Post your conlang's phonology

[Chagen]

Also also: is it weird to have /ɳ/ without /ŋ/?

Spanish

French

Dude, those are some of the most common languages IN THE WORLD.
\
DERP

Didn't notice that it was retroflex, not palatal.

[*Ceresz]

Shit, you're right. It's not my fault the two symbols are so similar, though, someone should do something about that >:|

Anyway, my actual point is still correct (see Pashto)

Also, Kui.

If I'm not mistaken, Proto-Dravidian is usually/some times reconstructed without a velar nasal, seeing as it only occurred before *k.

[----]

Blatant SE Asian ripoff:
/p t c k/
/pʰ tʰ cʰ kʰ/
/s h/
/m n ɲ ŋ/
/l (ɾ) w j/
/ɾ/ only appears in the clusters /kʰɾ pʰɾ/. Other clusters include /pʰl cʰl kʰl pʰn tʰn cʰn kʰn/.
All consonants may appear initially, but only /p t c k m n ɲ ŋ w j/ can appear finally.

/a e o i u ɨ ə/
/eə oə iə uə ɨə/
+creaky or breathy voice
All vowels may be nucleic except before plosive finals, where /iə uə/ do not appear.

This is kind of a rough draft, I'll change it as I go along to make it a unique language.

[äreo]

Here's what I've got so far of one of my newer projects, Iskot (fun fact: it's named after its own word for 'penguin'):

a. phonemes
i. consonants
/p b t̻ d̻ k g/
/m n̻ ŋ/
/s̻ z̻/
/β̞ (r) l̻ j w/

-[r] only occurs in a few loanwords.

ii. vowels
/a e i o u/

b. syllable structure
(C1)V(C2/NC3) where C1 is any single consonant, V is any vowel, C2 is any consonant (including geminates), N is a nasal, and C3 is any non-nasal non-approximant non-geminate.

c. allophony

i. more-or-less universal
-/i e/ become either central [ɨ ɘ] or front rounded [ʏ œ] before or after /w/, and lower to [æ~ɛ e~ɪ] before or after /j/.
-/m n̻ ŋ/ assimilate in place of articulation to a following obstruent or nasal.
-voiced stops /b d̻ g/ become fricatives [β̞ ð ɣ] between vowels.
-within words, syllable-final [s̻] voices before [β̞].
-in final position, /j w/ are [e̯ o̯].

ii. dialectal
-bilabial stops or nasals [m p b] may become velar [ŋ̟ k̟ g̟] before an alveolar obstruent or nasal.
-velar stops or nasals [ŋ k g] may become bilabial [m p b] before a bilabial consonant.
-[β̞ s̻ z̻] may become [ɣ~ɰ ʃ~x ʒ~ɣ] after [k ŋ w], and even after [t̻ n̻].
-[p t̻ k] may assimilate in p.o.a. to a preceding [s̻]; [f θ x].
-voiced stops /b d̻ g/ may become fricatives [β ð ɣ] after /β̞ z̻/.-intervocalic /w/ may merge with all /β̞/ as [v].
-/a o/ may be [ɑ ɔ] before or after /j/ and [ɔ ʌ] before or after /w/.

A little sample (just orthographic for the moment; I can't be fucked to transcribe right now, plus you can easily figure out from the above notes how to pronounce it if you're so inclined):

Vona bamlong, sosolzoi bissammol sunumsinnei bommo azalzoi na, telku na us dentlkel kozzo za (asenloipal zoli vasla sin uzz / asvis zoli vasla sin uzz) (http://000024.org/cgi-bin/gleb.cgi-do) es es vaslennei Englese bommo azalzoi pemenloipal (keu ollo zan seldo).

[Nortaneous]

Looks interesting, but:

-bilabial stops or nasals [m p b] may become velar [ŋ̟ k̟ g̟] before an alveolar obstruent or nasal.
-velar stops or nasals [ŋ k g] may become bilabial [m p b] before a bilabial consonant.

Why alveolar and not velar?

[TaylorS]

You haven't met Chagen before, trust me he's denser than anybody you'll ever meet, and a racistic bastard who goes around and flames tonal languages and acts all smug.

Lol wut.

I'm working on a tonal language called Sunago right now.

First impressions are hard to mend.
Didn't you call out on Mekoshan (calling it something quite rude) for having even stød? And once called tonal languages inferior to European languages and that (thank God!) there are no tones in Europe?

I added in tone (I have since removed it), and he said that the tones made it suck, LOL!

[äreo]

Looks interesting, but:

-bilabial stops or nasals [m p b] may become velar [ŋ̟ k̟ g̟] before an alveolar obstruent or nasal.
-velar stops or nasals [ŋ k g] may become bilabial [m p b] before a bilabial consonant.

Why alveolar and not velar?

I don't know why.

[Astraios]

Because backwards Romanian, I presume.

[sirdanilot]

Blatant SE Asian ripoff:
/p t c k/
/pʰ tʰ cʰ kʰ/
/s h/
/m n ɲ ŋ/
/l (ɾ) w j/
/ɾ/ only appears in the clusters /kʰɾ pʰɾ/. Other clusters include /pʰl cʰl kʰl pʰn tʰn cʰn kʰn/.
All consonants may appear initially, but only /p t c k m n ɲ ŋ w j/ can appear finally.

Ooh I like those clusters, they sound so devilishly Thai and alien >:D

/a e o i u ɨ ə/
/eə oə iə uə ɨə/
(1)+creaky or breathy voice
(2)All vowels may be nucleic except before plosive finals, where /iə uə/ do not appear.

This is kind of a rough draft, I'll change it as I go along to make it a unique language.

1. Wouldn't it be a lot cooler to add in tone, where some tones include creakiness or breathiness (or an intermediate glottal stop or a half-creaky, half modal vowel or other such fun things)? This is what Vietnamese does, for example. A system like that would sound a lot more southeast-asiany to me.
2. No falling diphtongs before stops in coda position sounds like a plausible rule to me, but why not make it a consequent rule?

[Chagen]

A retarded little Adari phonlogy I shat out in literally 2 minutes.

/p b t d c ɟ k g k m n ɲ f v s z ʃ ʒ x ʕ j l/
<p b t d ci gi c g m n ñ f v s z si zi h r j l/

/i a e o u/
<i a e o u>

/ĩ ã ẽ õ ũ/
<í á é ó ú>

/iˤ aˤ eˤ oˤ uˤ/
<ir ar er or ur>

Those <*r> digraphs stem from an old / ?\ /

This was intended to rip off of Latin.

I probably won't use this.

[Wattmann]

A retarded little Adari phonlogy I shat out in literally 2 minutes.

/p b t d c ɟ k g/
/m n ɲ/
/f v s z ʃ ʒ x ʕ/
/j l/
<p b t d ci gi c g>
<m n ñ>
<f v s z si zi h>
<j l>

/i a e o u/
<i a e o u>

/ĩ ã ẽ õ ũ/
<í á é ó ú>

/iˤ aˤ eˤ oˤ uˤ/
<ir ar er or ur>

Those <*r> digraphs stem from an old / ?\ /

This was intended to rip off of Latin. This is no ripoff of Latin

I probably won't use this. Don't

[Drydic]

Meh there's nothing wrong with the sounds listed, though the orthography could use some work.

[Chagen]

(T)wattman, actually SAYING why I shouldn't use it is better than saying "don't do it".

For being a forum for moderate-level and above conlangers, ZBB really doesn't actually help noobs get better.

[Wattmann]

Oh, name calling?
Well, Chagrin, you could have asked, but now I won't answer[/i][/b]

[Whimemsz]

(T)wattman, actually SAYING why I shouldn't use it is better than saying "don't do it".

For being a forum for moderate-level and above conlangers, ZBB really doesn't actually help noobs get better.

I've warned before (it might have been Helios and not you, I can't remember now) not to confuse "Wattmann" with "the ZBB". Wattmann is an obnoxious noob too, you can't use his responses to you as indicative of the ZBB.*

Which reminds me, Wattmann: shut the fuck up and stop baiting/mocking Chagen in every thread.





*Saying stuff like "(T)wattman" isn't a good response on your part though

[cromulant]

But how to explain the pharyngeal? Perhaps the pharyngeal used to be part of a series of pharyngealized stops, which have since disappeared (perhaps leaving a lot of a's and o's behind, as pharyngeals like to do) except for the ħ. This seems the most plausible explanation. One would perhaps expect /q/ and /ɢ/ then, or remnants of those.
Also, /f/ is missing but why the hell no if it floats your boat?

I don't see how either of these is a problem. You can have a pharyngeal fricative without a pharyngealized stop series (the UPSID list of languages with voiceless pharyngeal fricatives includes a number with no other pharyngeal(ized) consonants, although in a lot of cases their analysis seems to be based on older studies and not actually correct...nonetheless, see for instance Kurdish)--what's odder is to have such a situation in a language with a relatively small phoneme inventory overall. But I still think it's perfectly doable. And lacking /f/ while having other fricatives isn't even a little bit odd. In fact, the fricative inventory here is close to that of Karajá, which also serves as a good illustration that smallish inventories can still be fucking nutso.

Thanks both. This is about what I thought--it's odd, but not like those recent /p̪ d̼ t̠͡p qχʲʼ ʒʷ ʁ̝ ɦ ɲ̥ ɰ ɬ̢ ʎ̯ ʘ y ʏ ɐ ɤ ɤ̞ ʌ/-type languages.

There is a tendency for pharyngeals to occur in (much) larger inventories--which include /q/ and glottalized consonants (ETA: I see neither of those is true for Kurdish)--but then, pharyngeals are relatively rare, so perhaps the natlang sample is uninstructive.

I agree /f/ is a highly optional phoneme in most situations. /v/ probably tends to call for /f/, as does /b/ without /p/.

sirdanilot: I'd think the presence of an interdental nasal would be more remarkable and more in need of explanation than the absence of interdental plosives? (Both of which are much rarer than interdental fricatives). I figure the nasal evolved from an /nθ/ or /θn/ sequence.

[Moanaka]

Chagen, you might wanna change your sig.

[Chagen]

Chagen, you might wanna change your sig.

You know, I keep trying to be a productive member here, but then someone like Wattman goes "NOPE" and decides to start screwing with me.

[Moanaka]

Chagen, you might wanna change your sig.

You know, I keep trying to be a productive member here, but then someone like Wattman goes "NOPE" and decides to start screwing with me.

Ignore him.

[Whimemsz]

It's annoying, yes, but your response is what will determine how people treat you. Just ignore him. (Also, as I said, Wattmann != the ZBB)

[Pole, the]

Chagen, just be serious and ignore whoever isn't.

[Chagen]

Well, anyway.

/p pʼ pʷ b b ʷ t tʼ tʷ d dʷ k kʼ kʷ g gʷ q qʼ qʷ ɢ ɢʷ ʔ*/
/s f /
/m n ɲ ŋ ɴ/
/ts dz
/ l r w j/

/ i e ɛ o ɔ a ɑ u ʊ/

*: Only appears in Coda

Each vowel can be "horned". This means that the openings to the Demon's (this lang is spken. T humanoid demons) to his/her horns are opened and the air from the vowel is allowed to resonate in the chamber. This is somewhat like creaky-voice, but given the large differences in horn physiology in individual demons (some have long horns, others short ones, some have straight horns, others have curved "ram's horns"...), there's no real single quality that can be pinned on Horned vowels.


-------

I cobbled this together in like 4 minutes, so it sucks, I know. I also cannot make Native American/Caucasian inventories to save my life.

[roninbodhisattva]

I cobbled this together in like 4 minutes, so it sucks, I know. I also cannot make Native American/Caucasian inventories to save my life.

Is this saying that it's supposed to be one of those inventories but you still posted even though you don't think it's good as imitating either of those categories?

[Chagen]

Well, I'd like to see how it could be improved.

[roninbodhisattva]

Read about the phonological typology of different types of Native American and Caucasian languages.