zompist bboard

The phonology is really simple:
/A i u @ a: i: u: 7:/ <a i u e a: i: u: e:>
diphthongs: ai au a:i a:u
/p b p' t d t' ts dz ts' tK dK tK' k g k' ?/ <p b p' t d t' c z c' ƛ λ ƛ̕ k g k' '>
/m n N/ <m n ng>
/F s~s` K x h/ <f s ɬ x h>
/l r j w G/ <l r y w ^c>

Phonotactics:
(nasal)(consonant)(glide)[vowel/diphthong](word-final consonant: p, t, k, m, n, ng, or a non-glottal fricative)
Non-ejective voiceless stops are often pronounced as though they were geminate (like: 'k'ata' /k'at:a/ 'to dive') since the voiced stops have very little voicing (e.g. 'k'ada' /k'ata~k'ada/ 'to find')

<yi> and <wu> are forbidden

Syntax:
The language is SVO, head-initial and minimally inflecting. It makes heavy use of infixes, like the perfect tense infix -el, as in k'elata 'dove/dived' (?)
Here are some sample phrases:

The dog has/had found the bone.
Menip k'elada kula.

The bone the dog has/had found
Menip k'elada ta kula

The bone the dog found in a pile of mud
Menip c'i:lane kunsa rai k'ada ta kula
(dog mud pile in find that bone)

('ta' is a relativizer)

There's no wh-fronting:
Who has found the bone?
λu k'elada kula?

What has the dog found?
Menip k'elada λin?

Verbs don't inflect for tense but they do inflect for aspect:
sa:ra - learns, learned, will learn
sela:ra - has learned, had learned, will have learned
sasa:ra - is learning, was learning, will be learning
selasa:ra - has been learning, had been learning, will have been learning
sina:ra - learns, used to learn
...

Numbers:
sai, dara, se:la, eyam, balum, tu:ra, tu:ra sai, ..., datu:ra, setu:ra, etu:ra, batu:ra (12, 18, 24, 30), myana (36)

More to come:

Interesting - I suppose past and future must be indicated by adverbs or auxiliaries.

Proto-Irenesian -- and most Irenesian languages -- use both. It's like Vietnamese (except, of course, that Vietnamese is completely isolating)

By the way, Irenesian is the largest language family in my conworld, with about 5000 languages. Some of them are outright weird, such as the 3-phoneme Quququqquq /ku.gu.guk.ku?/ and the 168-phoneme Lhabhdweni.

Ambrisio wrote:By the way, Irenesian is the largest language family in my conworld, with about 5000 languages. Some of them are outright weird, such as the 3-phoneme Quququqquq /ku.gu.guk.ku?/ and the 168-phoneme Lhabhdweni.

wat

Ambrisio wrote:Proto-Irenesian -- and most Irenesian languages -- use both. It's like Vietnamese (except, of course, that Vietnamese is completely isolating)

By the way, Irenesian is the largest language family in my conworld, with about 5000 languages. Some of them are outright weird, such as the 3-phoneme Quququqquq /ku.gu.guk.ku?/ and the 168-phoneme Lhabhdweni.

Oh no.


~Lyra

Quququqquq is part of the larger Kunipan language family, which is sort of like our Polynesian in that it consists mostly of languages with minimalistic phoneme inventories. Of course there are exceptions, both on Earth (Iaai) and in Fronties (Sikorian). Quququqquq has the smallest phoneme inventory in Fronties, and it's vowel-to-consonant ratio (2:1) exceeds any terrestrial language.

In contrast, the Southeast Kaimo-Frinthian language family to which Lhabhdweni (/'læbd.wə.ni/ or the native /ɬɐʙdʷɘn m̥ɘɭ/) belongs is well-known in Fronties for its gigantic phoneme inventories. The smallest of these is from the Dhasrawita language /,ðɑzɹə'wiɾə/ or the native ԃаԍҏавита /ɖɐɕɽɐβᴉtɐ/, with just 60 consonants and five vowels:

ɐ e ᴉ o u (ᴉ = a slightly backed i, not as back as ɨ)
p t ʈ c k + voiced, voiced aspirated, ejective, voiceless nasal and voiced nasal variants (that's 30 consonants)
l ɭ ʎ ɬ ɬ̢ ʎ̥ (6)
ɸ β s̱ ẕ ɕ ʑ ʂ ʐ ç x ɣ (plus their affricated counterparts, minus bβ and gɣ; that's 16)
ʙ r ɽ ʀ (trills + their voiceless counterparts)

Kaimo-Frinthian languages are unusual among Irenesian languages in having a retroflex series.

There are six branches of Irenesian:
1) Sylvan
2) West Sathcevan
3) East Sathcevan
4) Hirbic
5) Irenic
6) Antipodean (spoken in the northern hemisphere)

These are, of course, distinguished by sound changes from Proto-Irenesian. Proto-Irenic, for example, is derived from Proto-Irenesian by a set of sound changes very similar to Grimm's law and the Great Vowel Shift. Irenic languages undergo a lot of syncope and thus have very complex syllable structures (it's especially true of Auzinim, a major Frontian language, which can end syllables with /mpKt/ or /NkfsK/), and are mostly inflecting. Hirbic languages have click consonants due to assimilation of nasal-stop clusters, though click inventories in Fronties are simpler than their terrestrial counterparts--no Frontian language has as complex a click inventory as !Kung, for example. (Note however that clicks are commonly used in many other Frontian languages as interjections.) Proto-Hirbic has eight basic click sounds (yes, that's less than Xhosa) in four POA's: dental, alveolar, palatal and lateral, and two MOA's: nasal and glottalized.
Antipodean languages are the most conservative, and thus have simple syllabic structures (much like Japanese on Earth).

Among modern Irenic languages, three are unusual in that they developed European-style personal inflections: Auzinim, Sikorian and Tuatu'yat. The last two are minor Kunipan languages.

Sylvan languages are strongly influenced by Kinuiltys descendants, and are often highly inflecting (like most classical Indo-European languages). The Frinthian subfamily of Sylvan is notable for its large phonemic inventories. Sylvan arises from pretty much the reverse of Grimm's law: voiced stops become aspirated, voiceless stops become voiced, and ejective stops lose their glottalization. So a word like tu:ra 'six' becomes du:ra, while k'ada 'to find' becomes kadha. In one branch of Sylvan (which I haven't named yet) these aspirated voiced stops turn into fricatives.

Iaai isn't polynesian.

Ambrisio wrote:It is.

Nope. It is Oceanic, which is a larger unit that includes Polynesian, but Iaai is not Polynesian, at least not according to Wikipedia.

Ambrisio wrote:Quququqquq is part of the larger Kunipan language family, which is sort of like our Polynesian in that it consists mostly of languages with minimalistic phoneme inventories. Of course there are exceptions, both on Earth (Iaai) and in Fronties (Sikorian). Quququqquq has the smallest phoneme inventory in Fronties, and it's vowel-to-consonant ratio (2:1) exceeds any terrestrial language.

Wait... 3 phonemes, and two of them are vowels. I was about to ask if /u/ was the surface realization of an underlying central vowel, but then I realized that there are no possible conditioning environments other than "next to /k/." I'm guessing that the second vowel is /a/.

Based on your sample, it appears there's no tone or other suprasegmental distinction, either, and from that and the comparison to Polynesian, I'm guessing that the phonotactics are probably something like CV(C), which gives a total of four total possible syllables.

In order for an individual to have a vocabulary of about 10,000 words (the low end of the number that an English-speaking high school student might know), you'd need to use a lot of syllables in a row. Lemme see if I can break it down:

1 syllable: 4 possible distinct lexemes

2 syllables: 16 possible distinct lexemes

3 syllables: 36 possible distinct lexemes

4 syllables: 256 possible distinct lexemes

5 syllables: 1,024 possible distinct lexemes

6 syllables: 4,096 possible distinct lexemes

Even if you assume a lot of homophones, Quququqquq is probably an unusually short word for the language. Then again, with only three phonemes to keep track of, they could probably get used to talking really fast...

CatDoom wrote:

Ambrisio wrote:Quququqquq is part of the larger Kunipan language family, which is sort of like our Polynesian in that it consists mostly of languages with minimalistic phoneme inventories. Of course there are exceptions, both on Earth (Iaai) and in Fronties (Sikorian). Quququqquq has the smallest phoneme inventory in Fronties, and it's vowel-to-consonant ratio (2:1) exceeds any terrestrial language.

Wait... 3 phonemes, and two of them are vowels. I was about to ask if /u/ was the surface realization of an underlying central vowel, but then I realized that there are no possible conditioning environments other than "next to /k/." I'm guessing that the second vowel is /a/.

Based on your sample, it appears there's no tone or other suprasegmental distinction, either, and from that and the comparison to Polynesian, I'm guessing that the phonotactics are probably something like CV(C), which gives a total of four total possible syllables.

In order for an individual to have a vocabulary of about 10,000 words (the low end of the number that an English-speaking high school student might know), you'd need to use a lot of syllables in a row. Lemme see if I can break it down:

1 syllable: 4 possible distinct lexemes

2 syllables: 16 possible distinct lexemes

3 syllables: 36 possible distinct lexemes

4 syllables: 256 possible distinct lexemes

5 syllables: 1,024 possible distinct lexemes

6 syllables: 4,096 possible distinct lexemes

Even if you assume a lot of homophones, Quququqquq is probably an unusually short word for the language. Then again, with only three phonemes to keep track of, they could probably get used to talking really fast...

That would sound quite hilarious, tbh.

~Lyra

CatDoom wrote:3 syllables: 36 possible distinct lexemes

You mean, 64

Quququqquq phonology is a lot more complicated than that. Piraha would probably be a better comparison than Polynesian languages. For one thing, there's tone, and it can change the color of the vowel:
1) neutral (e.g. a /ɔ/)
2) high and long (e.g. ä /æ˥:/)
3) falling (e.g. äa /a˥˧:/)
4) rising (e.g. aä /a˧˥:/)
5) rising-falling (e.g. aäa /æ˧˥˧:/)
6) high rising (e.g. ää /æ˦˥:/)
Q can be geminated, as in the name of the language.
The consonant q has five allophones: /t d k g ?/. Here's a sample of Quququqquq:

So there are a lot more than 4 one-syllable words (let's see: a, u, qa, qu, aq, uq, qaq, quq, ä, ää, qää, ääq, qaäa, aäaq, ...)

Uüququq aqqaäa!
/u˧˥:guguʔ ɔt:æ˧˥˧:/
'Good afternoon!'

KathAveara wrote:

CatDoom wrote:3 syllables: 36 possible distinct lexemes

You mean, 64

Yes, I am dumb.

Ambrisio wrote:Quququqquq phonology is a lot more complicated than that. Piraha would probably be a better comparison than Polynesian languages. For one thing, there's tone, and it can change the color of the vowel:
1) neutral (e.g. a /ɔ/)
2) high and long (e.g. ä /æ˥:/)
3) falling (e.g. äa /a˥˧:/)
4) rising (e.g. aä /a˧˥:/)
5) rising-falling (e.g. aäa /æ˧˥˧:/)
6) high rising (e.g. ää /æ˦˥:/)
Q can be geminated, as in the name of the language.
The consonant q has five allophones: /t d k g ?/. Here's a sample of Quququqquq:

So there are a lot more than 4 one-syllable words (let's see: a, u, qa, qu, aq, uq, qaq, quq, ä, ää, qää, ääq, qaäa, aäaq, ...)


Uüququq aqqaäa!
/u˧˥:guguʔ ɔt:æ˧˥˧:/
'Good afternoon!'

THat makes more sense; I figured it had to be something like that. The lack of diacritics in the name of the language just threw me off.

Assuming that there must be at least one consonant between vowels, there are 48 possible syllables, 36 of which may be non-initial. There is, therefore, a maximum of:

48 1-syllable words

1,728 2-syllable words

62,208 3-syllable words

2,239,488 4-syllable words

It's not a maximum -- because diphthongs are allowed. As an example, my favorite word in Quququqquq is a Latin loan, aqua 'water' (though it's pronounced /ɔ.gu.ɔ/). (By the way, its Proto-Irenesian root is laine ~ halaine, which is cognate to:

khrïn /xri:n/ in Auzinim,
khilin /xilin/ in Hwiwjaosdia (a sister language of Auzinim),
ərïn /əri:n/ in Zais (another sister language of Auzinim)
'aua /ʔɐuɐ/ in Tuatu'yat (a sister language of Quququqquq -- you can see the similarity)
peśn /pəɕn/ in Sikorian,
ɬ̢ɐɲ /ɬ̢ɐɲ/ in Lhabhdweni,
pekjŋe /bəc.ɲə/ in Proto-Kunipan,
lenə /ɮenə/ in Proto-Antipodean,
hərïnə /həri:nə/ in Proto-Irenic,
halaɲe /halaɲe/ in Proto-Sylvan.