Fyrthir's Vowel System: Is this too insane?
Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 1:37 am
Hello!
Awhile back I made a post about a tentative phonology for my forthcoming conlang, Fyrthir. For those who didn't see that thread, let me give a brief overview of what I'm trying to accomplish with Fyrthir. Basically, Fyrthir is an engelang with the soul of an artlang: it is a language I am designing to reproduce my aesthetic tastes, one of which is regularity. What I mean by this is that certain design choices I've made are things which would be unlikely to show up in a natlang, like an overly regular morphology (although I suppose not unheard of, like Quechua). However, inkeeping with the aforementioned "soul" of an artlang, I do very much desire to have a naturalistic sort of phonology, since as mentioned, aesthetics are a big part of the project. My favorite languages, phonologically, are the Germanic languages, especially the Scandinavian ones, so I have tried to emulate the sound systems of those (of course, with some differences). With that in mind, I've given some further thought over my vowel system in particular, and wanted to hear what you all think. My main concern here is that the system I've devised is overly complex. For what it's worth, I actually don't seem to have much issue saying the sounds accurately and repeatably. Anyway, here's a basic vowel chart to start off with:
As you can see, I have twelve basic vowel qualities! Basically, the system here is supposed to be something of a compromise between Old English, Old Norse, and Modern Icelandic (however, /ɶ/ is not actually present in any of those three).
My concern here is basically whether the particular inventory of vowels makes sense. In particular, there are no central vowels. One thing that might seem strange is why there is the lone back unrounded vowel /ɑ/. The reason is that this seems to be common among Germanic languages: all three of the mentioned influences have a back open unrounded vowel without any rounded pair.
Next up, diphthongs! Like Icelandic, all of the phonemic diphthongs end in /i/, /ʏ/ or /u/. There are going to be either 4 or 5 phonemic diphthongs, I haven't decided yet how many, but they will be among this set: /æi/ /ei/ /œʏ/ /ɑu/ /ɔu/. Currently, I am leaning towards 4, but I can't decide which 4 of the 5.
Now, if it were just that, I suppose things might be somewhat understandable, but here is where the complexity sets in: Fyrthir has phonemic length. But that's not all, like Dinka, Fyrthir distinguishes between three lengths, rather than the usual two. Oh, and on top of that, the diphthongs exist in all three lengths. This brings us to a grand total of (12 + 4) * 3 = 48 different vowel phonemes!
On the subject of vowel length, such a system with no variation would be boring. In addition, I was really intrigued by Old English's set of wonderfully exotic height-harmonic diphthongs (that is, where the height doesn't change). However, I didn't really want to add them as phonemes, since I certainly have enough of those. So my idea was this: for extra long front unrounded vowels, the sound is actually realized as such a diphthong. That is /i::/ is [i::u], /ɪ::/ is [ɪ::u] (where is slightly lower here), /e::/ is [e::o], and then /æ::/ is [æ::ɑ].
Okay last thing, I promise! In Old Norse, each vowel had a corresponding nasalized variant, that occurred before a nasal consonant, or where a nasal consonant once was. The idea I had was to use this, but also introduce a system of nasal harmony. Any word with nasals in the root has the vowels of its grammatical endings nasalized as well. I'm not sure if this will sound right, but it's just an idea I had.
Alright, there's my vowel system. Please let me know what you guys think. Thanks!
Awhile back I made a post about a tentative phonology for my forthcoming conlang, Fyrthir. For those who didn't see that thread, let me give a brief overview of what I'm trying to accomplish with Fyrthir. Basically, Fyrthir is an engelang with the soul of an artlang: it is a language I am designing to reproduce my aesthetic tastes, one of which is regularity. What I mean by this is that certain design choices I've made are things which would be unlikely to show up in a natlang, like an overly regular morphology (although I suppose not unheard of, like Quechua). However, inkeeping with the aforementioned "soul" of an artlang, I do very much desire to have a naturalistic sort of phonology, since as mentioned, aesthetics are a big part of the project. My favorite languages, phonologically, are the Germanic languages, especially the Scandinavian ones, so I have tried to emulate the sound systems of those (of course, with some differences). With that in mind, I've given some further thought over my vowel system in particular, and wanted to hear what you all think. My main concern here is that the system I've devised is overly complex. For what it's worth, I actually don't seem to have much issue saying the sounds accurately and repeatably. Anyway, here's a basic vowel chart to start off with:
As you can see, I have twelve basic vowel qualities! Basically, the system here is supposed to be something of a compromise between Old English, Old Norse, and Modern Icelandic (however, /ɶ/ is not actually present in any of those three).
My concern here is basically whether the particular inventory of vowels makes sense. In particular, there are no central vowels. One thing that might seem strange is why there is the lone back unrounded vowel /ɑ/. The reason is that this seems to be common among Germanic languages: all three of the mentioned influences have a back open unrounded vowel without any rounded pair.
Next up, diphthongs! Like Icelandic, all of the phonemic diphthongs end in /i/, /ʏ/ or /u/. There are going to be either 4 or 5 phonemic diphthongs, I haven't decided yet how many, but they will be among this set: /æi/ /ei/ /œʏ/ /ɑu/ /ɔu/. Currently, I am leaning towards 4, but I can't decide which 4 of the 5.
Now, if it were just that, I suppose things might be somewhat understandable, but here is where the complexity sets in: Fyrthir has phonemic length. But that's not all, like Dinka, Fyrthir distinguishes between three lengths, rather than the usual two. Oh, and on top of that, the diphthongs exist in all three lengths. This brings us to a grand total of (12 + 4) * 3 = 48 different vowel phonemes!
On the subject of vowel length, such a system with no variation would be boring. In addition, I was really intrigued by Old English's set of wonderfully exotic height-harmonic diphthongs (that is, where the height doesn't change). However, I didn't really want to add them as phonemes, since I certainly have enough of those. So my idea was this: for extra long front unrounded vowels, the sound is actually realized as such a diphthong. That is /i::/ is [i::u], /ɪ::/ is [ɪ::u] (where is slightly lower here), /e::/ is [e::o], and then /æ::/ is [æ::ɑ].
Okay last thing, I promise! In Old Norse, each vowel had a corresponding nasalized variant, that occurred before a nasal consonant, or where a nasal consonant once was. The idea I had was to use this, but also introduce a system of nasal harmony. Any word with nasals in the root has the vowels of its grammatical endings nasalized as well. I'm not sure if this will sound right, but it's just an idea I had.
Alright, there's my vowel system. Please let me know what you guys think. Thanks!
