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Using "disordered speech sounds" as phonemes in my conlang

Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2018 8:49 am
by Samurai
I've recently started thinking about creating conlings for the world that I'm building. One of the languages is the languages of a race of sentient humanoid rodents. In thinking of ways to make this language very different from any human language I started thinking of using some sounds normally associated with disordered speech as normal phonemes in the language. (There is an IPA chart showing official speech pathology symbols at https://www.internationalphoneticassoci ... A_2016.pdf)

A few sounds that I have been thinking of using as phonemes are:

1. The bidental percussive (This has the IPA symbol of [ʭ]). This is essentially the sound of teeth gnashing. I figured that this would make sense for a race of intelligent rodents. However, thinking about it, I'm not really sure if it would be perceptible enough to be used as a phoneme. Usually a sound has be fairly salient to be a phoneme. Even given the fact that I propose that the rodent race has superior hearing to humans in terms of both decibel and frequency range, I'm still not sure that a bidental percussive could be prominent enough for feature as part of the language.

2. The bidental fricative (IPA symbol of [h̪͆]). This is made be putting your front teeth together and making the /h/ sound. This sound, although rare, is actually used in some languages. According to Wikipedia, it is used as an allophone of [x] in a dialect of Adyghe. Therefore, I can see this as an actual phoneme in the language.

What are your thoughts. It would interesting to here from someone with experience in acoustics or speech pathology.

Re: Using "disordered speech sounds" as phonemes in my conla

Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2018 4:33 pm
by mèþru
Welcome Samurai! Have some pickles and tea! (It's a tradition for welcoming new members here).
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I would think that they would have a radically throat and mouth structure and therefore radically different sound system.

Re: Using "disordered speech sounds" as phonemes in my conla

Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2018 7:43 pm
by Élerhe
Rats make a noise called bruxing when they’re happy - that sounds like repeated teeth scraping/banging

Re: Using "disordered speech sounds" as phonemes in my conla

Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2018 11:08 pm
by Samurai
Thank you for the pickles and tea. (Interesting tradition)
I would think that they would have a radically throat and mouth structure and therefore radically different sound system.
This is very true; a longer oral and nasal cavity would allow more resonances as well more places of articulation. However, at the same time I want the language to be somewhat pronounceable by humans (especially fellow geeks, if I use it in a role-playing game or a story). Therefore, I plan to gloss over some of the anatomical details. (Is this acceptable to most conlinguists out there, or would it be better if I tried to take all of the details into account and try to work around them?)
Rats make a noise called bruxing when they’re happy - that sounds like repeated teeth scraping/banging
This is exactly what I was thinking of! The question is, would a dental percussive (teeth gnashing/banging) be audible enough to be a phoneme? This is especially relevant if the speaker if some distance from the listener or unable to be seen by the listener. I would imagine a sound would have to be somewhat audible and distinct to be used a phoneme.

Re: Using "disordered speech sounds" as phonemes in my conla

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2018 11:03 am
by mèþru
A human bidental percussive is only audible for me when I am very close to the person. Not really usable beyond something in pragmatics. I think the bidental fricative is usable.

Re: Using "disordered speech sounds" as phonemes in my conla

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2018 7:36 pm
by Élerhe
They are rodents - their hearing could be better than humans.

And my rats bruxed pretty loud - I didn’t have to strain to hear them