Post your conlang's phonology

[Shrdlu]

What do you think?

needs vowels

Gotch'a. Added them. Still need more opinions. (of course it generated a new page when I posted this.)

Vowels are /e i o u/ and any combination thereof expect /ie/. All diphthongs are rising. Think of the lang~ as Finnish but with more and different consonants.
/w/ is unrounded/compressed.
/s/ varies between(in order) [s' S s]

[Bob Johnson]

ɣ isn't a stop; ʋ-w is a bit odd

[Shrdlu]

Yeah, I know about the /ʋ-w/-bit but it came as a natural evolution for me. Gonna fix the /ɣ/. Thanks! ^edit: Fixed!

[Vuvuzela]

Here's the PMvGb consonants. Native script in the leftmost column, Roman orthography in the center, and IPA on the right

I don't have a font for the native script yet, so this was done with shitty paint tools in GIMP.
And guess what? The language also has vowels!

Allowed syllables are V, CV, CCV, CVN, and CCVN (where C stands for consonant, V for vowel, and N for nasal stop).
Vowel harmony follows similar rules to Finnish and Hungarian.

[roninbodhisattva]

A pretty big inventory, when all is said and done, but it's not totally out of the realm of possibility.

Not at all. It's quite similar to the inventories of most Pomoan languages (which I assume were part of the inspiration). And I've always liked the feel of Pomoan, so obviously I am in favor of this phoneme inventory! (I assume <c> etc. represent /ts/ etc.?) Also presumably "The coda is maximally one coda" means the coda is maximally one consonant?

I was definitely shooting for something Pomoan-ish, though I'm probably still gonna play around with it some. Also thanks for catching that typo, it's been edited out.

...

See, I'm really not sure if this is actually supposed to be criticism or just something you were posting because you saw "consonant harmony"

[Ser]

It's just something you might take into account, depending on how exactly you execute your consonant harmony.

[roninbodhisattva]

It's just something you might take into account, depending on how exactly you execute your consonant harmony.

I don't honestly see how consonant harmony could be analyzed as reduplication anyway?

[Whimemsz]

(stuff)

The one thing that bugs me about this isn't the phonemes per se, but the orthography you've adopted. The natural way to read <ä> vs <a> is with <ä> as the more fronted counterpart of <a>, as in Finnish -- at least, I figure this is the natural way to read it among language nerds like us, who would actually assume they should be pronounced differently in the first place, and who may have some basic familiarity with Finnish.

Vowel harmony follows similar rules to Finnish and Hungarian.

This doesn't really mean anything without an actual description and examples.

[Ser]

It's just something you might take into account, depending on how exactly you execute your consonant harmony.

I don't honestly see how consonant harmony could be analyzed as reduplication anyway?

The consonant undergoing the harmony would be a partially reduplicated consonant, while the parts of the suffix that don't undergo the harmony would be actual suffix. Essentially, an analysis where the stem partially reduplicates before taking a suffix. That's what the guy from the Facebook lolPhonology group is getting at with the image I posted, at least. (The guy who posts there seems to have a thing against consonant harmony though, considering he's done like three memes against it.)

The natural way to read <ä> vs <a> is with <ä> as the more fronted counterpart of <a>, as in Finnish -- at least, I figure this is the natural way to read it among language nerds like us, who would actually assume they should be pronounced differently in the first place, and who may have some basic familiarity with Finnish.

Or German!

[Vuvuzela]

The one thing that bugs me about this isn't the phonemes per se, but the orthography you've adopted. The natural way to read <ä> vs <a> is with <ä> as the more fronted counterpart of <a>, as in Finnish -- at least, I figure this is the natural way to read it among language nerds like us, who would actually assume they should be pronounced differently in the first place, and who may have some basic familiarity with Finnish.

So, switch the ones with the diaresis with the un-diaretic ones? I That's probably better, but, I'm lazy, and /a/ shows up with greater frequency than /ɑ/. So I'll consider revising it.

This doesn't really mean anything without an actual description and examples.

You mean like
Light (front) a /a/ o /o/ u /u/
Dark (back) ä /ɑ/ ö /ɔ/ ü /ʊ/
Shadow (neutral) e /e/ i /i/
Rules for Vowel Harmony
*If the first vowel in a word is light, all other vowels become light, or remain in shadow if they were in shadow originally.
example: Doosa[sword] + -mela/ä[instrumental case]= Doosamela , as in "Töse kareyaxi Doosamela" (I killed him with a sword)
*If the first vowel in a word is dark, all other vowels are dark, or remain in shadow if they were in shadow originally.
example: Cü[rock]+-mela/ä[instrumental case]=Cümelä, as in "Töse kareyaxi Cümelä" (I killed him with a rock)
*If the first vowel of a word is shadow, and a dark vowel appears in the word before any light vowel does, all other vowels become dark or remain in shadow.
example: Ttenkä[rabbit]+-mela/ä[intrumental case]= Ttenkämelä, as in "Töse fubayaxi Ttenkämelä" (I fed him a rabbit)
*If the first vowel of a word is shadow, and no dark vowels appear later in the word, all other vowels become light or remain in shadow.
example: Fili[child, feminine]+-mela/ä[instumental case]= Filimela as in "Töse fubayaxi Filimela" (I fed him a little girl)
How's that?
EDIT: more consistent use of bold
EDIT 2: Put verbs in the past tense, which is what I had in the English translation.

[Ser]

So, switch the ones with the diaresis with the un-diaretic ones? I That's probably better, but, I'm lazy, and /a/ shows up with greater frequency than /ɑ/. So I'll consider revising it.

Well, it's just something that'd bug people who know a little Finnish or German (or other languages in that area, or Turkish). You could also not care about it and go your way with it anyway...

Light (front) a /a/ o /o/ u /u/
Dark (back) ä /ɑ/ ö /ɔ/ ü /ʊ/
Shadow (neutral) e /e/ i /i/

Um, I'd recommend you not to call that row "front" if two out of three of those "front" vowels are actually back vowels... In Finnish and Turkish all "front" vowels are actually front. Better to stay as "dark" I guess?

[Vuvuzela]

Um, I'd recommend you not to call that row "front" if two out of three of those "front" vowels are actually back vowels... In Finnish and Turkish all "front" vowels are actually front. Better to stay as "dark" I guess?

The labeling of "front" and "back" vowels was sort of a nod towards the Mongolian inspiration for the system. It's more tongue root position than frontness-backness, and it's pretty much always referred to as darkness-lightness in native grammars.

[Nortaneous]

If you're ripping off Mongolian, it'd make more sense to put the umlauts on the front series; IIRC Mongolian had something like u o y 2 > U O u o.

[Roives]

Vtain language

p t t͡s[s] k kʷ
b d d͡z[z] gʷ
h
v[f][w̝][ʍ] z[s] ɦ
m n
l r[ɾ]

Main vowels: i u ä
Combined vowels: e o
Reduced vowels: ï ɐ~ə

Ablaut has three grades.
Simple vowels:
ø-ɐ-ä
ø-ï-i
ø-ï-u
Diphthongs reducing the first segment:
e-je-ie̯
o-wo-uo̯
Diphthongs deducing the first segment:
i-e-äi
u-o-äu
r-ɐr-är (actually same as simple vowels)
l-ɐl-äl (actually same as simple vowels)

[Roives]

Vtain language

p t t͡s[s] k kʷ ʔ
b d d͡z[z] gʷ
h
v[f][w̝][ʍ] z[s] ɦ
m n
l r[ɾ]

Main vowels: i u ä
Combined vowels: e o
Reduced vowels: ï ɐ~ə

Ablaut has three grades.
Simple vowels:
ø-ɐ-ä
ø-ï-i
ø-ï-u
Diphthongs reducing the first segment:
e-je-ie̯
o-wo-uo̯
Diphthongs deducing the first segment:
i-e-äi
u-o-äu
r-ɐr-är (actually same as simple vowels)
l-ɐl-äl (actually same as simple vowels)

[Plusquamperfekt]

Miwonša



Well, my conlang does not the biggest consonant inventory, but I think ejectives, tons of nasal vowels and many, many sibilants are one of the most beautiful combinations of speech sounds. I would say my conlang sounds like a mixture of Polish and Lakhota, although some of you guys told me it sounds more like Korean spoken with a thick German accent

Some additional notes:

- free dynamic stress
- no tones
- /b d g v/ appear only in loanwords, so they are not "native" phonemes
- /c c'/ > [tɕ, tɕ']/ _[i|ĩ]
- /ɬ/ can be replaced by /ʍ/

[WeepingElf]

You should not use h-digraphs for ejectives. They suggest aspirated stops, which are entirely different. Ejectives are what apostrophes are for (yes, many conlangers use apostrophes in brain-damaged ways, but for ejectives they are just fine).

[Plusquamperfekt]

Thank you very much for your comment, but I think that's rather a question of personal tase. I prefer using digraphs with <h>, as apostophes always give me the impression that they divide words into morphemes or that they indicate abbreviations like in English. And since aspiration is no distinctive feature anyway, I see no reason why I should not use <ph th kh ch čh>. Orthographies of natlangs often do not correspond to IPA either

[Plusquamperfekt]

BTW I'm planning to make a whole language family basing on Miwonša... maybe you have some suggestions for sound changes

[8Deer]

Miwonša

Well, my conlang does not the biggest consonant inventory, but I think ejectives, tons of nasal vowels and many, many sibilants are one of the most beautiful combinations of speech sounds. I would say my conlang sounds like a mixture of Polish and Lakhota, although some of you guys told me it sounds more like Korean spoken with a thick German accent

Some additional notes:

- free dynamic stress
- no tones
- /b d g v/ appear only in loanwords, so they are not "native" phonemes
- /c c'/ > [tɕ, tɕ']/ _[i|ĩ]
- /ɬ/ can be replaced by /ʍ/

Having ejectives but no glottal stop might be a problem. but I'm not too sure.

[Plusquamperfekt]

Is this a universial that languages with ejectives tend to have glottal stops? But even if yes, it would still be easy to explain the lack of /ʔ/ by stating that Proto-Miwonšan /ʔ/ merged with another phoneme, for example /k/ or that it simply disappeared... The loss of /ʔ/ could also account for the existance of other sounds, for example the evolution of dipthongs (*/aʔi/ > /aɪ/).

[Risla]

Aymara has ejectives without phonemic glottal stops.

[Kvan]

Lhelwan (previously Leþwin)

Final revision of sound system:

The Consonants:
Nasals /m/ /n/
Prenasalized Plosives /^mb/ /ⁿd/ /ⁿd^w/ /^ŋg/ /^ŋg^w/
Plosives /b/ /t/ /d/ /t^w/ /d^w/ /k/ /g/ /k^w/ /g^w/ /q/ /q^w/
Ejectives /tθʼ/ /t’/ /tɬ’/ /ts’/ /k'/ /q'/
Affricates /tθ/ /tɬ/ /ts/ /tɬ^w/ /ts^w/
Fricatives /θ/ /s/ /x/ /x^w/ /χ/ /χ^w/
Laterals /ɬ~l/

Notes:

• The lateral phoneme is underspecified (I guess archiphonemic?) /ɬ~l/ and is realized as one or the other at different places in the syllable and with regard to the adjacent consonants.
• The alveolar position while containing a full series of labialized stops and affricates has lost that phonemic labialization distinction on /s/ and /ɬ~l/.
• Prenasalized plosives resist forming clusters and generally even where they exist at syllable boundaries an epenthetic schwa is inserted which tweaks some of the stress patterns.
• Where a homorganic nasal occurs in the coda position before a prenasalized plosive the homorganic nasal becomes a geminate nasal coda and the following consonant loses its prenasalization. (i.e. sem+mbel > semm.bel)
• Geminate continuants are allowed initially and geminate continuants and stops are allowed at any other position.
• Labialization is of the protruded lip variety also incuring a bit of bilabial friction while articulating. Eventually I'll tool that to generate some diachronic sound changes for the daughter languages but that's for a different post.
• ŋ and ŋ^w used to be phonemic but merged into /^ŋg/ /^ŋg^w/ and they now only occur as allophones of /n/ before velars and uvulars.
• Labial-Velars are beginning to crop up in the sound system, namely: [ɡ͡b] and [ŋ͡m]. [ɡ͡b] has begun cropping up at boundaries where /b/ or /g/ are found in the coda and the onset of the next syllable is a /g/ or /b/ respectively. In emphatic speech final /g/ tends to pronounced more at [ɡ͡b]. The case for [ŋ͡m] is a bit more complicated, where the syllable ends with /m/ and the next syllable begins with either /^ŋg/ or /^ŋg^w/ then [ŋ͡m] may form. In cases where /m/ is the final sound in a two consonant cluster occuring in the coda epenthesis occurs in order to break up illegal clusters (as there are no clusters greater than two allowed in the coda position)

The Vowel System
There are two relatively distinct systems in Lhelwan, a series of tense vowels and a series of lax vowels.

The Tense Vowels:
/i/, /e/, /æ/, /ɑ/, /o/

The Lax Vowels:
/ɪ/, /ɛ/, /a/, /ɔ/

Tenseness is determined primarily by syllable weight. If the rime is comprised solely of a short or long vowel than the consonant is tense, if the rime contains a coda the vowel is lax. Besides syllable weight though other factors contribute to the determination of the vowel. For instance preceding uvulars (in the onset position) make front vowels more lax.

Notes:

• Vowel length is phonemic
• Diphthongs are restricted to /i/-intial combinations, /ɛɪ/, /aɪ/ and /oɑ/.
• In instances of /i/-initial diphthongs, where there is a consonant cluster in the coda the weight triggers the /i/ to palatize the previous consonant.

As you can tell its not full formed yet. I'm still working on the specific phonotactics but this is about as far as I've gotten without drastically overhauling the sound system.

Maximum syllable structure is (C)(C)(C)V(V)(C)(C) for instance in the word ksk^waɪxt : dragging on a level surface. This is uncommon though and usually there is a general trade off in syllables, they are usually onset heavy or coda heavy.

I'm still debating on inclusion of syllabic /l/ and a few other oddities. Stress is weight sensitive as well falling on the first closed syllable in a word.

[el imiradu]

My medieval Romance language Cenemanian:

Stops: /p b d g k g/
Nasals: /m n ŋ/
Fricatives: /f v s z ʃ ʒ/
Affricates: /tʃ dʒ/
Lateral: /l/
Trill: /r/

Vowels: /a e i o u/
Diphthong: /oi/

==

My vampire conlang Durecē:

Plosives: /p pʰ b bʰ t tʰ d dʰ c cʰ ɟ ɟʰ k kʰ g gʰ/
Nasals: /m n ɲ m̥ n̥ ɲ̥/
Fricatives: /f v s h/
Other consonants: /j l r ɬ tɬ/

Vowels: /a e i o u/, /a: e: i: o: u:/

[8Deer]

Aymara has ejectives without phonemic glottal stops.

So do Quechua, Georgian, Itelmen, Ossetian and Tsez. So I was dead wrong there, sorry.

Now I wonder, are there languages with aspirated consonants that lack /h/?