zompist bboard

Frislander wrote:Some of you may remember a while back I asked a question in the C&C quickies section about a sci-fantasy gender system, later including a couple of short texts set in the world (a first draft of one is in the quote thread). This language is meant to be spoken in that world.

/p t t͡ʃ k ʔ/ <p t c k '>
/ⁿb~m ⁿd~n ⁿɖʳ~ɳ ⁿd͡ʒ~ɲ ⁿg~ŋ/ <mb~m nd~n ndr~nr nj ng>
/s~ʂ/ <s>
/w ɽ j/ <w r y>

/i e a o aɪ̯ aʊ̯ ɔɪ̯ ea̯ oa̯/ <i e a o ai ao oi ea oa>

The vowels and diphthongs occur in long (acute), short and nasalised (grave) versions.

The prenasalised stops are pronounced as their pure nasal allophones before the nasal vowels.

The /s/ phoneme freely varies with its retroflex counterpart, though the retroflex is more likely in certain contexts: when another retroflex consonant (<n(d)r> or <r>) is already present in the word; and with a few verbs where <s> mutates to <r> intervocalically.

Phonotactics are strictly CV, with roots being mostly CVCV, though there are a few CV roots in the language.

There is a marginally phonemic pitch accent, which is not marked in the orthography. This falls on the first vowel of the root(s) which make(s) up a word, ignoring suffixes but including reduplication. In a few verbs this distinguishes the habitual (formed by intial CV- reduplication) from one of the infixes.

(I'll put a text up when I have access to a computer which can do accents - Chromebooks are useless for that).

the phonological system was inspired by Guaraní?

k1234567890y wrote:

Frislander wrote:Some of you may remember a while back I asked a question in the C&C quickies section about a sci-fantasy gender system, later including a couple of short texts set in the world (a first draft of one is in the quote thread). This language is meant to be spoken in that world.

/p t t͡ʃ k ʔ/ <p t c k '>
/ⁿb~m ⁿd~n ⁿɖʳ~ɳ ⁿd͡ʒ~ɲ ⁿg~ŋ/ <mb~m nd~n ndr~nr nj ng>
/s~ʂ/ <s>
/w ɽ j/ <w r y>

/i e a o aɪ̯ aʊ̯ ɔɪ̯ ea̯ oa̯/ <i e a o ai ao oi ea oa>

The vowels and diphthongs occur in long (acute), short and nasalised (grave) versions.

The prenasalised stops are pronounced as their pure nasal allophones before the nasal vowels.

The /s/ phoneme freely varies with its retroflex counterpart, though the retroflex is more likely in certain contexts: when another retroflex consonant (<n(d)r> or <r>) is already present in the word; and with a few verbs where <s> mutates to <r> intervocalically.

Phonotactics are strictly CV, with roots being mostly CVCV, though there are a few CV roots in the language.

There is a marginally phonemic pitch accent, which is not marked in the orthography. This falls on the first vowel of the root(s) which make(s) up a word, ignoring suffixes but including reduplication. In a few verbs this distinguishes the habitual (formed by intial CV- reduplication) from one of the infixes.

(I'll put a text up when I have access to a computer which can do accents - Chromebooks are useless for that).

the phonological system was inspired by Guaraní?

Actually I was thinking Malagasy when I made it, but you're right there is a bit of a Guarani vibe coming off it.

This is Mvithizu's phonology. I'm sort of curious what natlang(s), if any, this sounds like to people.

Nasals: /m n/ m n
Lenis stops/affricates: /b d dz ɡ/ b d dz g
Fortis stops/affricates: /p t ts k/ p t ts k
Lenis fricatives: /v ð z ɣ/ v dh z gh
Fortis fricatives: /f θ s x/ f th s kh
Other: /w l r j/ w l r y

Vowels: /i u ɛ ɑ/ i u e a

Onsets are compulsory while codas are forbidden. Onsets consist of a base consonant optionally preceded by a homorganic nasal (written m before labials and n otherwise) or followed by a glide /w/ or /j/. All consonants except /m n w l r j/ may be preceded by a homorganic nasal, and all consonants except /w j/ may be followed by either glide. While this means that phonetically Mvithizu has prenasalized consonants, since nearly every consonant can be prenasalized in this language I think it's more parsimonious to analyze them as clusters of a nasal and a following consonant rather than as unitary phonemes.

The exact difference between the fortis and lenis consonants varies between dialects. Although I've transcribed them with the characters for voiceless and voiced consonants for simplicity, for most speakers voicing is not the primary distinguishing feature. Fortis consonants are typically held for somewhat longer than lenis consonants, and for some speakers they are aspirated. Some but not all speakers partly or fully voice the lenis consonants. The overall situation resembles that of Ojibwe.

Phonetically, /d t ð θ/ are lamino-dental, and /n l r/ are apico-alveolar. /dz ts z s/ may be lamino-alveolar or apico-alveolar. The velars front significantly before /i/ and /j/, more so than is common in English, becoming more or less cardinal palatals; the velar stops tend to be at least slightly affricated in this environment. For some speakers the palatalized velars shift further into alveopalatals. Although I've transcribed the vowels /i u ɛ ɑ/, each has a pretty wide range of realizations, dependent more on free variation than allophony: /i/ may be [i ɪ ɨ ɪ̈], /ɛ/ may be [e ɛ æ], /ɑ/ may be [ɑ ä ɐ ʌ], and /u/ may be any of [u ʉ ʊ o ɵ]. Vowels are generally nasalized before a following prenasalized consonant. For many speakers, utterance- or even word-final vowels devoice.

Mvithizu is more or less syllable-timed, with nasals and glides not adding to the length of syllables. Because of this, vowels are generally slightly shorter before clusters or fortis consonants. It does not have contrastive stress or tone, although most commonly speakers will pronounce the first syllable of a word with a pitch-based stress and pronounce weaker secondary stresses on the third, fifth, and any subsequent odd-numbered syllables after that.

My first reaction was "This looks like Kikongo, and Bantu more generally", mainly due to the rampant prenasalisation on to of C(G)V phonotactics.

This is not a new conlang, but I never introduced it:

nasals: /m n ŋ/
plosives: /p b ᵐb t d ⁿd k g ᵑɡ/
fricatives: /f v ᵐv s z ⁿz h/
sonorants: /w r l j/

vowels: /a e i o u/

syllable: (C)V, probably (C)(/j/)V

Tones: high, low

k1234567890y wrote:This is not a new conlang, but I never introduced it:

nasals: /m n ŋ/
plosives: /p b ᵐb t d ⁿd k g ᵑɡ/
fricatives: /f v ᵐv s z ⁿz h/
sonorants: /w r l j/

vowels: /a e i o u/

syllable: (C)V, probably (C)(/j/)V

Tones: high, low

Sounds like a Swahili dialect minus the palatal/palatoalveolar and non-native consonants.

Chengjiang wrote:

k1234567890y wrote:This is not a new conlang, but I never introduced it:

nasals: /m n ŋ/
plosives: /p b ᵐb t d ⁿd k g ᵑɡ/
fricatives: /f v ᵐv s z ⁿz h/
sonorants: /w r l j/

vowels: /a e i o u/

syllable: (C)V, probably (C)(/j/)V

Tones: high, low

Sounds like a Swahili dialect minus the palatal/palatoalveolar and non-native consonants.

lol you got that, that language is really Bantu-inspired

Proto-Neritic, Luworese's ancestor:

/m n ŋ/
/p b t d tʃ dʒ k ɡ/
/s z ɬ (ɮ) l x ɣ/

/i e ɛ ə a u o ɔ/

Allowed syllables are (C)V(V)(F), where F can be a nasal or /l/.

The inclusion of a possible /ɮ/ is based largely on the fact that in some but not all cases /l/ appears to have a tone-depressing effect in descendants (including a somewhat less remote ancestor of Luworese) otherwise associated with voiced obstruents.

for classical heaque:
consonants


vowels


phonotactics
(F)(C)V(F/Approximant/N)(C); only two consonants may appear between vowels in one word, except in some compounds where a nasal precedes a stop + approximant sequence, e.g. Cültenbluc ‘Cültenbluc; brown mountains’

As a follow-up to this phonology, here are some more phonologies from languages which are all part of a sprachbund (including the linked language) that I'm creating.

The first one has been started (called Kparaka) (this phonology is copied from the CBB).

/t k k͡p/ <t k kp>
/b~m d~ɾ~n/ <b~m d~r~n>
/f s/ <f s>
/w j/ <w y>

/i e a u o ɒ~ɑ/ <i e a u o ɔ> plus or minus nasalisation (written with a tilde). The following diphthongs also occur, again with or without nasalisation: /ai au ɒi ɒu/ <ai au ɔi ɔu>

The voiced stops exhibit large amounts of allophony: /d/ is realised as a flap inter-vocalically, and both are nasalised before nasal vowels.

There is limited vowel harmony in restricted morphological contexts. It is a kind of height harmony, with the vowels /e o/ (and their nasalised variants) alternating with /a ɒ/ (and also their nasalised variants). /i/ and /u/ are neutral in this system, however a majority of lexemes containing /i u/ only will select the mid-vowel variants. It works bi-directionally from the root, and includes many affixes but not all and excludes compounds and clitics.

A few forms also show (regressive-only) nasal harmony.

Syllable structure is very simple, being (C)V(V). Vowel hiatus is resolved by the following processes (these are applied in order):

• A non-nasal vowel in contact with a non-nasal vowel is nasalised.
• If the vowels belong to opposing harmony sets, then the vowel in the affix assimilates to the one in the root.
• Like vowels merge.
• When the first vowel is at the same height as or higher than the second, an epenthetic glide is inserted: /j/ after front vowels, /w/ after back.
• When the first vowel is low and the second is high, the vowels form a diphthong. When the first vowel is mid and the second is high, a mid vowel is formed which takes the rounding of the high vowel. When the first vowel is low and the second high and the environment is not harmonising, the mid vowel is raised to the corresponding high vowel.

----

Here are a couple of other phonologies which could also be made into languages from this sprachbund:

/t k k͡p/
/b d ɖ ɟ g g͡b/
/ʂ/
/w l j/

/i e a o u/ plus or minus nasal.

Syllable structure is (C)V. Voiced stops are pronounced as nasals before nasal vowels.

/t (t)ʃ k ʔ/
/ⁿb~m ⁿd~n ⁿd͡ʒ~ɲ/
/x/
/w ɾ j/

/i e u a iː eː uː aː aɪ̯ aʊ̯ eʊ̯/ plus or minus nasal. Each vowel may take high or low tone.

Syllable structure is CV, strict. Prenasalised stops are pronounced as nasals before nasal vowels. /(t)ʃ/ varies freely between /tʃ~ʃ~s/, with the affricate pronunciation more common word-initially.

----

This one is a sister-lang to the linked-to phonology above, not part of the sprachbund, and shows a far more complex phonology.

/p pʲ t tʲ t͡ʂ c k/
/b bʲ d dʲ ɖ͡ʐ ɟ g/
/s sʲ ʂ ç x/
/m mʲ n nʲ/
/w l lʲ ɭ j/

/i e a u aɪ̯ aʊ̯/

The palatal/non-palatal contrast is neutralised before /i/.

Syllable structure is (C)V(C), where vowel-initial syllables only occur word-initially and any consonant may occur syllable-finally.

Another follow-up to this phonology.

The proto-language for this (as opposed to the very early form used in the writing system) has this phonology:

*t *k *ʔ
*ⁿd *ⁿg
*s *ʃ *h
*r *j *w

*i *e *a *o in short, long and nasal. Prenasalised stops are pure nasals before nasal vowels. The velars are labial-velars before o.

Syllable structure is C(r,j,w)V(j,w) where accpetable Cr clusters are *tr *kr *ⁿdr *ⁿgr and *ʃr and homeorganic vowels and glides coalesce.

After a series of radical sound changes (including the spitting of the nasal allophones, the lenition of the resulting voiced stops and the coalescing of the Cr clusters into a retroflex series) results in this inventory.

/t ʈ͡ʂ t͡ɕ k kʷ ʔ/
/s ʂ ɕ h/
/n ɽ j w/

/i e a o/ in long and short.

Syllable structure is CV strict.

As it stands, this is what I have:

Consonants
Plosive: p pʰ b t̪ tʰ d̪ k kʰ kʷ ɡ ɡʷ q qʰ qʷ ʔ
Affricate: t͡s t͡ʃ
Fricative: s ʃ ʒ x xʷ ħ ħʷ h hʷ hʲ
L. Fricative: ɬ
Nasal: m n̪ ŋ ŋʷ
Approx: ʋ ð̞ j
L. Approx: l̪

Vowels
i* u* e* o* ɛ ɔ a** æ ɒ
*can be used in diphthongs
**can only be used in diphthongs

This is supposed to be naturalistic, but this is my first attempt at making a naturalistic conlang and also only the third draft of the phonology, so I may be doing something incredibly wrong.

Some things you might want to consider regarding naturalism.
Why aren't there any aspirated labialised consonants? Assuming that your labials are labialised, /ħʷ hʷ/ without /f/ is pretty unlikely.

mèþru wrote:Why aren't there any aspirated labialised consonants?

I debated about including them, but I decided against it because I didn't think that languages did that. A quick Google search, however, disproved me. Version 4 will include this.

mèþru wrote:Assuming that your labials are labialised, /ħʷ hʷ/ without /f/ is pretty unlikely.

How so? Why would this have any correlation?

As pharyndeal and glottal sounds are often weak and prone to disappearing, I feel like a secondary articulation which has a relation to a phonemic POA would become primary, causing either a chain shift (ħʷ > hʷ > f) or both shifting to /f/.

mèþru wrote:As pharyndeal and glottal sounds are often weak and prone to disappearing, I feel like a secondary articulation which has a relation to a phonemic POA would become primary, causing either a chain shift (ħʷ > hʷ > f) or both shifting to /f/.

Indeed... This version is supposed to be the most modern version of the language. Do you recommend I get rid of pharyngeal sounds and save them for possible earlier versions of this language if I ever decide to do make those?

Actually I'd say keep them. I'd point to the Pacific-Northwest, and the Salishan languages in particular, as they often have very large fricative inventories, including labialised fricatives and/or pharyngeals, but universally lack /f/. (See, for instance, Shuswap or Bella Coola).

I will echo Meth's point, however, about the lack of contrastive aspiration on labialised stops.

Pretty much everytime I think of a good rule to force a derivation of a phoneme, I suddenly go "Shoot, forgot Salish again!"

Still, a good historic sound change for creating relatives.

Any language where "xłp̓x̣ʷłtłpłłskʷc̓" is a valid word has earned my respect. I'm not sure I want to model any conlangs after that though.

In all seriousness, thanks to both of you for the advice.

This is very similar to many of my other, older languages, but I might as well paste it here as long as I am thinking of it:

Old Zlang

Consonants

Nasals: /m n ɳ ɲ ŋ ŋʷ ɴ/ m n ň ń ŋ ŋw ŋ
Prenasalized voiced stops: /mb nd ɲɟ ŋg ŋgʷ/ mb nd ńj ŋg ŋgw
Voiced stops: /b d ɟ g gʷ/ b d j g gw
Voiceless stops: /p t c k kʷ q qʷ ʔ/ p t c k kw q qw ʔ
Aspirated voiceless stops: /pʰ tʰ cʰ kʰ kʷʰ qʰ qʷʰ/ ph th ch kh kwh qh qwh
Prenasalized voiced affricates: /mbʐ mbʑ ndz ɳdʐ ɲdʑ/ mbž mbź ndz ňdž ńdź
Voiced affricates: /bʐ bʑ dz dʐ dʑ/ bž bź dz dž dź
Voiceless affricates: /pʂ pɕ ts tʂ tɕ/ pš pś ts tš tś
Aspirated voiceless affricates: /pʂʰ pɕʰ tsʰ tʂʰ tɕʰ/ pšh pśh tsh tšh tśh
Voiced fricatives: /z ʐ ʑ/ z ž ź
Voiceless fricatives: /ʍ s ʂ ɕ ɬ ç h/ hw s š ś hl hy h
Voiced liquids: /ɻ l/ r l
Voiceless liquids: /ɻ̥/ hr
Semivowels: /w j/ w y

Vowels

Regular

Monophthongs

Close: /i y ɯ u/ i ui iu u
Close-mid: /e ø ɤ o/ e oi eu o
Open-mid: /ɛ/ ai
Open: /a ɑ/ a au

Note that /ɛ ø y/ are written a o u before /j ɻ/, and /ɑ ɤ ɯ/ are written a e i before /w/.

Diphthongs

/ie yø ɯɤ uo/ ie uoi ieu uo

Note that /yø/ is written uo before /j ɻ/, and /ɯɤ/ is written ie before /w/.

Pharyngealized

Monophthongs

Close-mid: /eˤ øˤ ɤˤ oˤ/ î ûi îu û
Open-mid: /ɛˤ œˤ ʌˤ ɔˤ/ ê ôi êu ô
Near-open: /æˤ/ âi
Open: /ɑˤ/ â
Note that /æˤ œˤ øˤ/ are written â ô û before /j ɻ/, and /ʌˤ ɤˤ/ are written ê î before /w/.

Diphthongs

/iɛˤ yœˤ ɯʌˤ uɔˤ/ iê uôi iêu uô

Note that /yœˤ/ is written uô before /j ɻ/, and /ɯʌˤ/ is written iê before /w/.

Dnakta'u

Consonants
Voiceless stops: /p t k q Ɂ/ p t k q '
Voiced stops: /b d g/ b d g
Fricatives: / f s x χ h/ f s kh qh h
Nasals: / m n ŋ ɴ/ m n g̃ q̃
Lateral: /l/ l

Vowels
/i a u/ i a u
/i: a: u:/ í á ú

Diphthongs
/ai a:i au a:u/ ai ái au áu
/ia i:a iu i:u/ ia ía iu íu
/ua u:a ui u:i/ ua úa ui úi

Syllable Structure

Roots have a minimum structure of CVC and a maximum possible structure of (s)(C)CVC(C)(s).
Morphemes (inflectional endings, derivation endings, etc.) includes, V, C, CV, VC, CVC and have the same maximum structure as roots.

Prosody
Primary stress always falls on the root syllable and secondary stress is assigned subsequently. Feet are trochaic and built left to right. They are quantity sensitive for long vowels and diphthongs but not for codas. Any unfooted syllables simply lack stress.

idk what this is called but it's a thing
<sangga hyrywaw timenimd nangnyryndag / nein naxawa turxaw timenergu yrynang>
[ˈsaŋka hɨrɨˈwaw ˌtʰimeˈnimt ˌnaŋnɨˈrɨntak | nejn ˈnaxawa ˈtʰurxaw ˈtʰimeˌnerku ɨrɨˈnaŋ]
/saŋka hɨrɨwaw tʰimenimt naknɨrɨntak | nejn naxawa tʰurxaw tʰimenerku ɨrɨnaŋ/

sang-A hyryw-Aw timen-Im-l nag-nIr-In-dAg / ne-In naxaw-A turx-Aw timen-ArgAw yr-In-Ang
sky-EZ head-LOC name-INST-3POSS give-PASS-NEG-CVB / and-NEG earth-EZ foot-LOC name-COM be-NEG-PART.PRES

Who said Bantu? I have a whole subfamily of Bantu-ized English-descended languages in the works.

/ɕilĩ:/
/m n ɲ ŋ ŋʷ/
/p pʰ b ɓ t tʰ d ɗ ʄ k kʰ g kʷ kʰʷ gʷ Ɂ/
/ᵐb ᵐp ⁿd ⁿt ɲɟ ɲc ᵑɡ ᵑk ᵑɡʷ ᵑkʷ/
/f v s z ʃ ɕ ʒ ʑ x ɣ h ɬ ɮ/
/mpf mb͡v nt͡s nd͡z nt͡ʃ nd͡ʒ ŋk͡x ŋg͡͡ɣ nt͡ɬ nd͡ɮ/
/r l/
/j w/

/a e i u o ə/
All vowels can be long, nasalized and tonic

Syllables are (C)(W)V(X), where X is /m n ɲ ŋ r l i w s ʃ ɕ ʒ ʑ/, but closed syllables are rare.
Allowed consonant clusters are plosive+alveolar fricative, plosive+semivowel, semivowel+plosive, liquid+plosive, semivowel+liquid and liquid+semivowel.

/ɕifeniʒã/
/m n ɲ ŋ ŋʷ/
/p pʰ b ɓ t tʰ d ɗ ʄ k kʰ g kʷ kʰʷ gʷ Ɂ/
/ᵐb ⁿd ɲɟ ᵑɡ ᵑɡʷ/
/f s ʃ ɕ x h ɬ/
/mb͡v nd͡z nd͡ʒ ŋg͡͡ɣ nd͡ɮ /
/r l/
/j w/

/a e i u o ə/
Vowels and the syllable structure same as above.

/t͡ɕiʃevan/
/m n ɲ ŋ ŋʷ/
/p pʰ b t tʰ d k kʰ g kʷ kʰʷ gʷ Ɂ~q/
/ᵐb ᵐp ⁿd ⁿt ᵑɡ ᵑk ᵑɡʷ ᵑkʷ/
/f v s z ʃ ɕ ʒ ʑ x ɣ h/
/t͡s d͡z t͡ʃ d͡ʒ t͡ɕ d͡ʑ/
/r ʁ l/
/j w/
/a e i u o y ø ə/
All vowels except for the front rounded ones and the schwa can be long and nasalized, all vowels except for the schwa can be tonic.
Syllable structure the same as above, except plosive+liquid clusters are also allowed.

What associations do these phonologies evoke? Do they seem plausible?

Wena:

Consonants:

/m n ŋ/ <m n ng>
/mb~mp nd~nt ŋg~ŋk/ <mb nd ngg>
/b~p d~ɾ~t g~k/ <b d g>
/v~f z~s h/ <v z h>
/l/ <l>
/j w/ <y w>

Vowels:

/a e i o u/ <a e i o u>

Allophony:

The voiced and voiceless pairs depend on a formalised register system. Adult men who have passed initiation use the voiced allophones and all other speakers use the unvoiced allophones. (Missionaries who devised the romanised orthography were only allowed to have contact with men in the early days and thus believed that /h/ was the only voiceless sound in the whole language, hence the spelling.)

The [ɾ] allophone is present only in the speech of men, and represents a softening of [d] between two vowels except at the beginning of the word.

The semivowels /j/ and /w/ cause a lot of allophony of the consonants that precede then. The sequences /hw/ and /hj/ are realised as something like [ʍ] and [çj] respectively. /j/ palatalises are preceding alveolar consonant fairly predictably, with /nj/ and /lj/ turning to [ɲ] and [ʎ] respectively. Far more noticeable are the palatalisations of /d~tj/ to [d͡ʒ~t͡ʃ], /nd~ntj/ to [nd͡ʒ~nt͡ʃ] and [z~sj] to [ʒ~ʃ]. Some proposals have been made to regard these three as phonemes in their own right as these sounds can occur before [ i ] whereas no other instance of [ji] is allowed.

Phonotactics:

Syllable structure is (C(S))V, where C is any consonant, V is any vowel and S is a semivowel. Two semivowels cannot occur one after the other and semivowels can also not appear immediately before their related full vowel (i.e. the sequences /ji/ and /wu/ are not allowed, except for the exception with /j/ after certain consonants as already mentioned.

Stress: Word stress falls on the first syllable of multisyllabic words. All content words (nouns) receive a slight stress but the last content word of a phrase (defined as the words between particles) recieves a stronger stress.

i should stop making naming languages, wtf am i doing

m n ɲ m̥ n̥ ɲ̥ p t ts tʃ k mb mbʙ ndð nd ndr ndz ndʒ ŋg ɸ θ s ʃ x β z nz w r l j w̥ r̥ l̥
a e i o u + length

<Shimith, Ndripâme! Ndhik ik-kats in inna nârengîn tûm!>
/ʃimiθ | ndripaːme || ndðik ikkats in inna naːreŋgiːn tuːm/
shim-ith | ndripâm-e || ndhik ik-kats in in-na nâr-enge-in tûm
say-IRR.2s | NAME-VOC || earth DEF-country 1s 1s-ACC hurt-CAUS-IRR.3s NEG