Suggestions on "destabilizing" a sound

[StrangerCoug]

I'm working on several language families for a conworld I'm developing.

Proto-Western Wideriver (yeah, I know, all my languages need non-English names; these are placeholders until the conworld is better-developed) has an unusual nasal affricate /nʒ̃/ that developed when the coronals affricated before Proto-Wideriver /i/ or /iː/, i.e. /ti/ > /tʃi/, /tʰi/ > /tʃʰi/, /di/ > /dʒi/, and /ni/ > /nʒ̃i/. (I'm not writing the tie bars because it looks ugly in the forum font and I'm a consistency freak.) I would imagine this to be a hard sound to pronounce, so I don't want this sound to be stable. One thing I'm highly inclined to do is make this deaffricate to /ʒ̃/ word-initially, with a possible later denasalization to /ʒ/ there.

One possibility I thought of—don't affricate /n/ in the first place. I decided to make a separate Proto-Wideriver descendant, Proto-Watershed Wideriver, which is similar to Proto-Western WR but doesn't have the /ni/ > /nʒ̃i/ change (and a few other differences from Proto-Western WR to make it interestingly different to me). What are some other good ideas for dealing with it, though?

If you need it, the Proto-Western WR inventory is /a aː i iː u uː k kʰ ɡ ŋ c cʰ ɟ ɲ tʃ tʃʰ dʒ nʒ̃ t tʰ d n p pʰ b v m h s ʃ l r j w/, which developed from the simpler Proto-WR /a aː i iː u uː k kʰ ɡ ŋ t tʰ d n p pʰ b m ʔ h s l r j w/. My Proto-WR to Proto-Western WR .sc file looks like this right now:

Code: Select all

V=aiuāīū
U=aiu
Ū=āīū
Y=iīj
W=uūw
C=kĥɡŋcćɟɲtŧdnpφbmhslrjwvʧqʤnjʃ
S=kctp
Σ=ĥćŧφ
Z=ɡɟdb
N=ŋɲnm
K=kĥɡŋ
Ḱ=cćɟɲ
T=tŧdn
Q=ʧqʤnj
P=pφbm
L=lr

aː|ā
iː|ī
uː|ū
kʰ|ĥ
cʰ|ć
tʰ|ŧ
pʰ|φ
t͡ʃ|ʧ
t͡ʃʰ|q
d͡ʒ|ʤ
n͡ʒ̃|nj

 //_
K/T/_T
K/P/_P
T/K/_K
T/P/_P
P/K/_K
P/T/_T
ΣS/\\/_
Sh/Σ/_
ŋ/n/_V/V_V
ʔ//_
aa/ā/_
ii/ī/_
ji/ī/_
uu/ū/_
wu/ū/_
j/i/V_/V_V
l/u/V_/V_V
w/u/V_/V_V
w/v/_
i/j/C_V
u/w/C_V/L_
i//C_jV
u//C_wV
Kj/Ḱ/_
K/Ḱ/_Y
Tj/Q/_
T/Q/_Y
sj/ʃ/_
s/ʃ/_Y
Sʃ/ʧ/_
Σʃ/q/_
Zʃ/ʤ/_
Nʃ/nj/_
N//_nj

[StrangerCoug]

What do you guys think about some of these:

1. Based on an answer I got here, don't do affrication just yet—change these two lines:

   Code: Select all

   Tj/Q/_
   T/Q/_Y

   to these two lines:

   Code: Select all

   Tj/Ḱ/_
   T/Ḱ/_Y

   and then delete the last five lines and the line defining the affricates. The palatal stops can then become affricates quite reliably.
2. Do a /ndʒ/ cluster when phonotactically sensible.
3. Do /tʃ tʃʰ dʒ nʒ̃/ > /ʃ ʃʰ ʒ ʒ̃/ or /ʃ ʃʰ ʒ ʒ/ and then reintroduce the affricates via the palatals.

[Qwynegold]

What are some other good ideas for dealing with it, though?

Trying to pronunce that sound myself, it wants to become [ʐ]. So maybe nʒ̃ ʐ?

[StrangerCoug]

I like that idea.

[Zhen Lin]

[nʒ̃] is not so far from one of the reconstructed pronunciations of the 日 initial in Middle Chinese, namely Karlgren's ńź (nasalised alveolopalatal affricate). This sound has many reflexes:

• In Mandarin, pinyin <r> (voiced retroflex fricative or approximant)
• In Cantonese, jyutping <j> (palatal approximant)
• In Japanese, go-on /n/ and kan-on /z/
• In Middle Korean, <ㅿ> (phonetic value disputed), becoming a palatal approximant or null in modern Korean
• In Vietnamese, <nh> (palatal nasal)