zompist bboard

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The conlanger formerly known as “the conlanger formerly known as Pole, the”.

If we don't study the mistakes of the future we're doomed to repeat them for the first time.

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Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

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OMG AN ACTUAL CONPOST WTFBBQ

Formerly known as Drydic.

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[ˌʔaɪsəˈpʰɻ̊ʷoʊpɪɫ ˈʔæɫkəɦɔɫ]

Three differences are less distant than 1?

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Slava, čĭstŭ, hrabrostĭ!

Sure, if you can't read.

I fail to see why three distinctions make the same phonology, differing allophonically, while one distinction makes two different and more distant phonologies; I gather this makes me illiterate. Sorry

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Slava, čĭstŭ, hrabrostĭ!

is r~l not also a phonetic detail

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Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

Yeah, that's basically my question.

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Slava, čĭstŭ, hrabrostĭ!

The data includes several examples of an /r/ ≠ /l/ contrast, versus none of /w/ versus /β/. Hence [±lateral] is a significant feature in the analysis, while [±high] is a redundant one (for [+labial] segments, anyway). Basically the same reason as why we're tracking velar vs. coronal, but not dental vs. alveolar.

And sure there are cases of [r] = [l] too, but this kind of equality is, alas, not transitive. It would be about equally possible to argue for equivalences between /l/ and /d/, or /d/ and /n/, but clearly still /l/ ≠ /n/ etc. And calling this measure a "distance" is really not going to work without the triangle inequality.

The exact weighing was an impressionistic thing though; I suppose e.g. having [ʃ] as a variant of /s/ could perhaps be more reasonably taken for something like 0.5 instead, since there indeed are cases of /s/ ≠ /ʃ/.

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[ˌʔaɪsəˈpʰɻ̊ʷoʊpɪɫ ˈʔæɫkəɦɔɫ]

and sure it would be handy if this data could be simply treated as an (approximately 25-dimensional) set of independent variables, but no — the distance of "+/s/ -/ʃ/" from "-/s/ +/ʃ/" should clearly be considered smaller than a distance like that of "+/n/ -/ʔ/" from "-/n/ +/ʔ/". And the fact that we can still "walk" thru nearby phonemes to almost anywhere else (e.g. /n/ is close to /d/ is close to /t/ is close to /k/ is close to /ʔ/) means that it's also not even possible to consider e.g. the sibilant dimensions as a single isolated "bundle".

This is also why I don't plan on calculating differences between widely different phonologies, just finding the closest couple neighbors for everything.

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[ˌʔaɪsəˈpʰɻ̊ʷoʊpɪɫ ˈʔæɫkəɦɔɫ]

updated chart

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Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

Updated again. Does anyone know what's going on with Mekeo? Blust doesn't. I've listed all the inventories he gives in his book on Austronesian (including the one for general Mekeo, which differs from the one I already had) but it could probably be narrowed down.

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Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

. Really now, the fuck is this supposed to be?.

The voiceless plosive: /k/
The voiced plosives: /b d/
The implosive: /ɗ/
The affricates: /t͡ʃ d͡ʒ/
The fricatives: /θ ʃ h/
The lateral: /l/
The tap: /ɾ/
The glide: /w/

Can't tell if serious...

And here we have its sister lang, , also with 12: /p t c k ʔ m n ɲ ŋ v r z /.

I repeat: /z/ without /s/! Apinayé's only fricatives are voiced!

Strange things happen in the Amazon...

Perhaps, due to an abundance of humor, they talk weird in front of the intrepid field linguist.

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You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.

As for Karajá, Dixon and Aikenvald's The Amazon Languages (p, 176) has the same consonant inventory as shown on Wiki. They cite fortune '73.

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Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.