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Posted: **Fri Jun 29, 2012 1:29 pm**

So I'm revamping some phonological inventories, and I think what I need are some slightly alien sounds.

The idea is to design a phonology for a species, close to homo sapiens but distinct.
What I'm looking for are some unusual phonemes - typically, distinctions in POA or MOA that we could conceivably make, but typically don't.

I've already added two unusual distinctions - between palatal laminar stops and velar, and between apical and laminal dentals.
It's good in that it's an uncommon distinction among the world's language - but I feel I could add something weirder.

What I'm looking for is not entirely alien sounds, but slightly unusual ones, that could be made with a slightly different vocal tract. $

Any ideas?

Posted: **Fri Jun 29, 2012 1:30 pm**

lateral trills

Posted: **Fri Jun 29, 2012 2:50 pm**

How alien? Alien as in Klingons, or alien as in apical uvulars?

Posted: **Fri Jun 29, 2012 2:55 pm**

Nortaneous wrote:How alien? Alien as in Klingons, or alien as in apical uvulars?

Not even alien, I can pronounce them with a little effort, but they sound almost exactly like apical velars.

Posted: **Fri Jun 29, 2012 3:01 pm**

Alien as in hominids - close relatives, if you prefer, sort of like Neanderthal man.
One of the differences I was thinking of is that they have a longer and wider vocal tract.

Posted: **Fri Jun 29, 2012 3:05 pm**

Aiďos wrote:Not even alien, I can pronounce them with a little effort, but they sound almost exactly like apical velars.

Doesn't that hurt the membrane under your tongue? I certainly can't turn my tongue that far back because the membrane won't let it bend that far.

Posted: **Fri Jun 29, 2012 3:24 pm**

The apical uvular makes me choke, though I can pronounce it. You're quite right, Eddy, it does hurt the tongue a bit.
The apical velar I can do, but is it actually attested?

Both sounds seem like good ideas
The best part is that it's a language difference I could actually present in a novel in a not so boring way.

Also thought of a distinction between plain and lateral taps (which would even make sens diachronically with what I have in mind).

There's of course the lateral trill Torco mentioned.

Posted: **Fri Jun 29, 2012 3:37 pm**

Bilabial-uvulars: /qp) ɢb) ɴm)/. These do not exist in any human language. Even just /ɢ ɴ/ are freakishly rare.

Posted: **Fri Jun 29, 2012 4:01 pm**

Any sort of implosive retroflex, distinguished from an implosive dental/alveolar anyway.

Posted: **Fri Jun 29, 2012 4:05 pm**

What about contrastive labial, labiodental and dentolabial consonants?

Posted: **Fri Jun 29, 2012 4:18 pm**

Serafín wrote:Any sort of implosive retroflex, distinguished from an implosive dental/alveolar anyway.

Any sort of glottalized retroflex obstruent, actually. The (non-affricated) retroflex ejective stop [ʈ’] has a very cool and distinctive sound, and it's easy to produce once you know how to do ejectives – but it's attested only in at most one or two natlangs. (Probably simply because languages with glottalized consonants aren't typically found in the same regions as languages with retroflex obstruents.)

Posted: **Fri Jun 29, 2012 4:45 pm**

Torco wrote:lateral trills

Yeah, don't do that. The mods deleted my thread on trills and lateral trills--I think.

I had a language with a series of lateral trills contrasting voiced, voiceless, aspirated and breathy voice in retroflex and aleovelar POAs.

If you really wanna do something funky with that mess, just do regular trills and contrast dental, aleovelar and retroflex and voiced and unvoiced . . . something akin to Toda in terms of having six trills--super rare, but do-able.

edit: also keep in mind, the lateral trill sound VERY similar to a non-lateral trill unless it is unvoiced.

Here was one phonology

: Trill language.jpg (56.9 KiB) Viewed 6350 times

and the other phonology

: trill language2.jpg (61.47 KiB) Viewed 6345 times

Posted: **Fri Jun 29, 2012 5:05 pm**

2-4 wrote:labiodental and dentolabial

What?

Posted: **Fri Jun 29, 2012 5:23 pm**

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=dentolabial

Posted: **Fri Jun 29, 2012 7:56 pm**

Here are some phonetic features that I believe are rare in the world's languages:

1) Coarticulated ejectives (especially ones that don't use the lips, e.g. dental-velar, retroflex-velar)
2) Phonemic labeodental clicks
3) Contrastive sibilants and non-sibilants at dental and alveolar places
4) Rounded bilabials
5) More than five level tones
6) Contrastive alveolar and retroflex approximants

Posted: **Sat Jun 30, 2012 8:33 am**

• Labioalveolars
• Nonstandard nasals (nareal friction, velopharyngeal anything, degrees of nasalization, etc.)
• /ʟ/
• Epiglottal vowels
• Egressiv clicks
• ≥3 degrees of length

Posted: **Sat Jun 30, 2012 1:02 pm**

-Bidental nasals or fricatives
-sublingual purcussive (without an initial click)
-voiceless trills, trilled affricatives
-harsh or strident voice
-fortis/lenis contrast: as in some north(east?) caucasian languages--which is contrasted against simple gemination.
-implosives with other than normal voicing.
-the stop series from languages like this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ju%C7%80%CA%BChoansi

Posted: **Sat Jun 30, 2012 4:37 pm**

More ideas here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_IPA

Posted: **Sat Jun 30, 2012 4:42 pm**

Tropylium wrote: • ≥3 degrees of length

Estonian.
Northern Coastal Saami (I think) has four (4) lengths distinctive on the consonant.

Posted: **Sat Jun 30, 2012 8:15 pm**

-Linguolabial implosives
-Palatal ejective fricative
-Three or more degrees of aspiration
These are all things I find fairly pronouncable, but aren't found in many (or any) of the world's languages

Posted: **Sun Jul 01, 2012 12:29 pm**

Implosive affricates
Labial whistles
Pharyngeal plosives, nasals
Velar and palatal trills
Ingressive airstream
Bidentals
Various coarlticulations, e.g. faucalized, ventricular etc.

Some of these have been judged impossible for normal human speech, but you could still use them.

Posted: **Sun Jul 01, 2012 2:17 pm**

Glottal and radical affricates
Voiceless implosives
Uvular laterals
Implosive fricatives

Posted: **Sun Jul 01, 2012 2:41 pm**

Three levels of velars: front, middle, and back

/q/ could be used by humans to imitate the back velars, /c/ for the front, and /k/ the middle, but the other species would actually be able to pronounce all three in the velar area while still sounding distinct.

Posted: **Sun Jul 01, 2012 2:49 pm**

Bronchial obstruents.

Posted: **Sun Jul 01, 2012 3:47 pm**

Soap wrote:Three levels of velars: front, middle, and back

/q/ could be used by humans to imitate the back velars, /c/ for the front, and /k/ the middle, but the other species would actually be able to pronounce all three in the velar area while still sounding distinct.

Postvelar and Prevelars, with an added Centrivelar (these would be hard to distinguish between, like /æ ɐ ɑ/)

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