- but it's best analyzed as having a tense/lax split, with the tense vowels /ɛ a ɔ v̠̩ z̠̩/ and the corresponding lax vowels /i ɯ o v̩ z̩/.
I'm not sure what's going on with the articulation of the fricated tense vowels; I can't pronounce anything that sounds at all like them. Source says "tension is formed on the aryepiglottal folds by pulling them close to one another in a way that causes much turbulence in the larynx". You can hear them here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m43KpZ_90d4
There's also something odd going on with the vowel harmony, where in certain cases (in the first syllable of compound words where the second syllable is a tense non-back vowel and does not have low tone, I think), /ɯ/ doesn't lower to [a], but only to [ɯ̠].
Wikipedia is wrong about the vowel system -- <u> isn't /u/; it's a fricative. There are no characters in the Yi script for u ur y yr with no onset (and you'll notice in the video that the guy doesn't say u ur y yr, but vu vur ssy ssyr -- <ss> is /z/), but there are for all the non-fricated vowels. IOW there's no contrast between /v̩ vv̩/, or between /z̩ zz̩/, and the same applies to the tense vowels.
I'm not sure what's going on with the articulation of the fricated tense vowels; I can't pronounce anything that sounds at all like them. Source says "tension is formed on the aryepiglottal folds by pulling them close to one another in a way that causes much turbulence in the larynx". You can hear them here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m43KpZ_90d4
There's also something odd going on with the vowel harmony, where in certain cases (in the first syllable of compound words where the second syllable is a tense non-back vowel and does not have low tone, I think), /ɯ/ doesn't lower to [a], but only to [ɯ̠].
Wikipedia is wrong about the vowel system -- <u> isn't /u/; it's a fricative. There are no characters in the Yi script for u ur y yr with no onset (and you'll notice in the video that the guy doesn't say u ur y yr, but vu vur ssy ssyr -- <ss> is /z/), but there are for all the non-fricated vowels. IOW there's no contrast between /v̩ vv̩/, or between /z̩ zz̩/, and the same applies to the tense vowels.
Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.
- Pogostick Man
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Re: Vowel Systems
Aikanã, ignoring the nasality distinction.dhok wrote:Common among conlangers, I think, is T6R:
T6RI don't know of any languages where this appears in natureCode: Select all
i y u e o a
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Index Diachronica PDF v.10.2
Conworld megathread
AVDIO · VIDEO · DISCO
Re: Vowel Systems
Also, Medieval Greek until the 10th century. No nasal vowels, length distinction or diphthongs, just 6 monophthongs: /i y u e o a/. There were probably some varieties of Koine Greek that already had that system as well.Pogostick Man wrote:Aikanã, ignoring the nasality distinction.dhok wrote:Common among conlangers, I think, is T6R:
T6RI don't know of any languages where this appears in natureCode: Select all
i y u e o a
Also, the Classical Latin of educated Romans probably had that 6-vowel system (with a length distinction), with /y/ and /yː/ only in Greek loans. I'm not sure how common it was to actually use /y/ and /yː/ (rather than merging them with /i/ and /iː/) in Latin speech. But I would guess the reason the system is common among conlangers is that it is basically the vowel system of the Latin alphabet (based on the Latin pronunciation).
Re: Vowel Systems
^ Actually when Greek had lost its length distinction and merged historical long e into i (i.e.η>ι) I think the system was already established. That is, since a late period of Koine Greek probably. Slightly before that there were two e's with distinction in height, and a bit more earlier the length distinction would still be yet to be lost, with a system like a a: e e: E: i i: u: o o: y y: where E: was higher and e: was lower.
Last edited by Seirios on Wed Dec 10, 2014 3:43 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Always an adventurer, I guess.
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Tone: Chao's notation.
Apical vowels: [ɿ]≈[z̞̩], [ʅ]≈[ɻ̞̩], [ʮ]≈[z̞̩ʷ], [ʯ]≈[ɻ̞̩ʷ].
Vowels: [ᴇ]=Mid front unrounded, [ᴀ]=Open central unrounded, [ⱺ]=Mid back rounded, [ⱻ]=Mid back unrounded.
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Tone: Chao's notation.
Apical vowels: [ɿ]≈[z̞̩], [ʅ]≈[ɻ̞̩], [ʮ]≈[z̞̩ʷ], [ʯ]≈[ɻ̞̩ʷ].
Vowels: [ᴇ]=Mid front unrounded, [ᴀ]=Open central unrounded, [ⱺ]=Mid back rounded, [ⱻ]=Mid back unrounded.
Re: Vowel Systems
Well, if PIE can give rise to the insanity that is Germanic vowels, Proto-Oceanic can easily make that!Nortaneous wrote:beep beep bump have some vanuatu
These all came from a protolang inventory of /a e i o u/ and here's how.Code: Select all
7: Volow, Mwotlap, Vera'a, Nume (Olrat has this system + length distinction in every vowel) i u ɪ ʊ ɛ ɔ a 7+1: Koro i u ɪ ʊ ɛ ɔ a ɛa 8: Dorig i u ɪ ʊ ɛ ɔ a a: 8: Lakon: (+ length distinction in every vowel) i u ɪ ʊ ɛ ɔ æ a 8: Hiw i ʉ e ə ɵ o ɔ a 8: Lehali i u e o ɛ ɔ æ a 8+1: Lehalurup i u e o ɛ œ ɔ a ie 8+5: Lo-Toga i ʉ e ə o ɛ ɔ a ie iɛ ia oə oɔ 9+3: Mwerlap i ʉ ɪ ɵ ʊ ɛ ɞ ɔ a ɛa ɔɞ ʊɵ 10: Lemerig i u ɪ ø ʊ ɛ œ ɔ a ɒ
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- Avisaru
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Re: Vowel Systems
There's a hella lot of them. Note that he said GermanIC, this applies to all germanic languages.R.Rusanov wrote:What's so cray cray about German vowels?
The insane amount of vowel quality distinctions in English as well as other germanic languages may seem completely ordinary to a native speaker of these languages, but it is in fact a typologically fairly uncommon feature. In fact the record for most phonemically distinctive vowel qualities is probably a Germanic language/dialect, though it remains to be seen which one exactly. I have read that it would be one dialect of Bavaria, but I have also heard a Limburgish (southern holland) variety as having the most vowels, namely the dialect of Weert.
The presence of front-rounded vowels is also fairly uncommon though by no means balls-to-the-walls-bat-shit-crazy.
Of course other languages in the world might have more vowels, but they would not be distinctive by vowel quality alone but by other features, such as nasalization, different phonation types, gemination etc. Of course all is a matter of analysis; for example, you can see the gazillion different vowels in Dutch as being divided between 'short' (associated with lax/more central) and 'long' (associated between 'tense' or less central) members of pairs, such as o - ɔ y - ʏ i - ɪ a - ɑ etc. However, if you then look at it phonetically vowels that are traditionally considered 'long' (due to historical reasons; for example /i/) aren't phonetically longer than their 'short' counterparts, so we are truly dealing with only a quality distinction here.
The 'advanced tongue root' coined for many African languages is also something I would consider different vowel qualities, because in essence it's hardly different from lax vs. tense vowels in Germanic languages.
Re: Vowel Systems
My conlang Swampsparrownese has 15 vowels, and it is written in Cyrillic.it has /i e æ/ /u ɯ o ɤ ɑ ɒ/ /ɨ ʉ ɘ ɵ a ɶ/. Know any similar vowel sets?
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Re: Vowel Systems
/ɶ/ is not attested in any natlang, let alone as a language's only front rounded vowel.
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- Lebom
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Re: Vowel Systems
While this thread is active again - are there any languages with just a plain /a i u/ vowel system, but without any length contrast?
Re: Vowel Systems
Sure— Quechua, Cree, Moroccan Arabic, Aleut...Porphyrogenitos wrote:While this thread is active again - are there any languages with just a plain /a i u/ vowel system, but without any length contrast?
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- Lebom
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Re: Vowel Systems
Oh okay. For some reason I thought Quechua had a length contrast. The only other examples of /a i u/ systems I could think of offhand were Classical Arabic and Warlpiri, which both have length contrasts. Thanks!zompist wrote:Sure— Quechua, Cree, Moroccan Arabic, Aleut...Porphyrogenitos wrote:While this thread is active again - are there any languages with just a plain /a i u/ vowel system, but without any length contrast?
Re: Vowel Systems
It's extremely crowded. You've got /i ɨ ʉ ɯ u/. Almost no language contrasts any of /ɨ ʉ ɯ/, the Southern Sami example with two of them /i y ɨ ʉ u/ is extremely odd. And afaik any set of high vowels with 4 members includes /y/. /ɨ ɯ/ are often just two ways of writing the same sound, as there's an unrounded vowel between back and central so the choice of which to use comes down to convention (iirc, big emphasis on iirc, Vietnamese /ɯ/ is often more front than Welsh /ɨ/). Similar problems with the mid vowels as the high. Distinguishing /ɑ ɒ/ without length differences is pretty rare, and even rarer is a three-way contrast between /æ a ɑ/. I'm not sure a four-way between /æ a ɑ ɒ/ even exists, and if it did there'd almost certainly other things going on (e.g. /æ/ is really [ɛ] and /ɑ/ is [ɑ:]). I'm not sure an open central rounded vowel is even attested, let alone as a phoneme, which is presumably what you meant by /ɶ/.Birdlang wrote:My conlang Swampsparrownese has 15 vowels, and it is written in Cyrillic.it has /i e æ/ /u ɯ o ɤ ɑ ɒ/ /ɨ ʉ ɘ ɵ a ɶ/. Know any similar vowel sets?
Last edited by vokzhen on Fri Jan 09, 2015 7:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.