Post your conlang's phonology

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Xados
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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by Xados »

Wow I really screwed up but the inventory is how I slur most of my words.

I'll drop w and rr's sounds and lc lx xh ch yy as well

I am sorry I didn't mean to offend you and the mood was neutral
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finlay
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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by finlay »

that's fine... i think i understand what you mean anyway.

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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by Xados »

thanks finlay
Last edited by Xados on Fri Jun 03, 2011 10:54 pm, edited 9 times in total.
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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by Xados »

finlay wrote:This would be my preferred orthography, but only if you don't want diacritics (yet you have used diacritics on the vowels):

(phonemic)

Code: Select all

p b         t   tʃ dʒ tɬ dɮ c ɟ k g     ʔ
  m   ɱ       n                   ŋ
    f v θ ð s z  ʃ  ʒ  ɬ  ɮ     x ɣ   ʀ   ɦ
  w           ɾ     ɥ     ɫ   j   ʟ
(orthographic)

Code: Select all

p b           t   ch jh tl dl c j k  g     q
  m   ?         n                    ng
    f v th dh s z sh zh ls lz     kh gh r    h
  u             d     ü    l    i     ?
I'm not sure about th/dh, to be honest, and you could replace q with x. I've put question marks for ɱ and ʟ because a) I think you should take them out and b) I don't know of a good way of doing them*. I've given the semivowels vowel letters because I think you should consider them equivalents of the vowels /u/, /y/ and /i/ rather than the diphthongs you gave. Just give digraph spellings to the diphthongs. Another way of doing it would be w for /w/, ÿ for /ɥ/, and y for /j/. I don't honestly know a better way of doing /ɥ/ – I don't think yy works very well.

But note that I've kept in a couple of things, particularly <ls> for /ɬ/, which I liked, and <d> for /ɾ/. Because I changed <x> to <z>, I changed <lx> to <lz> too (similarly, <xh> → <zh>). I wasn't too sure about <lc> and <lj> though. I mean they're kind of inventive I guess, but I think <tl> works better and is simpler. I put <kh> for /x/ to be consistent with <gh> for /ɣ/, and I think <ch> and <jh> for /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ meshes better with <sh zh> for /ʃ ʒ/, although double letters <cc jj> aren't too bad for this.

*<ll> isn't bad though. I don't think <w> for /ɱ/ is a good idea. The best I can come up with is something like <ṁ>..

Oh yeah, and about your vowels, not too bad (I quite like the correspondence between short /ɤ/ and long /ø/), but how do you tell if it's short, long, or reduced to schwa? (Actually, I think you probably too many vowels to also reduce everything to schwa)
this was just an endless stream of thought - don't take it seriously because this is a prototype seeing which sounds everyone preferred-the orthography was just a joke-mostly
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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by roninbodhisattva »

Which phonology do people like better,

option 1 or option 2?

Option 1 has a syllable structure of C(G)V(C, G), where G is a glide. Internal codas are limited by that medial clusters list, whereas word final codas are limited to /m n t k/, maybe /ts/ as well. Word initially you can get the prenasalized clusters, as well (so something like [nka] is a valid word initial syllable.

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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by MisterBernie »

I prefer option 1, although option 2's geminated consonants look inviting. But the simultaneous lack of [p] and [g] is a bit strange (to me).
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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by roninbodhisattva »

MisterBernie wrote:I prefer option 1, although option 2's geminated consonants look inviting. But the simultaneous lack of [p] and [g] is a bit strange (to me).
I've explained this mentally by saying I just really don't like /p/ so it disappeared in some kind of weird shift maybe like Celtic. And *g > dʒ.

I'm partial to the first one as well, but I like the idea of doing something extremely isolating without having the kind of phonology that's usually assocoated with such languages.

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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by MisterBernie »

roninbodhisattva wrote:I've explained this mentally by saying I just really don't like /p/ so it disappeared in some kind of weird shift maybe like Celtic. And *g > dʒ.

I'm partial to the first one as well, but I like the idea of doing something extremely isolating without having the kind of phonology that's usually assocoated with such languages.
Only one solution: do both :D

Also I totally understand you on personal preferences. One day I will make a language without [ð] and [ŋ] and not lose interest after a week... one day.
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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by roninbodhisattva »

Motherfucker. The 'bi- or disyllabic' should obviously be 'mono- or disyllablic' in option 2.
MisterBernie wrote:Only one solution: do both
I don't know if I would be able to stick it out...

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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by Nortaneous »

iunno, they both look pretty average and conlangy to me. maybe look at some natlangs and steal shit from there.
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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by finlay »

MisterBernie wrote:I prefer option 1, although option 2's geminated consonants look inviting. But the simultaneous lack of [p] and [g] is a bit strange (to me).
They're the most common two to be missing from the basic inventory of /p t k b d g/. Arabic is a good example of one that has neither.

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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by MisterBernie »

finlay wrote:They're the most common two to be missing from the basic inventory of /p t k b d g/. Arabic is a good example of one that has neither.
I know, but lack of [p] is highly clustered (versus a more broadly spread lack of [g]; at least if WALS is to be believed, so YMMV, I guess), and Arabic in particular seems to be a possible example of a source of an areal feature.
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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by finlay »

MisterBernie wrote:
finlay wrote:They're the most common two to be missing from the basic inventory of /p t k b d g/. Arabic is a good example of one that has neither.
I know, but lack of [p] is highly clustered (versus a more broadly spread lack of [g]; at least if WALS is to be believed, so YMMV, I guess), and Arabic in particular seems to be a possible example of a source of an areal feature.
Lack or loss of [p] is also attested in Irish and Japanese. (Both modern languages do have p but Irish only has it in loanwords and Japanese only has it in loanwords and native words with geminates, as far as I know. Japanese has a contrast between "nihon" and "nippon" for instance.)

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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by MisterBernie »

finlay wrote:Lack or loss of [p] is also attested in Irish and Japanese. (Both modern languages do have p but Irish only has it in loanwords and Japanese only has it in loanwords and native words with geminates, as far as I know. Japanese has a contrast between "nihon" and "nippon" for instance.)
Aye, aye. Additional example: Standard German wouldn't have a proper [p] if we hadn't loaned it back.

I meant it as more of a "lacking both [p] and [g] seems a bit weird to me" in a "these two are the most commonly lacking, so I'm gonna make a language that lacks both" way.
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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by roninbodhisattva »

Something else I just threw together, based on Tokana and something I did a while ago:

Code: Select all

p    th    t           k
           ts        
           s     lh    h
m          n     l


i e a u o 
<th> is an interdental stop, and <lh> is /ɬ/. There is coronal harmony through which /t̪/ and /t ts/ cannot occur in the same words, and in which /s/ > [θ] in words containing /t̪/.
Last edited by roninbodhisattva on Fri Jun 03, 2011 5:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by finlay »

What I would do to it is make the laterals dental so that the /t̪/ isn't so lonely all on its own.

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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by roninbodhisattva »

finlay wrote:What I would do to it is make the laterals dental so that the /t̪/ isn't so lonely all on its own.
My reaction to that idea is basically 'ehhhh'

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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by finlay »

well yeah... :P But you've got two columns there with big gaps...

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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by roninbodhisattva »

finlay wrote:well yeah... :P But you've got two columns there with big gaps...
True. I'm thinking about adding a lateral affricate but I don't really want to. And I don't really want to add a phonemic dental fricative. I actually like the gaps a lot as is.

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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by Nortaneous »

add an interdental lateral then :P
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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by roninbodhisattva »

Nortaneous wrote:add an interdental lateral then :P
Oh god ew.

Though that might be amusing.

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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by Xados »

MisterBernie wrote:Do you mean theta? If you wanna use fita, then go ahead and use Ѳ.

As it is, your orthography is, politely put, highly counterintuitive, in particular, but not limited to, <q> for /x/, <x> for /z/ and <z> for /θ/.
And of course <zz> for /f/. And... everything else except for <b, c, g, , m, n, j, ng, g, p>.
Reboot universe alphabet.
nope zeta used to sound like :dh and theta at one period of its existence
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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by sirdanilot »

I've been working for quite a while on this language lately (already quite far into morphology). However I was opposed to creating an entire thread for just another phonology. Then i found this thread.

Here it is.
It has phoneme inventory, allophony, prosody/stress and whatnot for you guys to feast on.

edit: oh, and in the consonant inventory, /c/ should be /x/.

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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by Risla »

MisterBernie wrote:I prefer option 1, although option 2's geminated consonants look inviting. But the simultaneous lack of [p] and [g] is a bit strange (to me).
http://wals.info/feature/5A

(they exist!)

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Re: Post your conlang's phonology

Post by Bristel »

I prefer option 1, ronin, it has a nice aesthetic.
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