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Phonological Erosion Thread

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2015 9:13 pm
by VT45
So my conlang is based on modern English. While that might be unique on this board, I'm sure that others here have more archaic or more advanced forms of their conlangs. I've got all the sound changes and everything. The one thing that I'm still having trouble with is eroding things like place names. For example, there is a town near the capital of the main country where my conlang is spoken whose modern English name has six syllables. Over the coming centuries, that's almost guaranteed to get eroded down. But I'm not sure how to go about it.

So here's what I propose: if you have a name (or more than one name) that needs to be eroded, post it here. The next person to reply: erode the previous name (and if you want to have a crack at eroding other names in this thread, go right ahead! There was more than one Caesarea and more than one Alexandria in our world; maybe there are duplicates in your worlds too!) before posting your own.

Here's what you need to post (just to have all the necessary information in one place): The name you want to use (preferably being or at least including an IPA transcription), and a sound set of the conlang. If you want to post the meaning of the name as well, go ahead, but it's not neccessary. So as an example, the six-syllable name from before:

Pargatuari Cázuań (Purgatory Chasm)
[ˈpɐɾ.gɐ.ˌtu.ɐ.ɾi ˈka.zu.ɐ̃]

Sound set: ɐ ɐ̃ a ã b k d ɛ ɛ̃ f g dʒ ç ɬ r̥ i ĩ j l m n ɑ ɑ̃ p ɾ s ʃ x t u ũ y ỹ v w z ʒ ɣ

Re: Phonological Erosion Thread

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 2:50 am
by GreenBowTie
not really sure how this is different from the Sound Change Game thread tbh. "erosion" is really just a value judgement of sound change

Re: Phonological Erosion Thread

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 2:53 am
by VT45
The main difference is (if I understand the Sound Change Game correctly) is we're sticking to just one language in each case. So in the example, I gave you the full name in Acadian, and I'm looking for any way it could be eroded by Acadian speakers. If that makes any sense.

Re: Phonological Erosion Thread

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 4:24 am
by Pogostick Man
VT45 wrote:Pargatuari Cázuań (Purgatory Chasm)
[ˈpɐɾ.gɐ.ˌtu.ɐ.ɾi ˈka.zu.ɐ̃]

Sound set: ɐ ɐ̃ a ã b k d ɛ ɛ̃ f g dʒ ç ɬ r̥ i ĩ j l m n ɑ ɑ̃ p ɾ s ʃ x t u ũ y ỹ v w z ʒ ɣ
[ˈpɐɾg̊.tu.ɾi ˈka.zɑ̃]