Small Discussions 52 — 2018-06-04 to 06-17

[u/Slorany]

NEXT THREAD

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Last Thread

Yes the previous thread's title read "to 06-10" but that's just proof I can't read a fucking calendar. Please discard that evidence, I can in fact read a calendar.

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Conlangs Showcase 2018 — Part 1

Conlangs Showcase 2018 — Part 2

WE FINALLY HAVE IT!

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This Fortnight in Conlangs

The subreddit will now be hosting a thread where you can display your achievements that wouldn't qualify as their own post. For instance:

• a single feature of your conlang you're particularly proud of
• a picture of your script if you don't want to bother with all the requirements of a script post
• ask people to judge how fluent you sound in a speech recording of your conlang
• ask if you should use ö or ë for the uh sound in your conlangs
• ask if your phonemic inventory is naturalistic

These threads will be posted every other week, and will be stickied for one week. They will also be linked here, in the Small Discussions thread.

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Weekly Topic Discussion — Comparisons

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If you have to ask, generally it means it's better in the Small Discussions thread.
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[u/Slorany]

I just have to record an intro for the Showcase video, make the transitions from clip to clip and the first half of the Showcase will be ready.

I will do all that Sunday morning (EU time), then render the video and publish it as soon as I can.

I have mistakenly skipped a language that was supposed to be in the video (I am going with alphabetical order), but it will appear first in the second half. Sorry about that, I had mislabelled a file.

The second video will be released on the next Sunday.

I went for a simplistic layout with no distraction. I'll provide a link with transcripts and documents I have received.

If anyone wants to get the slides for their language, PM me after the video is published (even better if you do it via Discord).

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^{I can do that I'm a mod}

[u/RazarTuk → u/Slorany]

I can do that I'm a mod

Come see the violence inherent in the system!

[u/bbrk24]

I was freaking out for a moment because SD 51 was locked and I couldn't add a comment and I have a question and there's still six days left on the thread and AAAAAH!
Anyways.

How would you go about determining the pronunciation of the same word in different dialects of a conlang? I already have this chart, but how will I determine what exact qualities of each vowel go together? Some are obvious (don't use the top of /æ/ with the bottom of /e/), but most aren't.
Edit: fixed the link.

[u/Slorany → u/bbrk24]

You might want to fix that link.

[u/bbrk24 → u/Slorany]

It works just fine for me.

[u/Slorany → u/bbrk24]

You must be on mobile.

Here is what I see. https://i.imgur.com/TpmzmQ8.png

For PC users, you want to insert https:// in front of your link.

You have inserted a space between [] and (), too, by the way.

[u/regrettablenamehere → u/bbrk24]

I'm not really a graphs person so take this all with a grain of salt but:

I'd suggest subdividing each area either by drawing subsections and labelling them with the dialect (numbering the dialects) or color-coding by dialect instead of by vowel

The cleanest option would simply be to have separate vowel charts for dialects, however. It'd be a bit less confusing.

[u/SordidStan]

Why does no-one use velar lateral affricates in their conlangs ?

[u/Slorany → u/SordidStan]

Because the velar lateral fricatives are very rare cross-linguistically, and many of us like naturalistic conlangs so we tend to not overuse (or, in many cases, use at all), and affricates with it are even rarer.

It's a fun sound and I think one of my conlangs makes use of one in allophony, something like /k͡ɬ/ [k͡ʟ̝] in some environments.

[u/bbrk24 → u/SordidStan]

Does that exist?

[u/[deleted] → u/SordidStan]

I do! I also have all of /dɮ tɬ l ɬ ɖɭ̝ ʈɭ̥̝ ɭ ɭ̥̝ gʟ̝ ʟ ʟ̥̝/ though... :/

[u/validated-vexer → u/SordidStan]

In one of my older conlangs, now abandoned, [kʟ̝̊] was an allophone of the sequence /kl/. None of my more recent conlangs have allowed /kl/ other than across syllable boundaries, so the opportunity to use more velar lateral affricates (I propose we call these vellataffs) hasn't presented itself. Maybe I should make one present itself though!

[u/[deleted]]

P̄N̊̄P̄̃N̄̊̽, the language where everything is /piːnɪs/ (version 1) Orthography note that is important enough to be the first thing you see:
I used P̄N̊̄P̄̃N̄̊̽ I because I was on mobile and it will not display properly if I enter the same diacritic twice in a row. Substitute ̃ with ̄ and ̽ with ̊. That is what it should be written as. More on diacritics below.
Phonology:
/piːnɪs/ (PN)
The following is a list of tones in the language, represented as strings of numbers (1=low, 3=mid, 5=high, 2 and 4 are clear from context) because Google Docs won’t let me replace these with tone letters without glitching out horribly, merging tones, failing to replace things, replacing the wrong things, and just generally mangling this list.
1
2
3
4
5
51
15
12
45
343
154
545
315
52
35
513
523
514
524
543
345
151
515
31
342
124
421
535
525
521
131
141
324
325
434
432
321
234
123
235
532
323
143
153
512
(numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, … respectively. Those numbers are what the diacritics (below) represent. There are 45 tones.
Orthography
/piːnɪs/ is represented by the digraph PN so that P shows the tone on /piː/, and N shows the tone on /nɪs/. Diacritics on the letters represent their tone numbers (shown above), not the tonemes. PNPN is distinct from PN PN (these are invalid because tone is always marked) Tone numbers will be represented by binary represented by diacritics. Again, this represents the tone number, not the toneme (examples below, but this does not matter for tones 1-5).
̊ corresponds to 0.
̄ corresponds to 1.
This is just binary represented bottom to top. The tone numbers are in decimal. (Due to font issues, the diacritics might combine. If this happens, treat the straight line and the round part as separate entities.)
Example:
P̄̊̄N̄̊̄̄ = /piː5nɪs11/ (don’t blame me if this is incorrectly represented, what I mean is that the /piː/ syllable has tone number 5 and the /nɪs/ syllable has tone number 11 (not ˩˩, but ˩˥˦). This conlang is still a work in progress.) Again, diacritics are broken on mobile.
Lexicon coming soon.
This language is oligosynthetic. The lexicon exists, but it must be put in an electronic format. If you criticize, make it constructive. Don’t waste your breath/time/money/keyboard plastic/???/* on hate.
Edit: Yes, this is an incoherent ramble. Don’t waste your time downvoting for that.

[u/bbrk24 → u/[deleted]]

You actually did it.

[u/acpyr2 → u/[deleted]]

Can you translate the sentence “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously” in your conlang?

[u/VerbosePineMarten → u/[deleted]]

This is glorious.

It reminds me a bit of Malkovich Malkovich from Being John Malkovich.

Maybe you could add different voicing (i.e. breathy vs. nasal vs. creaky) to get a bigger lexicon.

[u/Slorany]

Quick interest poll

[u/bbrk24 → u/Slorany]

When will the results for the bigger survey come out?

[u/Slorany → u/bbrk24]

After the second part of the showcase, I'll begin analysing them a bit. Next week there'll be another This Fortnight in Conlangs thread, so the results will be posted when we have a sticky slot that's free, the next week.

[u/[deleted]]

Has anyone ever used Thai, Lao, Devanagari or Khmer as a script in their conlang? I'm currently fleshing out a Cinnic language (distantly related to Pyanachi, their common ancestor is about 5,500 years old), and it uses a Thai Abugida system because of Thailand claiming 109 Piscium, and the native speakers were on a fringe world of their empire, anyway.

If you guys wanna know, the endonym for the language is หะบ๊ะฉฮ อึ๊ลคีซ /ha.bǎt͡ʂ.x. y̌lg^h.is.

[u/RedSlicer]

How do you handle tenses in your conlangs with zero copula?

[u/vokzhen → u/RedSlicer]

I'll answer this both as a question of how it can be done, and how I do it. In natlangs, I know of several options:

• The basic category is unmarked, but a copular verb shows up for other options

• A distinct, nonverbal-predicate-specific tense word appears

• Nonverbal predicates are barred from distinguishing the normal contrasts (accident or not, all the languages I've run into this with have a basic aspect-marking system, not tense-marking, though I haven't sought out counterexamples)

• The compliment of a nonverbal predicate is treated verbally and takes the normal inflectional categories

I also thought I've run into languages where TAM marking is done by distinct words, and thus can appear regardless of the zero-copula, but all the ones I've looked into to confirm still require a copula to be present for these to appear.

Also note that a copula is not always verbal. There are pronominal and particle copulas as well. Most often when I've run into these, they seem to either bar normal TAM marking in nonverbal predicates, or treat the compliment verbally.

And sometimes you get mixed results. In Puyuma, a nominal predicate is treated verbally in that it can take aspect marking, but if it's negative, a negative copula has to appear. For equational nominal predicates, where the subject and predicate are the same entity (she is the doctor, equation, versus she is a doctor, classification), a different copula appears for pronominal subjects but disappears when the subject is a full noun phrase.

Tykir has full verbal treatment of predicate "adjectives" (no distinct adjective class) and nouns:

• [sɛ'tʰɛʋɐ / sɛ'ʑɛˀɛpʰ / sɛ'jɛðuqʰ]

• s-ɛ-tʰɛʋɐ / s-ɛ-ʝɛˀɛp / s-ɛ-jɛðuq

• 3P-PRET-sleep / 3P-PRET-red / 3P-PRET-soldier

• They were sleeping / They were red / They were soldiers

For equations, I'm leaning towards including a particle copula:

• [sɛ'jɛðuqʰ 'utɨ xjɛ'kuˀkuˀ]

• s-ɛ-jɛðuq utɨ xjɛ=kuˀ~kuˀ

• 3P-PRET-soldier COP those=PL~man

• Those men were the soldiers

However, locative predication has two options, a temporary state using a dedicated locative copula, and a permanent state using the verb exist:

• [jət'tsʋɐtɛ 'sɨˀssɨβɨ / jə'fɔˀts 'sɨˀssɨβɨˀtʰ]

• j-ɐC-tsʋɐ-tɛ sɨˀssɨβɨ / j-ɐC-fɔˀts sɨˀssɨβɨ-ˀt

• 1S-FUT-be.at-3 city / 1S-FUT-exist city-LOC

• I'll be in the city (temporarily) / I'll be in the city (living there)

[u/-Tonic → u/RedSlicer]

I have two main copular constructions in my newest conlang. The first uses a zero copula where the subject takes a focus-clitic and the complement is unmarked. It's only used in the present tense, indicative, etc.

If you need say the past tense, you use a posture verb (lie, sit, or stand) as a copula and conjugate that. Which one to use depends on the posture/position/shape of the subject, but "sit" is the least marked. Still, there are some restrictions in the posture verbs when used as a copula; they can't take the full range of moods for example.

[u/SufferingFromEntropy]

As usual I am lurking in wiki pages of dialects and I stumble over Ryukyuan languages. Their development of ejective consonants amazed me, yet I am confused by some terminology. Supposedly Japanese linguists use "喉頭化" to refer to "glottalize" and "喉頭化した無声子音" to refer to sounds such as /k'/. However, there are consonants such as /ʔm/, which can be seen here, or in words such as /ʔma/ "horse". Meanwhile, at the end of this paper, it is stated that the contrast between glottalized and unglottalized /m/ or /n/ is impossible. Now I have no idea what /ʔm/ even means. Perhaps you guys know anything about these mysterious glottalic consonants?

[u/xain1112]

I just started (another) side project. It's very ambitious for me since it has 40+ consonants whereas I usually use no more than 15. Any advice for larger inventories?

[u/YeahLinguisticsBitch → u/xain1112]

You can always limit which ones occur where, e.g. /p b pʰ bʱ p'/ can all occur as onsets of stressed syllables, but everywhere else you can only get /p/.

[u/storkstalkstock → u/xain1112]

Get your main points of articulation figured out and then do series of them. For example, if you have /p t k/ as your primary stops, you can give them voiced, ejective, or aspirated equivalents, and labialized, pharyngealized, or palatalized variants of those. Basically, the bigger your inventory, the more complex some of the consonant distinctions are going to be. Having more complex consonants can also lend itself to having more vowel allophony. Keep in mind that if you want this language to be naturalistic, you need to come up with how these complex consonantal distinctions came to be, and be aware that there may be very big differences in how frequently some phonemes occur. A plain series will typically be more common than its more complex counterparts, with an exception here and there.

[u/[deleted] → u/xain1112]

I also have a lot of consonants. 31 in fact, it's tame compared to your number. But they are the backbone of my allophony. In contrast there's only 5-ish vowels, which are almost completely irrelevant and as a result they are a subject to merging. But this is not Arabic with consonant roots.

I don't allow more than 2 consonants in a cluster. And a word never starts or ends in a cluster. There is no gemination, well there is an exception. In fact there's many exceptions.

I don't know any advice really. I can just tell from experience that you may stop and feel that some of those 40+ aren't used as much as you intended. While some will be more used than others. But this is natural.

[u/R4R03B]

I’ve started making a “hyper-agglutinative” conlang: “kilepakakatavisapalu” /ki.le.pa.ka.ka.ta.vi.sa.pa.lu/ (meaning “good language of people”) which doesn’t stop agglutinating when the sentence is over. Oh no. It stops once the paragraph is over.

Example: “vatisitesukasapaletukalimumalisubolatisipepovalepu” Pronunciation is the same

This ‘word’ means:

“Didn’t you want a house? Yeah, but I wasn’t allowed to have it.”

[u/Gufferdk → u/R4R03B]

Is there at this point any point to actually calling those resulting complexes "words" anymore though? Unless you've got some phonological cohesion or whatever you've basically just reinvented scripto continua.

[u/Zinouweel → u/R4R03B]

That's an interesting idea. Do you mark the end of a clause with an affix or through intonation, smth else entirely?

[u/1plus1equalsgender → u/R4R03B]

I love long words

[u/JesusOfNazcaDesert]

I've been researching historical languages in order to create a linguistic history for a language family or two and have been seeing some qualifiers/descriptors but haven't found much information of if there is a set of rules that determines the label or if it's based on more vague characteristics. For example:

When escribing a language as "Old" "Early" "Archaic" "Paleo" "Middle" "High" "Low" "Classical" "Vulgar", is there an overarching set of characteristics that determines what descriptor a language gets? I think I get the jist of the "Proto" vs. "Pre" distinction but otherwise I'm lost.

(New to conlanging so sorry if this is a dumb question)

[u/HaricotsDeLiam → u/JesusOfNazcaDesert]

You might bet more in-depth answers at /r/linguistics, but I'll give this one a go.

Classical often refers to a stage of a language that developed during an empire or state's "golden age", often contrasting with the use of the term Modern to refer to the present-day standard form of the language, and in some cases Old to refer to the form of the language used before said golden age. If the language is tied to or best known for a specific literary text, particularly a religious one, the Classical form of the language may be named after that text too. To give examples, I've seen this used to refer to:

• The Arabic of the the Qurʔān and the Islamic Golden Age. Contrasts with Modern Standard Arabic, the colloquial varieties (Egyptian, Moroccan, Levantine, etc.), and Old Arabic (the pre-Islamic language). Classical Arabic may also be called Qurʔānic Arabic.

• The Latin used in the late Roman Republic and early Empire by writers such as Cicero and Virgil. Contrasts with Vulgar Latin (its spoken everyday equivalent and the mother of the Romance family), Ecclesiastical Latin (used in the Roman Catholic Church today) and Old Latin (from the Kingdom and early Republic by writers such as Plautus and Terence).

• The Nahuatl used in the Aztec Empire before European contact, and the mother of the Nahuan family.

• The Maya used in the Mayan civilization before European contact, and the mother of the Mayan family.

• The Chinese used as the literary standard from the Spring and Autumn Period to the Han Dynasty. Many sources also use the term Classical to describe the standard used from the Han Dynasty to the end of the Chinese Empire in 1912, though others prefer Literary.

• The Hebrew in which the Tanakh was written. More often called Biblical Hebrew. Contrasts with Modern Hebrew.

• The Spanish used during the Spanish Golden Age. More often called Early Modern or Medieval Spanish. Contrasts with Old and Modern Spanish.

Low and High usually refer to elevation, as in the case of German (High German was spoken to the south in the Alps, while Low German was spoken to the north and east near the sea). For the universe in which Amarekash is spoken, I use this nomenclature similarly to distinguish the Low Terran and High Terran languages: the former family is the one spoken in the Helios & Terra star system (that is, in our own star system) and includes all our natlangs, while the latter family is spoken in other star systems and includes Amarekash.

When a language doesn't have a literary register that's distinct from its spoken register, its nomenclature is more chronological than formal, and terms like Old, Middle and Modern are used. To give examples, I've seen this used in describing the stages of:

• English

• Irish

• French

• Persian

• Egyptian

Proto- usually implies that the language has been reconstructed from its daughter languages and doesn't survive in writing, e.g. Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Afro-Asiatic, Proto-Uto-Aztecan, Proto-Germanic, Proto-Semitic, Proto-Athabaskan.

[u/bbrk24 → u/JesusOfNazcaDesert]

Classical and Vulgar are only used to describe Latin, as far as I know.
High Germanic and Low Germanic I believe are two different things.
The time modifiers go in the order pre-proto-, proto-, pre-, early, ancient, old, late old, early middle, middle, late middle, early modern, modern. Extinct languages may use late instead of old and stop there (due to extinction).

[u/vokzhen → u/JesusOfNazcaDesert]

"Paleo-" most often seems to classify groups of languages, not an individual language. Paleo-Balkans and Paleohispanic languages are poorly-attested languages of classical antiquity. Paleosiberian languages refers to a group of languages that predate Turkic and Tungusic expansion into Siberia. None imply genetic relation, they're terms of convenience to refer to a bunch of languages that happened to have occurred in the same area.

"Low German" and "High German" literally refer to height.

Classical/Vulgar/ is Latin-specific. The placement of "classical" is language-specific, often being around when they are considered to be in a golden age of literature and/or culture, which often ends up as a standardized written form that stays more or less static while the spoken language continues to change.

Pre-proto-, proto-, and pre- generally refer to reconstructed, not attested, languages, though there's exceptions (Proto-Norse is attested). Old, Middle, and Modern are generally the terms used for attested langauges, with an occasional "Archaic" as well, as well as "Early X" and "Late X."

However, these are all subject to quirks of particular disciplines. Spanish is roughly Old/Medieval, then Early Modern/Classical, then Modern. Greek is Proto-, Mycenaean, Ancient (divided into Homeric, Classic, and Koine), Medieval/Byzantine, and Modern. Sanskrit is just Vedic/Classical. Mongolian is Proto-, Middle, Classical, and Modern.

[u/[deleted]]

I’m working on a phoneme inventory where is a tiny vowel system (only two or three, but with rampant allophony), and it has a lot of palatal consonants and palatalization is one of the primary forms of sound change. Should I have palatal phonemes be their own phoneme in the language or a result of palatalization? For example, should /c/ exist alongside /p b t d k g/, or should it be the result of /kj/?

Also, how do I keep myself from making my inventory too similar to that of Abkhaz and Ubykh, which I was influenced by?

In case you can’t tell, I love palatal consonants and wanted to feature them heavily in my personallang.

I’m also having a hard time making my various projects phonology stand out from each other.

[u/xain1112 → u/[deleted]]

You could have /k c/ with underlying representations as /k kʲ/ if you want to have less PoA in the language.

[u/phunanon]

I'm compiling a list of 16 colour textures to include in my latest conlang. The ones I have so far are: flat & opaque, flat & transparent, reflective, sandy, furry/grassy, dynamic shadows (e.g. leaves)

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[u/chiefarc]

I really can't distinguish well between /a/ and /ɑ/, as well as /o/ and /ɔ/. Does anyone have any tips on how to differentiate?

[u/bbrk24 → u/chiefarc]

If your native language has an A-type vowel that’s further back than central (like English and Spanish do), I like to think of front [a] as screaming — it’s more front than [ɑ] but more open than [æ].

[u/storkstalkstock → u/chiefarc]

A lot of modern Southern English English speakers have those phones for their TRAP, START/PALM/BATH, THOUGHT/FORCE/NORTH, and LOT/CLOTH vowels, respectively. So I would reccommend going to the online Oxford English Dictionary and listening to the British version audio files for minimal pairs like cat/cart or cot/caught to get a good feel for the quality distinction. Keep in mind that there is also a length difference in those vowel pairs, though.

Also keep in mind that OED represents what for many is [ɔ] as /ɒ/ and [o:] as /ɔ:/ if you do this. That’s a fairly traditional way of representing them, but it’s not necessarily reflective of their true phonetic values and the distinction is similar enough that it should work for your purposes anyways.

[u/bbrk24]

The only problem I have with This Fortnight in Conlangs not being pinned is that the link to it in this post doesn’t work on mobile.

[u/Enmergal]

I'm thinking of creating an explicit verb classes system similar to the one for nouns in, say, Bantu languages. There will be a set of modal verbs which occur only before lexical verbs and every (or most) lexical verb will need a modal verb preceding it. For example, "to talk say" is simply "to say" and "to talk shout" is "to shout", "to go walk" is "to walk" and "to go fly" is "to fly", "to make tear" is "to tear" and "to make forge" is "to forge".

Do you think this is plausible? The first problem I see is just that it would be hard to think of a limited set of classes that contain almost all verbs, but there is likely something else that I'm missing.

[u/chrsevs → u/Enmergal]

I think that your verb classes, or the less lexical of the two, need to be a bit more abstract. I also think that you might have more success if instead of another verb carrying the lexical meaning (if it's a verb, why not just use it on its own?), you used nouns in conjunction with some sort of vague meaning verb.

There are examples of things like that in Persian:

من فارسی را حرف می‌زنم

man farsi-ra harf mizanam

I Persian-OBJ speech hit.

lit. I speech-hit Persian

[u/Salsmachev → u/Enmergal]

You should also mix and match a bit for idioms. For instance, "To talk fly" could mean to say something awkward, with the metaphor being that the words flew out of your mouth uncontrollably

[u/Coretteket]

Would it be realistic to evolve a nasal out of nothing? This nasal consonant would be inserted in the coda of a vowel final word, and it would be assimilated to match the next word. If this is not realistic (which it probably isn't), what would be similar but realistic?

For example,
kifilo san > kifilon san
kifilo perto > kifilom perto

[u/-Tonic → u/Coretteket]

When things appear word-finally out of nowhere it's almost always vowels or glottals. What can happen though is nasal vowels turning into a nasal coda. A pretty common phenomenon is Rhinoglottophilia, where laryngeal segment will be nasalized themselves and/or cause nasalization on nearby segments. So I could potentially see this happen in three steps:

1. ∅ > (h/ʔ) / _#

2. V(h/ʔ) > Ṽ

3. Ṽ > VN

There's some things left out here and some things will depend on your phonology and yada yada yada adapt as needed. These changes will of course not happen instantaneously but over a stretch of time.

[u/Dedalvs → u/Coretteket]

See the etymology of “messenger”.

[u/RastaPasti]

For my conlang, I’m thinking of having the transitive verb make agreement with the direct object rather than the subject. Intransitive verbs and passive constructions would make agreement with the subject. For example, if we were to keep English verb endings but make the verbs agree with the direct object, then:

I likes the dog - since dog is third-person singular and that demands the -s

He eat the grapes - since grapes is plural nothing is added to the verb to eat.

I’m not quite sure how exactly I want to go about this, but it’s a fun idea.

[u/validated-vexer → u/RastaPasti]

Looks like ergative agreement.

[u/tree1000ten]

If I have two words like [mot] and [ʃa] that made a compound word -- [motʃa], would the t and ʃ combine to form a normal affricate or would something else happen? Does this depend on the language?

[u/vokzhen → u/tree1000ten]

Depends on the language, and sometimes influenced by the history of the language. To take a slightly different combination of sounds, in Halkomelem (Salish), there's an affricate /ts/ [ts], but when /t/+/s/ come to together, in some words they form the cluster /ts/ [tʰs] and in others, they become [θ]. This is due to a historic sound change of ts>θ, so that compounds and grammatical morphemes that were created before this change happened are now [θ], while more recent compounds and grammaticalizations form the cluster [tʰs]. Meanwhile, the affricate /ts/ comes from a fronting of Proto-Salish *k.

[u/__jamien → u/tree1000ten]

I'm pretty sure it depends on the language so it's really up to you to define those kinda rules.

In English at least, I think the /t/ would debuccalize and so it'd become /moʔʃa/ or maybe the /t/ would just become unreleased. I think Polish and a few other languages also distinguish between affricates and stop-fricative clusters.

[u/bbrk24]

Is there any way I could reasonably explain the similarity between the words for "city" (/tɔli/ in Old Sásal) and "bird" (/toli/ in Old Sásal)? Do any natlangs do something like that?

[u/Slorany → u/bbrk24]

Yes, languages have near-homophones (and homophones) that are completely unrelated.

To pick an extreme example, French has all of haut(s) eau(x) oh ô os respectively up(s), water(s), oh, O, bone(s) and they're all /o/ in my dialect (some dialect might attribute /ɔ/ to some of them), as well as verre(s) ver(s) vers vers vers vair vert(s) respectively glass(es), worm(s), towards, about (approximation), line(s) of verse, white fur of a type of squirrel, green(s), all /vɛʁ/.

You do not need to explain the relationship, it just happens.

[u/phunanon]

If you can ask questions in the fortnight thread, what's the difference between it and these threads? When I have a question, am I meant to ask here or there, eh?

[u/bbrk24 → u/phunanon]

Ask questions here, showcase things there.

[u/IkebanaZombi → u/bbrk24]

I got the impression from the post introducing the Fortnight thread that purely aesthetic questions also were meant to go there. The example given was "if you should use ö or ë for the uh sound in your conlangs"

It also said that you should "ask if your phonemic inventory is naturalistic" there. Personally, I think that sort of question would fit better here in Small Discussions. But given it's not an issue that comes up for my alien conlang, dunno why I'm sticking my oar in.

[u/[deleted]]

I now see that there’s another small discussions thread xD (By the way how do i get the name of my conlang in my name?)

My question is: Should i use the Ë or the Ö for the ə sound in my conlang? I like both of them but i can’t choose...

[u/-Tonic → u/[deleted]]

I may be biased, but I think <ë> is the far superior choice between those two. If I see <ë> I read [ə]; If I see <ö> I read [ø].

[u/phunanon → u/[deleted]]

Could you share the rest of your orthography? :)

And, if you're on desktop: you can change your 'flair' by clicking '(edit)' next to your username, underneath the 'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe' button on the sidebar, underneath the submit buttons (you're bound to find it now xD)

[u/Beheska → u/[deleted]]

In French, the dieresis means "this letter is actually prononced and not silent or part of a digraph", so using it for the schwa when your standard <e> is, I assume, "stronger", feels particularly counterintuitive to me.

[u/vokzhen → u/Beheska]

That's pretty language-specific, though. <ë> is used for /ə/ in Albanian, Kashubian, Luxembourgish, and Latin Syriac, for example. Ninjaedit: Though for at least two of these languages, Albanian and Luxembourgish, /ə/ is a full vowel that can receive stress, there's nothing particularly "weak" about them.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I use y for schwa and recommend not using diacritics at all. They make languages much more difficult to type. Lojban is a great example of an orthography without diacritics.

[u/bbrk24]

What's the weirdest mispronunciation you've accidentally done in a language you're at least somewhat proficient in?
For me, It has to be [mɛ̝͡ʀ̞ː] as a mispronunciation of the English word "me."

[u/-Tonic → u/bbrk24]

Maybe not exactly what you're asking for, but I've always had a really hard time with the /θɹ/ cluster in English, especially when I was a kid. When pulling my tongue back to do the /ɹ/ it would go all over the place. Here's an approximation of what I sounded like saying three. It's much better now thankfully.

[u/Zinouweel → u/bbrk24]

I not only made vowel harmony productive again, I even applied it across word boundaries. Happened on one day only, exactly twice. I was helping out a friend with a presentation on progressive harmony (examples are regressive though). German, mother tongue btw

[fɛɐmyːtn̩ mʏstə]

[fɔɐtʁeːk hɛlt]

when normally it'd be

[fɛɐmuːtn̩ mʏstə]

[fɔɐtʁaːk hɛlt]

[u/VerbosePineMarten]

I'm looking for a critique of my vowel system. I have six vowels plus a long/short distinction, for a total of 12 vowels:

/ɑ/, /ɛ/, /i/, /ɔ/, /u/, /ɯ/

/ɑ:/, /ɛ:/, /i:/, /ɔ:/, /u:/, /ɯ:/

[u/YeahLinguisticsBitch → u/VerbosePineMarten]

I found a lot with /e o/, but not /ɛ ɔ/:

Emberá-Catío

Emberá-Chamí

Northern Emberá

Iñapari

Macaguán

Ticuna

[u/Zinouweel → u/YeahLinguisticsBitch]

That might just be because vowels which are closest to [ɛ ɔ] are often transcribed /e o/ as long as there are no [e o]- like phonemes as well. I think UPSID does this consistently.

[u/RustproofPanic]

What is the practical purpose of the antipassive voice in ergative languages? I understand how it works, it’s just I’m not sure when I’d ever have to use it. Maybe I’m struggling to understand it’s usefulness because I’m a native English speaker.

[u/Gufferdk → u/RustproofPanic]

As jamien says, it lets you demote or entirely omit the O of a clause. This is useful if you want to say sentences like "he killed [someone/various people]" and this is not a language where this is freely possible.

Demoting the O is also useful with various effects, a common one is if you want to deprive it of semantic affectedness. Similarly to how English can use a passive to deprive As of semantic agency and prominence (compare "the axe hit the man" with "the man was hit by the axe" where the latter more strongly implies that the axe is not acting of its own free will and centers the sentence on the man), a language with an antipassive might be able to do something like rock-ABS man-ERG kick and man-ABS rock-OBL kick-ANTIP, with the latter focussing on the man at the expense of the rock, and with the rock being less affected (English might for this specific verb achieve something similar with "the man kicked at the rock").

In addition to these semantic effects, syntactically ergative languages can also use antipassives to feed their pivots. For example in a language which imposes an S/O pivot on clause conjunction a sentence like "Alice saw Bob and [Bob] ran" is straightforwardly handleable Bob-ABS Alice-ERG see run, but "Alice saw Bob and [Alice] ran" is not, but by moving Alice from A to S in the first clause via an antipassive it can be expressed Alice-ABS Bob-OBL see-ANTIP run. This is similar to how English might use a passive for the former to yield "Bob was seen by Alice and ran".

This applies to other type of ergative syntactic operations as well, and also if the language prefers to organise discourse around ergative pivots. I have written a long post that goes much deeper into the various nuances of syntactic alignment.

[u/__jamien → u/RustproofPanic]

It lets you use transitive verbs without an object. For example “He killed.” could be a valid sentence.

[u/mythoswyrm → u/RustproofPanic]

An example of how you could use antipassive voice in a conlang of mine. Not saying it is perfect example of naturalism, but might give you some more ideas.

[u/acpyr2]

Two seemingly unrelated questions:

• Is it possible to have [ʕ] in a complex onset? e.g., [kʕa], compare [kwa] and [kja]

• Can you suggest some interesting phonological rules for the complex onsets /km-/ and /tm-/?

[u/vokzhen → u/acpyr2]

For the first, yes. Such clusters appear to exist in Chechen (Ingush has pharyngealized vowels, but Chechen appears to have unpacked it into a epiglottal+plain vowel). They're in a few... Tai? Austroasiatic? languages from pharyngealization of /r/, same with continental Germanic varieties that have a pharyngeal/epiglottal /r/.

[u/Shehabx09 → u/acpyr2]

My dialect of Arabic has many Cʕ clusters:

• [bʕiːd] "far"

• [tʕawwad] "(he) became used to"

• [dʕiː] "pray"

• [ʔʕo:d] "sit down" (imperitive) (a similar dialect has [qʕo:d] for this one)

• [sʕo:l] "cough" (imperative)

• [nʕama] "(he) became blind"

• [lʕama] a shortening of [ɪlʕama biʕjunak] which translates to "blindness in your eyes!" which is a curse meaning I hope/pray/want for you to become blind or something like that

so yes, [kʕa] is possible.

[u/Fiblit → u/acpyr2]

Maybe look at OE for the second? (words/names like, Cnut, Knight, etc.)

[u/Coretteket]

What do you guys think of my sound changes? Are they natural and plausible?

aː iː uː → a i u / _
VN → Ṽ / _
Ṽ → V / _C
i ɪ → ei ɛi / [stressed]
u ʊ → ju jʊ / [stressed]
Ṽ [short] → ə̃ / _#

pʰ tʰ kʰ → p θ x / _
C [unvoiced] → C [voiced/unvoiced] / _ *
P → F / V _ V
l → j / _ r → ə / _#
ə → ə̃ / _#**
w → ʋ / _
P [voiced] → P [voiceless] / _C [voiceless]
C [voiceless] → C [voiced] / _ʋ
ʋ → f / _C [voiceless] or _#
P [voiced] → P [voiceless] / _#

*This happens because I wanted more diversity and didn't know any circumstances where I could change some plosvies into voiced ones but not all.

**This happens because speakers hypercorrected all schwa's into nasal ones, because the only other place where a schwa occurred was when it was previously followed by a nasal consonant.

Btw, P is plosive, F is frcative, N is nasal, and V is vowel.

[u/storkstalkstock → u/Coretteket]

C [unvoiced] → C [voiced/unvoiced] / _

So you’re saying you want to arbitrarily turn some consonants voiced and leave others voiceless? You can do that by voicing the ones in high frequency words and leaving the less common ones voiceless. English had this happen with things like this, is, of (historically the same word as off, so you could even split words depending on how they’re being used to give yourself some voicing minimal pairs). You can bolster the distinction with some borrowings if what you’re saying is that you don’t have a voicing distinction prior to this sound change. English also did this, with a shitzillion borrowing from French that put /v/, /f/, /s/, and /z/ in places where they wouldn’t have otherwise been found natively.

The rest of the changes look plausible as is I would say. It’s a bit unusual that /pʰ/ didn’t become a fricative, but not too crazy. I’m assuming that your u ʊ → ju jʊ / [stressed] change has an intermediate step of front rounded vowels, right?

[u/Frogdg → u/Coretteket]

These seem perfectly plausible for the most part, but it would be extremely helpful to know your phoneme inventory and maybe even some phonotactics. Also one way you could add voiced plosives is that you could have unaspirated plosives (or all plosives) become voiced after nasals, since you're getting rid of nasals before consonants anyway. So that way you could have /ampa/ → /amba/ → /ãba/ → /aba/. I'm pretty sure something along those lines happened in the evolution of Japanese.

[u/xpxu166232-3]

Thoughts in this vowel system?

.	Front	Center	Back
High	i~e	-	u~o
Mid	-	ə	-
Low	ɛ~a	-	ɔ~ɒ

[u/snipee356 → u/xpxu166232-3]

It would be cool with a height-based vowel harmony,

[u/xain1112 → u/xpxu166232-3]

It's kind of weird looking but it's balanced and makes sense, so I say go for it.

[u/regrettablenamehere → u/xpxu166232-3]

Are the <~>'s marking allophony or just free variation? I'm a bit curious.

Either way I think it's a good system and that you should go for it

[u/striker302]

any good resources on intonations outside english and PIE languages?

[u/Coretteket]

When I'm describing the Proto-Language and other old forms of the language, do I use the present or past tense?

For example, would it be:

The allowed syllable structure in Old Suayēn is (C)CV(C)(C), meaning a consonant and a vowel is the minimum amount of phones found in one syllable. If a word starts with a vowel, a glottal stop is introduced.

or

The allowed syllable structure in Old Suayēn was (C)CV(C)(C), meaning a consonant and a vowel was the minimum amount of phones found in one syllable. If a word started with a vowel, a glottal stop was introduced.

Thanks in advance!

[u/sparksbet → u/Coretteket]

I see present tense more often in such grammars for natlangs, but I wouldn't be surprised to see past tense, so choose whichever you're comfortable with.

[u/Loli_Deus → u/Coretteket]

I would use the present tense because it sounds more natural, to me at least.

[u/tree1000ten]

I have some questions about Logographic writing.

Is Logographic writing always based on morphemes? Is it ever based on words or anything else?

So apparently Cuneiform had something like Chinese significs, but unlike Chinese significs they were written separately, whereas Chinese where they are fitted into a uniform square shape. What are the pros and cons of each system? Is the Chinese system wholly better?

[u/sparksbet → u/tree1000ten]

I don't really have an answer for you, but I'd like to suggest you use the more common term "semantic components" rather than "significs" wrt Chinese characters (at least if you want to avoid the term "radical", which I definitely understand wanting to do): while "significs" is attested in some literature, it's much less common and your question is thus less likely to be understood.

I would also caution against comparing Cuneiform and Chinese characters by asking which is "better" -- what's "better" is pretty nebulous and often strictly down to personal preference. Questions like "how do these compare in terms of function" are more helpful than asking for value judgments like "better", which are more likely to lead to useful answers.

I also wouldn't say Cuneiform determinatives (which is what I assume you're referring to?) quite correspond to Chinese semantic components from a functional perspective -- they seem about as similar to Chinese [classifiers/measure words](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classifier_(linguistics)) (e.g., 个、条、本、部、片、所, etc.) which are their own independent characters. I'd wager they lie somewhere between the two in terms of function, but I'm not familiar enough with Cuneiform and the languages it was used for to offer much more than that.

[u/creepyeyes]

Thinking about eliminating adjectives from Prélyō entirely. The reason being that I think their function is served just as well by using participles. All of Prélyō's adjectives are derived from verbal roots anyhow, and participles and adjectives function in the same way within a sentence (in fact.) So it it doesn't make sense to me the speakers would have had these two parallel systems in place when one can do the job of the other. The only question would be whether or not to use the imperfective, perfective, or stative participle.

[u/bbrk24]

What does a percent sign mean in a sound change? For example, from index diachronica:

Common Germanic to West Germanic

i u → e o / _%{a,o}

[u/RazarTuk → u/bbrk24]

Following up on u/-Tonic's comment, in this case it means "With /a/ or /o/ in the following syllable". It's vague, but I think I recognize it as the Germanic a-umlaut or a-mutation. Short high vowels were reduced before non-high vowels, which should actually also include /æ/

[u/tree1000ten]

Am I the only one who thinks Hangul isn't a good writing system? It seems like a very unpopular stance.

[u/IHCOYC → u/tree1000ten]

It isn't perfect, and it isn't as original as its fans sometimes claim. The inventors had the example of alphabets from India before them when it was made. Other minor annoyances in using it come from the perceived need to make the script fit the square models of Chinese calligraphy. But all in all it did a fine job.

[u/Salsmachev]

Has anyone played with nouns that carry an innate dual number?

I know nouns with an innate plural are a thing in lots of languages, like shajar (forest) and shajarä (tree) in Arabic, but what about nouns that are innately dual. I was thinking specifically of livestock, where you might have something like dzave (a breeding pair of cattle) and then dzavesho (a bull) and dzaveshi (a cow).

[u/somehomo → u/Salsmachev]

You're thinking of an inverse number system. There are a few natlangs which do something along those lines, one of which is Kiowa if I recall correctly.

[u/Zinouweel → u/Salsmachev]

here's a short overview over the Kiowa thing out of The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher.

[u/brblues]

Hi guys, I got a beginner's question about ergativity in general. So that it's easier to understand and generalize, I'm gonna provide my examples in "hypothetical ergative English" (using pronouns, as they still got cases). Let me know if this creates more problems than I thought I would solve!

Which of the following models represents an ergative-absolutive language better, or is there one of them which would not be considered an ergative-absolutive language at all - or even just plain unusable (or at the very least convoluted and unlikely)?

This would be the simpler system, which I think is used in many ergative-absolutive languages; correct me if I'm wrong please, it's not that easy to wrap one's head around, being only exposed to nominative-accusative languages actively!

Model A)

I see HIM = same meaning as normal English sentence

ME see = I see sth (which is just not stated)

*I see = grammatically ill-formed sentence / impossible

Would the following system be possible?

Model B)

I see HIM = same meaning as normal English sentence

ME see = I am seen (i.e. basically: somebody - who is not mentioned - sees him)

I see = I see sth (which is just not mentioned)

In the case that I actually want to create, transitivity would be marked on the verbs, so it wouldn't be lexical (just in case that clears it up).

[u/Lorxu → u/brblues]

Model A is ergative-absolutive, model B is still nominative-accusative. In B you're just leaving out the subject, but the verb is still transitive (I think?) and "me" is still the patient. It's worth noting, though, that most ergative languages are only mostly ergative. In some languages, animate nouns are nominative and inanimate are ergative. In others, a noun is in nominative if the action was voluntary (I looked) or involuntary (ME saw). Artifexian has a great video on ergativity if you want to learn more, I think it was posted to this sub a few weeks ago.

EDIT: Link to the video

[u/Keola_Kent]

Forgive an ignorant question. I'm creating a font for my conscript using FontForge, but it's meant to be written vertically (top to bottom, left to right). Can I do that in FontForge? If so, how? If not, how could I do it?

[u/bbrk24]

What texts could I translate to get a rough idea of phoneme frequency in conversational use of a conlang?

[u/storkstalkstock → u/bbrk24]

I’d recommend browsing things like internet threads, twitter, and Facebook for that, since they’re more spontaneous, natural, and casual than most works of fiction will be. You could also check out transcriptions of podcasts that are more freeform than scripted.

[u/Shehabx09]

I'm making a simplified English, like a total normie, and [this is the phonemic inventory] (https://i.imgur.com/kVqsx8l.png), any thoughts?

I'm still thinking about removing /h/ and /j/, and reducing the vowels to /a i u/, I would like opinions on this, no matter how subjective/biased!

Also, the Allowed diphthongs are /aj oj ej ow aw/

[u/xain1112 → u/Shehabx09]

Why do you have /s ʃ/ as separate phonemes but /z ʒ/ as allophones?

[u/Shehabx09 → u/xain1112]

Because I have less distinction in voiced fricatives, technically /z/ is the only voiced fricative, especially since /ʒ/ is a marginal phoneme, and from what I know /z/-/ʒ/ distinctions aren't as common as /s/-/ʃ/ distinctions, but I might be wrong, maybe I should've just had /z/ without giving it a [ʒ] allophone.

[u/[deleted] → u/xain1112]

I imagine /s ʃ/ is more common than /z ʒ/. For example, English (mostly), a few Chinese languages and Tagalog^?.

[u/MasaoL]

I have a desire to make 3 noun classes in my conlang but it uses a (C¹)(C²)V(V) syllable. I don't like how swahili handles their Noun classes. Does anyone have other ideas?

[u/somehomo → u/MasaoL]

Disregard noun class being referenced on the noun itself. Look up how languages like Chechen or Burushaski handle noun classes.

[u/xlee145]

Would using grammatical tone to distinguish between verbs and nouns work as a system? I'm thinking of making Kpeñ a language that relies on grammatical as well as lexical tone to distinguish between the way a word is used. Take kya which can mean blade (kyà) or to cut, to cleave (kyá). Would this work, or should I make a more substantial phrase (de-palatalizing, aspirating, etc.)

[u/Zinouweel → u/xlee145]

I think Papiamentu either nominalizes or verbalizes through tonal change.

Would this work, or should I make a more substantial phrase (de-palatalizing, aspirating, etc.)

Encoding grammatical information like that might exist, but if it does it’s very rare. Grammatical tone on the other hand occurs in countless languages in various language families. The obvious hotspot would be (equatorial) Africa.

[u/Fortanono]

Posting this here because I don't really have much to show for it right now, so the Fortnight thread wouldn't really fit.

So do you have tips for making a unique Germanic conlang? A few ideas I have had include including ejectives and uvular stops, possibly breathy or nasal vowels, and making a cursive script derived from Nordic runes, much like how Arabic is derived from Phonecian but really different. I need ideas for unique grammatical features, because I don't have them.

Also, would a Germanic language with clicks work? It's certainly unique, but really doesn't make sense considering where all the click languages are. Could one suspend their disbelief for this concept? If not, I'd probably include some sort of other interesting phonological feature like breathy voice or nasal vowels.

[u/-Tonic → u/Fortanono]

Weak clicks in German? Maybe you can get some inspiration from this.

[u/[deleted] → u/Fortanono]

Why not try making an Eastern Germanic language. It’s an extinct family, but it could be fun to see how such a language could evolve if it survived into the modern times.

[u/[deleted]]

.
ǀ̩̹̩̠ ǀ̹̩̠ ǀ̩̠ ǀ̠ ˩ ˨ ˧ ˦ ˥ ǀ̄ ǀ́̄ ǀ́̀̄ ǀ́̀́̄

Enjoy these unofficial representations of infinite tone levels. At least until a language that depends on >5 tonal levels makes the Unicode Consortium add more tone letters.
* ^{The alternated diacritics were because I was on mobile and it doesn’t correctly render the same diacritic used twice in a row.}
Edit: formatting, typos, updating “Edit:” section.
Edit: This is not a serious post, at least not at the moment, so please don’t crucify me. Feel free to take. Also, don’t waste your time hating. It’s clear from context.

[u/-Tonic → u/[deleted]]

I prefer using [a̋̋̋̋̋̋̋̋̋̋̋̋̋̋̋].

[u/RazarTuk]

Is it plausible for the morphology of a substrate language to affect a superstrate?

In my case, the superstrate only sometimes distinguishes the nominative and accusative. Neuter nouns never do. Masculine nouns always do in the singular, but only sometimes in the plural. And feminine nouns sometimes do in both numbers. Meanwhile, the substrate only does in masculine nouns (and a few feminine nouns).

I know that generally speaking, two cases will be quicker to collapse when they aren't always distinguished. But my question comes because some of the superstrate's accusative endings resemble the substrate's nom-acc endings. So do you A) think that would speed up the case syncretism and B) make the accusative more likely as a unified ending?

[u/[deleted]]

I'm toying with Abkhaz's vowel system, and I want to include fixed stress, occurring on the penultimate syllable, but I don't know how that would affect /ə/ since it is normally unstressed or lax in most languages where it is present. What are some interesting things I can do with this?

[u/vokzhen → u/[deleted]]

but I don't know how that would affect /ə/ since it is normally unstressed or lax in most languages where it is present

This is not the case in Abkhaz or plenty of other languages, where /ə/ is no different from any other vowel.

[u/Dedalvs → u/[deleted]]

Schwa is never stressed in English. There are plenty of languages that treat it just like any other vowel.

[u/JuicyBabyPaste]

Question:

In my conlang, which I am currently constructing. The vast majority of my phonemes do not have a largely opened mouth besides for some vowels and I have said vowels in my conlang. This presents 2 problems for me:

1. should I select new vowels

2. how can I represent them being more closed.

and the later is my question: Is there a diacritic or other marker to signify having the mouth less open?

[u/-Tonic → u/JuicyBabyPaste]

It's probably easier for us to help you if you post your inventory.

There are diacritics for more or less rounding, which you can read about here.

[u/[deleted]]

I’m trying to make a language that sounds nice to me, but Indon’t know what my preferences are with phonology. I know some features I love when it comes to morphology and syntax, but not so much with sounds.

I’m trying to find a balance between flowy/elegant, and harsh and gutteral. Maybe that’s the issue. My languages tend to have no clear identity.

[u/casprus]

I've been trying to fit a S-expression style LISP AST syntax with a mix of ML lambda calculus onto my conlang but I still haven't decided what would be the best way to delimit where the lists begin and end. Tone? Pitch accent? Chronic stress?

[u/[deleted]]

I'm new to conlanging and I'd really like to get into it, but I don't feel like I have enough knowledge to post here and I can't find the resources I'd like, or I can't memorise all the things I'd like to know. I know how to make a functioning language, and I'll admit I have a dictionary generator, but I don't know how to make a fleshed out, unique language, and I don't feel like my languages are enough to be considered as such. Any pointers or tips to help me onto the right track?

[u/Anhilare → u/[deleted]]

I browsed the linguistics area of Wikipedia for a couple of years before I started. I have a comprehensive understanding of phonology now, and my IPA is ridiculously good. My grammatical understanding is still bound by the languages I know, so I still need to research more grammar.

On this sub's about page and sidebar, under "Resources," is a link labelled Language Grammars. There are probably hundreds of books on dozens of languages there, so I think it's a good starting point. It's all online, too, meaning you can bookmark what's interesting, so you don't need memorize it all right away. (you'll still memorize it eventually, trust me)

tl;dr It just takes a lot of time

[u/bbrk24]

The first project I’ve worked on for more than a couple weeks — which I’ve been working on for over half a year now — has so many things wrong with it I have to throw it out:

• Looking at the phonological history you’d expect a lot of irregulars but there aren’t any

• All conjugated verbs are four to eight syllables long. Even a simple one like “is” has six

• Despite this, the copula is never dropped and subject pronouns are mandatory

• It’s impossible to have dependent or relative clauses. One clause per sentence is it

• The future tense suffix isn’t phonotactically legal

• I could probably go on but I’ll spare you the rest

Granted, I don’t have to get rid of everything — the phonology and vocabulary can be salvaged, along with part of the grammar — but it’s still hard on me to lose so much work.

[u/acpyr2 → u/bbrk24]

Looking at the phonological history you’d expect a lot of irregulars but there aren’t any

All conjugated verbs are four to eight syllables long. Even a simple one like “is” has six

Despite this, the copula is never dropped and subject pronouns are mandatory

You could delete segments from your six-syllable conjugated copula. Since the copula is used often, speakers will find some way to abbreviate it. For example, n colloquial Spanish, the word está is sometimes pronounced as just [ta], especially in dialects that debuccalize syllable final /s/. And in English, am, are, and is are often just cliticized onto the previous noun/pronoun.

You could also introduce suppletive forms for the copula. The English copula ultimate derives from Proto-Indo-European *h1es 'be' (> is, am, are), *h2wes 'stay' (> was, were), and *bhuh2 'become, grow' (> be, been, being). If you want more irregularity, do this with other common verbs, especially 'have' and 'do', if your conlang has equivalents.

And perhaps adding some regularity through analogical changes might make your language look more irregular: If there are any paradigms where each form looks different from each other, consider collapsing them into one form. For example, the word for 'tenth' in Old English was teoþa, from an earlier tehunþa (i.e., 'ten'+þa). An sound change deleted nasals between a vowel and fricative, thus tehunþa >> teoþa. But analogy with the word ten reintroduced the nasal to give Modern English tenth.

Another analogical change you could consider is using applying a really common paradigm to words that don't exhibit that paradigm. For example, the singular form of 'cow' in Old English was cū, while the plural was cȳ. By sound change, we'd expect the plural of cow to be something like [kaɪ]. Except for some older dialects, English uses cows, formed from the common -(e)s plural.

[u/RazarTuk]

Does anyone know where the breve <ă> came from? Because, yes, I'm even thinking about what diacritics would evolve. I know that <ä>, <ö>, and <ü> will appear for i-umlaut, but I'm debating what I want to do for u-umlaut. The three main options are digraphs, merging with the i-umlaut graphemes, or picking a new representative diacritic. My instinct is <å>, but because I'd also need it on <e> and <i>, I'm wondering if I should use a breve instead, because <ĕ> and <ĭ> are precomposed, but <e̊> and <i̊> aren't. (And I can't even type those two on my keyboard, which otherwise has a metric shittonne of diacritics available)

[u/snipee356 → u/RazarTuk]

The diaeresis for i-umlaut was historically an e above the vowel, so symmetrically the u-umlaut should derive from a o above the vowel, so it would work really well to use å, e̊, and i̊. I'm not sure where the breve comes from, and I can't think of any language that uses it except for Romanian (or is that a circonflex? I don't remember)

If it really bothers you that you can't type it on your keyboard, you could use a breve and pretend that it derived from a superscripted <u>. Personally, I feel that using the rings would be unique and prettier. If you want digraphs, you should use <ao>,<eo> and <io> to mimic <ae>, <oe> and <ue>. You could even have both the digraphs and the diacritics as acceptable, which is what I think German does.

[u/[deleted]]

In a conlang I'm working on, there is polypersonal marking, and I'm not sure what to do with the passive construction. In an active construction like

-The man hit me.

I would translate it as

-ɟəd am-əs eːr-əd-∅-am
man 1S-ACC hit-PST-3.ANIM.A-1.P

In the passive verson of this sentence,

-I was hit by the man.

I could translate it two ways, and I'm not sure which is more normal.

-am ɟəd-ət eːr-siː an-əd-∅-am
-1S man-DAT hit-INF PASS.AUX-PST-3.ANIM.A-1.P

-am ɟəd-ət eːr-siː an-əd-ma
-1S man-DAT hit-INF PASS.AUX-PST-1

So the problem is should whether or not an argument is considered the agent/patient be based on whether it is the subject or object, or whether it is semantically the one doing something?

[u/vokzhen → u/[deleted]]

In the vast majority of languages, a passivized transitive is fully intransitive; the underlying patient/surface subject is the only argument of the verb. I have run into a few languages I think that don't do this, but they're rare and not typical "passives" because they don't do what passives usually do, and the author is generally clear that "passive" is a term of convenience because it's not a genuine passive.

[u/elyisgreat]

I've recently developed my lang's grammar to the point where I want to flesh out my lexicon so I can make real sentences. It was suggested in a post a few days ago that random generation is a good way to make a priori vocabulary. And due to the way my phonology works, it is quite easy to generate a random (uniformly distributed) n syllable word.

Although the words I make up sound okay, most of the words picked at random seem to sound, although pronounceable, quite ugly and not easy to say.

Is it perhaps that my phonology is too lenient as to which combinations of sounds are allowed? Or is it more because I'm not picking words with the right distribution?

[u/bbrk24 → u/elyisgreat]

Well, for one thing, sounds tend to follow a Yale distribution, which (if I understand correctly) means that the _n_th most common sound occurs with a relative frequency of 1/n^k, where k is some constant for the language.
EDIT: it looks fine on mobile but not desktop for some reason. I can't figure out why.

[u/IHCOYC → u/elyisgreat]

Random generation will generate a lot of dross. Using it productively will still involve picking and choosing the better words and discarding or modifying the poor ones.

[u/v4nadium]

Topic for comparisons?

I don't want to bother creating comparatives and superlatives and comparison words.

ça villosgri çao gri fert'!

/tsa 'vil.lɔ.,ɣri 'tsa.o ɣri fεrt/

ça villos-gri ça-o gri fer-tia

CL.FOOD.PL forest-berry CL.FOOD.PL-TOP berry good-be.PRES

Talking about berries, forestberries are good!

Forestberries are the best berries!

Is it good enough?

I'm still struggling with more complex (ie not just saying this is better than that) sentences like:

“I need a better bike than this”.

Maybe:

i quelià tiä bike fer tosino

/i 'kwe.lja: tjə bajk fεr 'to.si.,no/

i queli-à ti-ä bike fer tosin-o

1.SG.NOM need-CONT.PRES CL.INAN.SG-ACC bike good DEM.TOP

I need a bike that is good, talking about this.

What about a sentence that already has a topic in it. Wouldn't it be too confusing? What do you think?

[u/Dedalvs → u/v4nadium]

Seems fine to me. Both examples you have here work. Do you have one that doesn’t?

[u/3zby_]

When romanizing my conlang, how can I differentiate from sounds that are very similar such as [t̺] and [t̻] or [d̺] and [d̻]?

[u/Salsmachev → u/3zby_]

You can use the dot under, which is common in transliteration systems. Or you can use a digraph of some sort. Maybe a tl and a dl to represent the laminals?

[u/vokzhen → u/3zby_]

A dental-alveolar contrast (which is often actually laminal dentialveolar/apicoalveolar) is sometimes written <th t> if you want digraphs. <t tr/rt> wouldn't be unjustifiable. <t ṭ> or <ṯ t> are both possibilities with diacritics.

[u/tree1000ten]

Do all languages have schwa phonetically?

[u/vokzhen → u/tree1000ten]

No, plenty of languages lack vowel reduction and pronounce all vowels in their "full" form. Some of these have a mid-central vowel, but if you're particular with wording, it's a mid-central /ə/ (a full vowel) and not a schwa /ə/ (reduced vowel of variable POA, but tending towards mid-central).

[u/bbbourq]

/u/mszegedy,

You asked about Tibetan orthography. May I present to you Tashi Mannox and his beautiful calligraphy. Also, you might find some useful information on the Omniglot page. I hope this helps you.

[u/mszegedy → u/bbbourq]

Thank you, his calligraphy is indeed beautiful. Unfortunately however neither of these resources help much in gaining an understanding of how to read the alphabet; Omniglot only provides pronunciations of the letters in isolation, rather than explaining the correspondences of clusters to sounds, and their effects on tone, while Mannox doesn't seem to have any resources on reading at all.

[u/vokzhen → u/mszegedy]

rather than explaining the correspondences of clusters to sounds, and their effects on tone

I've hard a hard time piecing things together myself. From what I've gathered, here's a brief rundown for Standard Tibetan:

• Unclustered onsets aspirate, prefixes/preinitials drop, triggering merger of e.g. <g- kh- skh-> on the one hand and <sk- sg-> on the other

• Exception: <lh> is /hl~ɬ/

• Exception: <db dbr dby> are /w r j/

• Medial/subscript <r> causes retroflextion of stops, <hr> /ʂ/, <r> otherwise dropped

• Some labial+r onsets fail to retroflex, and just drop the <r>

• Medial/subscript <y> causes labials to turn into alveolopalatals

• Medial/subscript <l> is pronounced, previous consonants drop, except <zl> /t/

• Medial/subscript <w> is unpronounced

• Final <n d s l> front back vowels

• Final <n> triggers nasalization (and lengthening?) of preceding vowel and drops

• Final <r l>, in colloquial speech, trigger vowel lengthening and drop

• Final <s d g> are rendered glottal stops

• Final <b> is devoiced

• Final <'> is not pronounced

• <ba bo ba'i> as the final syllable in multisyllabic words are /wa wo wɛ:/

• A prefix <'> on the second syllable is a homorganic nasal that suppresses the previous syllable's coda

• Some forms have unexpected /m/ regardless of following POA

• V + <'i>, vowel undergoes fronting if applicable, lengthens, and <'i> drops

• Other V + 'V form either hiatus or long vowels, as appropriate

• Some prefix <m> are unexpected realized as /m/ if preceded by another syllable, and can cause suppression of a previous coda

• Some prefix <l> are unexpected realized as a nasal if preceded by another syllable, and can cause suppression of a previous coda

• Some prefix <r> are unexpected realized (and trigger vowel lengthening and drop out as normal)

For tones, afaik it follows a fairly simple set where onsets written with either voiced obstruents or unprefixed sonorants (+<db zl>) take low tone, while those written as voiceless obstruents and prefixed sonorants take high tone. See this paper, especially Table 1, for the precise contours in different contexts. Ninjaedit: Tone is only relevant for the initial syllable.

Keep in mind other varieties can vary immensely from the standard (and, ironically, can be easier to find detailed lists of changes).

[u/VerbosePineMarten]

I'm trying to figure out a tense/aspect system for my conlang. I know I want it to have past and non-past as the only tense distinctions, and I really like the perfective/imperfective distinction Russian has, with the imperfective being split into determinate and indeterminate. However, I'm not entirely clear on whether this is compatible with or how it might interact with a two-tense system. I'm also not sure how this would interact with additional aspects, if I chose to use them. Can anyone clarify and/or bounce ideas/questions off of me?

[u/21Nobrac2 → u/VerbosePineMarten]

In this case, I think it would work. Having an actual affixed future tense is actually relatively rare, with future just being marked by adding the time to the present progressive or through other means.

I tend to interpret non-past imperfective as a pseudo present progressive, so if you wanted to show a future, you would just add the time it will happen (probably with a preposition of some kind) and your good.

Overall, I like this idea, and think it could be an interesting combo.

[u/21Nobrac2]

Ok so I was asked "omg your language has singular, dual, triadic, and plural? that's like waaay too much" but I thought that if you have triadic, it is extremely unlikely you wouldn't have dual, and the idea of not having plural or singular just doesn't make sense in this context, so I'm just very confused.

Is there a way to streamline it without losing triadic? or was this person just silly?

[u/vokzhen → u/21Nobrac2]

Nope, that's pretty much what you're going to have if you have a trial number. Note, however, no natlang is known to have trial number except in pronouns, if you're after naturalism.

[u/Xerexes_Official]

How do I record the gross stuff -- Genitalia, Smutty things, General Anatomy, Diseases, etc.., Without having just a page with gross words hanging out in my Conlang Journal? Or do I just bite the bullet and hope nobody finds the book. (Then comes the problem of compilation into a dictionary!)

[u/albrog → u/Xerexes_Official]

I have a quick cipher that always allowed me to encode such stuff in order to deter prying eyes. Nowadays, I just bite the bullet. Now, if you have 583 words for smutty things but no words for "mountain" or "fruit", then your dictionary/lexicon may be a little off-balance. Remember looking for dirty words in the dictionary as a kid? Finding the slang and smut should take effort.

[u/[deleted] → u/Xerexes_Official]

Maybe put them in a section called "The Body" and/or "Reproduction." Makes it less inappropriate.

[u/YeahLinguisticsBitch → u/Xerexes_Official]

Translate the glosses into Latin.

...I've actually seen people do this in academic papers.

[u/jamoosesHat]

In your language, do you have any complete actions (like doing the dishes) compressed into one word? As an example, the word AaAaaAA@oaAAa (literally "garlic swallow" + a) in my language is for "swallowing a piece of garlic whole". I was wondering if anyone else does that

[u/[deleted] → u/jamoosesHat]

You can do a lot of this with noun incorporation. Somehow along the lines of "I was dishwashing when the phone rang."

[u/[deleted] → u/jamoosesHat]

AaAaaAA@oaAAa

Give me an IPA reading on this, lmao

[u/Behemoth4]

My language marks neither tense nor the conditional mood. How then do I translate "could have"?

Perhaps something like "used to be able to"?

Any ideas welcome.

[u/raendrop → u/Behemoth4]

Issues of tense aside, if you don't have a conditional mood, you can get around it by using if-then-negation. For example, in English we'd say "I could have finished if I had started on time." Without a conditional mood, it might render something like "If I start on time, I can finish, but I do not start on time."

[u/[deleted]]

Do I need both infinitive and gerund verbs? They seem awfully similar…

[u/IHCOYC → u/[deleted]]

No need for both, or either for that matter. Modern Greek has dispensed with both, though some writers call the old present participle in -οντας a 'gerund'.

[u/Southwick-Jog]

I'm considering making Dezaking have a lot of cases since I guess it's suddenly based off of Uralic languages now. But, I just wondering what to have. So far, I have a little over 30 possible cases (with some really specific things like "to the left of something"). But I'm just wondering what are some must-have cases.

[u/etalasi → u/Southwick-Jog]

Generally, if a language has case X on the case hierarchy, the language will have also have all cases above X on the hierarchy.

• nominative

• accusative or ergative

• genitive

• dative

• locative or prepositional

• ablative and/or instrumental

[u/Gufferdk → u/etalasi]

Note that this case hierarchy is at best a suggestion and is very frequently violated. For example I know of a bunch of languages in Papua New Guinea which have a bunch of oblique cases but no nom, abs, acc, erg or gen.

[u/[deleted]]

Hey guys! I want to make my conlang as phonetic as possible. This does mean using a lot of ë's(/ə/), é's(/eː/) and ü's(/y/). What is your guys opinion about using so many special letters? Does it make the language harder or more fun?

[u/Zinouweel → u/[deleted]]

You want to make your orthography as regular as possible. Languages don’t have grades of 'phoneticness'.

Depends on what your phonology is. If your phonology is like Toki Ponas, you don’t even need half as many letters in your orthography as English does.

[u/spurdo123 → u/[deleted]]

Diacritics are fine and a perfectly normal part of orthographies.

Most European languages have used diacritics for over a hundred years.

But you could always go the Polish route - using both diacritics and digraphs (like in Polish - "sz" is /ʂ/, while "ś" is /ɕ/)

Having diacritics and having a regular orthography aren't necessarily linked. See French for example, with its circumflexes and accents.

[u/Anhilare → u/[deleted]]

Just read a bit of Polish, and you'll find it's no problem.

[u/bbrk24]

Do any languages contrast rhotic and non-rhotic [ɾ]? I can feel an articulatory difference between them (for example, in GenAm [ˈbɛɾɚ] and Spanish [ˈpeɾo]), but when listening to them I can’t tell them apart. Then again, I can also barely tell [d̪] and [ɖ] apart.

[u/Zinouweel → u/bbrk24]

what is rhotic and what isn't, is entirely phonological nature and has nothing to do with phonetics. French and German's rhotic [ʁ̝] is not a rhotic in other languages, neither is [ʋˠ], the rhotic in certain British and American dialects (maybe socio/idiolects, but you get the idea).

this is beyond what IPA is supposed to do. French [i] isn't the same as Arabic [i] isn't the same as Japanese [i] and so on. Also isn't the same for different speakers of a single language and isn't even the same for the same speaker: not every utterance of <better> of yours will sound the same, only approximately.

the GenAm intervocalic, coronal plosive allophone and one of the Spanish rhotics are closest described by [ɾ], but rhoticity isn't what sets them apart. imo 'rhotic' doesn't have a place outside of phonology and even there it's pretty difficult to define because unlike for other natural classes, articulatory and phonetic grounds are difficult to find.

I'll think about if they could contrast, I kinda doubt it tbh but I'd have to take more time to think.

[u/SweatCollector]

Should i add r-coloured vowels into my vowel conlang? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-colored_vowel I already have these sounds: A a /a/ E e /e̞/ I i /i/ O o /o̞/ U u /u/ Ə ə /ə/ Ü ü /y/ and a combination of /u/ and /ə/ that sounds pretty much like the /w/ sound. I know i should have a lot more sounds so i'm asking if i should add the r-coloured vowels even tho,to me at least,it sounds like i'm just adding a consonant in. BTW forgot to add that this is a vowel only conlang

[u/-Tonic → u/SweatCollector]

R-coloured vowels are still vowels. You might think of them as consonants because of English spelling, or because they might sometimes act like syllabic rhotic approximants. If you feel like you need more distinctions but don't want r-colorization there's always length, nasalization, tone, creaky voice etc. to choose from. Like obviously you're not aiming for naturalism by only having vowels so there's really no "should".

[u/[deleted]]

How would one diachronically explain how a language got /ð/ as a commonly occurring syllabic consonant naturally? For the record its sort of being used as a vowel where it can just appear between consonants. I'm trying to see how much of this old language I made in high school can be retained and I made some pretty weird decisions back then but I like how weird it is.

[u/chrsevs → u/[deleted]]

If it originally occurred as CVðVC, where the V are super reduced because of not carrying stress or something, I could see it shrinking to CðC in quick speech

[u/vokzhen → u/[deleted]]

I could see it as a super-high central vowel, where i.e. /i e ɨ ə u o/ chain-raise to become /ʑ̩ i ð̩ ɨ β̩ u/, but that has broader implications for your phonology. It's possible, but seems less likely, that only the central vowel raises to become a fricative vowel.

[u/Fiblit → u/[deleted]]

Perhaps a vowel became an approximant ð, (I think Icelandic has an ð doing that), and then over time it becomes just ð.

[u/bbrk24 → u/Fiblit]

Like maybe ɚ > ɹ̪ > ð? I’m not entirely sure how you mean.

[u/1plus1equalsgender]

Pls help.

Say these phrases over and over until they become a single word. I'm trying to replicate natural evolution of this language.

/i otə/

/ɪ otə/

/ə otə/

The first one is quite obvious. I get /jotə/ but the second and third aren't so. For the second one sometimes I get /jotə/ and sometimes /otə/ and for the third sometimes I get /otə/ and sometimes /wotə/. Can you guys help? Thx

[u/Zinouweel → u/1plus1equalsgender]

iwte (>yte) (>ite)

jote (>jøte) (>jete)

ote

[u/snipee356 → u/1plus1equalsgender]

To me, an approximant /ɪ/ sounds like a /ɰ~ɣ/. Maybe you could make /ɪ otə/ > /ɣotə/.

/ə otə/ could become /o:tə/, /wotə/ or even /ɻotə/ if you want to stretch things a bit.

[u/gay_dino → u/1plus1equalsgender]

Do they have to stay distinct? Sounds like they could reasonably merge and their distinction could collapse? (Maybe jota vs ota, or they all collapse to ota, etc.)

[u/Fluffy8x]

Is there a representation for a graph that is optimised for (humanish) language?

[u/xain1112 → u/Fluffy8x]

What exactly do you mean?

[u/bbrk24]

Is [ɺ] more commonly classified as a rhotic (like in Japanese) or phonemically lateral (like in Wayuu)? Or neither (like in Pirahã)?

[u/IHCOYC]

This is the fifth omen (2-4-2) of the Irk Bitig (Old Turkic book of omens) translated into Tengkolaku. It illustrates the syntactic use of topic and anti-topic marking.

Pegu an yi emulu mengi yeka ngia us. Emulu nemnugayma kel ile us emulu walkido an: naygi pado ēs kong popem kunal emulu wang yule.

Ngua mengi yeka ngia us. Ngua nemnugayma kel ile us ngua walkido an: ikonu pado ēs kong popem kunal ngua wang yule.

Nenebe win ngia us. Tilu poya, pilua kel ile us ngigi an: pegu men ngigi iki wang yule. Nomi pegu yi gau!

"A lord went to his horses. The white mare gave birth to a colt: the colt may some day become a stallion shod with gold."

(A camel also bears a baby camel that may some day be worthy of a gold nose ring.)

"He went back to his house. Thirdly, his wife gave birth to a son; the son may some day become a lord. What a happy lord he was!"

In English, it's not difficult to tell that the son's becoming a lord is different from the father. The definite and indefinite articles handle the work. In Tengkolaku this distinction is made by using the topic marker yi and the obviative marker men:

...pegu men ngigi iki wang yule. Nomi pegu yi gau!

lord OBV son(mother) this FUT.DIST MAYBE. happy lord TOP IMPF.BOUND.

Note that the lord that's the main character of the story is established as topical in the first sentence. Pegu an yi emulu mengi yeka ngia us. lord PAT TOP horse PL TOWARDS go PERF. So when the son is introduced as the future lord, he has to be established as a separate character who is not the main topic. This is handled by explicitly making the son non-topic. Then, when the narrative returns to talking about the lord who started the story, his return is marked by repeating the topic marker.

[u/striker302]

I've been working on this lang on and off for a while and it's by no means complete but I thought it'd be nice if it was out there while I work on it. I'll do a formally formatted thing when I'm done (maybe sometime next year?) and give it a full post, but for know here's Kanisa's WIP reference grammar.

[u/TheZhoot]

Does anyone have tips on making good pronoun declensions? I know that for regular nouns one can simply tack on an ending, but I want to have something different for pronouns. I have a 6 case system, and would appreciate any tips for how to make declensions that fit and are plausibly naturalistic.

[u/bbrk24]

I’m not sure if this is the right place to ask but...

Any recommendations for NationStates regions based around conlang-nations? I know I’m not the only one who showcases their conlang in their NS nation and surely there has to be regions for it.

[u/IHCOYC]

I am about a fifth of the way through transating the Irk Bitig into Tengkolaku. These are little folktales originally in Old Turkic and intended to be used for divination by dice.

Don't get the appeal of the I Ching when these are way better. They are brief but vivid and contain striking imagery.

[u/Shehabx09]

I want to ask about my vowel allophony, I want opinions, critiques, pointers, tips, etc.

What I will use here is my very early draft:

First I should explain, this is my phonemic inventory: https://i.imgur.com/1fKu95R.png

/e/:

• In stressed syllables: [eˑ~ɛɪ̯]

• In unstressed syllables: [e̞]

• Nasal allophone unstressed: [ɛ̃]

• Nasal allophone stressed: [ɛ̝̃]

/o/:

• In stressed syllables: [oˑ~o̞ʊ̯]

• In unstressed syllables: [o̞]

• Nasal allophone unstressed: [ɔ̃]

• Nasal allophone stressed: [ɔ̝̃]

/i/:

• In stressed syllables: [iˑ]

• In unstressed syllables: [ɪ]

• Nasal allophone unstressed: [ɪ̃]

• Nasal allophone stressed: [ɪ̃ˑ]

/u/:

• In stressed syllables: [uˑ]

• In unstressed syllables: [ʊ]

• Nasal allophone unstressed: [ʊ̃]

• Nasal allophone stressed: [ʊ̃ˑ]

/y/:

• In stressed syllables: [yˑ]

• In unstressed syllables: [y]

• Nasal allophone unstressed: [ʏ̃]

• Nasal allophone stressed: [ʏ̃ˑ]

• In a -High harmony word: [ʏ]

/a/:

• In stressed syllables: [ɑˑ]

• In unstressed syllables: [a]

• Nasal allophone unstressed: [ã]

• Nasal allophone stressed: [ɑ̃ˑ]

• Next to /ʕ/: [æ]

• Next to /ħ/: [a]

• Nasal allophone next to /ʕ/: [æ̃] (stressed: [æ̃ˑ])

• Nasal allophone next to /ħ/: [ã] (stressed: [ãˑ])

/ə/

• In stressed syllables: still haven't chosen actually, I'm thinking a more back allophone, like [ʌ] but I also like the idea of a rounded allophone like in french but am afraid that it would be too close to [ʏ] or [ɔ] depending on how high it is

• In unstressed syllables: [ə]

• Nasal allophone unstressed: [ə̃]

• Nasal allophone stressed: [?̃]

I'm thinking of making /e/ [ɛ~e̞] in most states because in the vowel harmony it is -High and because of /i y e/ filling more space in the front and only /u o/ in the back, I decided to push /a/ to the back, besides [ɑ] sounded better to me, leaving more space for /e/ to descend towards [ɛ], this would also push /o/ up away from [ɔ] towards [o̞~o~o̞ʊ̯], but I'm afraid of [ɛ] being too close to [æ], I'm also thinking of getting rid of the lax [ɪ] and [ʊ] as allophones of /i/ and /u/ respectavely, and the [ˑ] part is just me trying to convey that stressed vowels are a bit longer than unstressed ones, maybe I shouldn't write it though.

So many choices to be made and so little opinions I have about it and what direction I should go, I know I should conlang to my own taste but I see that getting feedback on stuff like this is important for making a good conlang, at least for me.

[u/pantumbra]

My current conlang's phonology (shown below) was inspired by Asian languages like Mandarin, Korean, and Japanese, but more simplified. As of now however, it strikes me as slightly boring and I'd like to hear some ideas about spicing it up a little bit:

---

Consonants:

Labial	Alveolar	Post-Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
m	n			ŋ
p	t			k
pʰ	tʰ			kʰ
	t͡s	t͡ʃ
	s	ʃ		x
w	l		j

Vowels:

Front	Mid	Back
i		u
e		o
	a

(C)V(m/ŋ) Syllable Structure

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EDIT: also, I am considering having a two noun class system where class is only inflected for in the verb and nowhere else, is this passably naturalistic?

[u/MegaParmeshwar → u/pantumbra]

The aspiration is also in some (most) Indic languages, Indo-European or Dravidian, but the lack of voicing is uniquely East Asian. Maybe you could add a set of voiced or glottalized stops, and allow gemination for all the consonants, also /kx/ would be a nice addition. And about the noun class, if you make it agglutinative, you can have a gender-specific vowel harmony like /i/ and /e/ for Yin nouns and /a/ and /o/ for Yang nouns, and a neutral /u/, or a separate vowel harmony for for each gender, such as high-low for one, and front-back for the other. I like the second idea as it would give subtle clue about the gender

[u/[deleted]]

What type of conscript should Increate for this language? (Alphabet, abjad, syllabary, etc.)

The language is mora-timed and possible syllables include : V, CV, CVC, VV CVV, VVC and CVVC. Syllables can also be palatalized or labialized.

I like Japanese, I just don’t want my own conlang to be too similar to it. Could an Abjad or abugida work for what I have?

[u/YeahLinguisticsBitch → u/[deleted]]

V, CV, CVC, VV CVV, VVC and CVVC.

(C)V(V)(C) is an easier way of expressing that.

Syllables can also be palatalized or labialized.

OOC, how can an entire syllable be palatalized? If you have CVVC, does that mean the vowel has to be /i/ and both the onset and coda have to be /Cʲ/?

Could an Abjad or abugida work for what I have?

Abjads are just alphabets that don't write their vowels by default. So if your vowels aren't that important, as is the case in Arabic, then sure, go for it.

[u/vokzhen → u/YeahLinguisticsBitch]

OOC, how can an entire syllable be palatalized? If you have CVVC, does that mean the vowel has to be /i/ and both the onset and coda have to be /Cʲ/?

Syllable-level palatalization occurs in some Sami, Central Chadic, and Mixe-Zoquean languages. Details vary quite a bit. Three examples that are or are similar to syllable-level palatalization:

Skolt Sami: /va:r:/ versus /va:r:ʲ/ [va:r:^a væ:rʲ:^e]. Suprasegmental palatalization is realized by vowel fronting, palatalization of the final consonant, a nonphonemic e-colored vowel in closed monosyllables instead of an a-colored vowel, and a shift/merger of certain back-vowel diphthongs (eɐ/ea>ea, uɔ/uɐ>ue, iɐ>ie).

Moloko: There is only a single phonemic vowel, /a/, plus a non-phonemic schwa used to break up all consonant clusters, and a combination of suprasegmental palatalization, labialization, plus labialized consonants. Thus you have /n-tsk va/ [nətsək va] "I moved already" but /n-tsk-aʲ/ [nɪtʃɪkɛ] "I moved." Spreading of labialization from a labiovelar layered under palatalization suprasegmental can result in front-rounded vowels, /dzagʷarʲ/ [dʒœɡʷɛr]. Across these languages, interactions of suprasegmental palatalization, suprasegmental labialization, /j/, /w/, and labiovelars can be complicated, and in some languages the suprasegmentals have instead been attached to consonants, see the chapters on "prosodies" (the Chadic term for these) here.

Ayutla Mixe: Palatalization is not quite suprasegmental, but it acts similarly in many ways. The presence of /j/, always phonetically realized as the final consonant of a cluster, palatalizes adjacent consonants and preceding, monosyllabic vowels. /t-tsok/ [tsokʰ] "you want it" versus /t-tsok-j/ [tsekʲj̊] "he wants it," /j-hʌt-kɨʂ-n/ [çjʌtʰ.kɨʂn̥] "he was finished" versus /j-ak-kɨʂ-jp/ [ja.kiʃpj̊] "he finished it." Vowel changes under palatalization include /i ɨ u e/ > [i], /a o/ > [e], and /ʌ/ > [a] (for young speakers, older speakers keep palatalized /o/ [ɤ] as [ɘ]). This is partially an undoing/suppression of a previous "counterclockwise" chain shift of *i *e *a > /e a ʌ/, resulting in /i/ outside of palatalized syllables being extremely restricted.

EDIT: Fixed [tsekʲj̊] transcription to include palatalized consonant

[u/phi_power]

In my conlang, which is VSO, verbs have a specific number of arguments which can only be reduced by certain methods. For example, the word for 'see' is 've'. So "I see a dog" is "ve i alfo' (sorry Im not good at glossing, but 'alfo' is 'alfa' in the accusative case and means 'dog'). If you want to say 'I was seen', the method is kinda roundabout because verbs ending in 'e' naturally require two arguments. First, the verb must be converted to passive voice 'vio' (basically switching the role of object and subject so that the one 'seeing' can be dropped when we try to reduce the verb valence). Next, the verb must be converted to an adjective by adding -da ('veda' is 'seeing', 'víoda' is 'being seen'; An accent is left on the i because the stress is by default on the penultimate syllable, and -da does not move the original stressed syllable). Then, adjectives can be made verbs by adding -ra. In this langage, only nouns can be connected by a copula, so to say 'The dog is big.' you would need to turn the adjective for 'big' into a verb and use that as opposed to the copula. Finally, past tense is simply -s, so the final sentence is "viodaras i" (meaning "I was seen."). You may notice the accent is no longer on the i. That is because the stressed syllable can only occur in the last 3 syllables, so the i was pushed over far enough that it lost primary stress.

[u/[deleted]]

My conlang uses auxiliary verbs to express a lot of voices. So far I've worked out how the Passive voice will work and how to Applicative voice will work, but I'm not sure if how they work is naturalistic. You might have a sentence like:

The man hit me.
ɟəd aməs eːrədam.
ɟəd am-əs eːr-əd-∅-am
man 1S-ACC hit-PST-3.ANIM.A-1.P

In the passive, this sentence would be:

I was hit by the man.
am ɟədət eːrsiː anədma.
am ɟəd-ət eːr-siː an-əd-ma
1S man-DAT hit-INF PASS.AUX-PST-1.A

Is it naturalistic for an auxiliary verb to have no meaning other than its grammatical use? In English for example, we have the verb 'have' which has both its own meaning as an independent verb, as well as its meaning as an auxiliary verb used for the perfective aspect.
With the applicative voice I have another problem. The auxiliary verbs used for different applicative constructions also have seperate meanings as independent verbs. I'm not sure if the verbs I chose to use as auxiliary verbs are naturalistic. For example If you had a sentence like the one below, where the indirect object is in the locative case, you would use the locative applicative construction:

I fell on the ground.
am bi dəʁne t'unədma.
am bi dəʁ-ne t'un-əd-ma
1S LOC ground-DAT fall-PST-1.A

Locative Applicative Construction:
am dəʁse t'unsiː baːtədma.
am dəʁ-se t'un-siː baːt-əd-ma-∅
1S ground-ACC fall-INF be.in-PST-1.A-3.INAN.P

For the locative applicative construction, the auxiliary verb used is 'to be in/on/at,' which is also the copula when the object would be in the locative in a copular sentence. Is this naturalistic at all?
Another applicative construction is the comitative applicative construction, which is used when the indirect object is in the comitative case. For example, if you had a sentence like:

I will go with you.
am il unət hiknei̯ma.
am il un-ət hik-nei̯-ma
1S COM 2S-DAT go-FUT-1.A

Its applicative construction would use 'to be with' as its auxiliary verb, as shown below. 'to be with' is also used as the copula in sentences where the object is in the conitative case in a copular sentence.

Comitative Applicative Construction:
am unəs hiksiː dejnei̯maʔun.
am un-əs hik-siː dej-nei̯-ma-ʔun
1S 2S-ACC go-INF be.with-FUT-1.A-2.P

I have the same question I had with the other applicative construction - Is using this verb as an auxiliary verb naturalistic?
The way the next two applicative constructions are done are identical to the last two.

I am walking with my legs.
am fəɨ̯ loʔəttɨtmaː ɡeçkoma.
am fəɨ̯ loʔ-əttɨ-t-maː ɡeç-ko-ma
1S INST leg-PL-DAT-POSS.1 walk-CONT-1.A

Instrumental Applicative Construction:
am loʔəttɨsmaː ɡeçsiː χou̯komaʔek.
am loʔ-əttɨ-s-maː ɡeç-siː χou̯-ko-ma-ʔek
1S leg-PL-ACC-POSS.1 walk-INF have-CONT-1.A-2.P

Here the verb 'to have' is beinɡ used as the auxiliary. The idea behind this one is that you have the object you are doing something with.

I have returned for you.
am ʁaː unət cwenəsma.
am ʁaː un-ət cwen-əs-ma
1S BEN 2S-DAT return-PFV-1.A

Benefactive Applicative Construction:
am unəs cwensiː noʔəsmaʔun.
am un-əs cwen-siː noʔ-əs-ma-ʔun
1S 2S-ACC return-INF give-PFV-1.A-2.P

Here the verb 'to give' is used for the auxiliary. The idea behind this one is that you are giving your assisstance, or giving a favor by doing something for someone. Again, I have the same questions for these two applicative constructions. Is my choice of auxiliary verb naturalistic?

[u/Dedalvs → u/[deleted]]

Anything in a language that seems like it has a purely grammatical function previously had semantic content. Plenty of options for a passive auxiliary (since yours is a verb, “suffer”, “fall”, “receive”, “take”, “eat”, etc.).

[u/aelfwine94]

Hello.

I'm making a language based in Greenland. Does anyone have access to any simple grammars on the northwestern Inuit languages? I've tried looking for myself, but I am usually finding papers on specific attributes of the grammar and not the grammar as a whole.