The CBB

I think there are several things to consider which might help answer your question regarding the case of Arabic vs German in particular. I think the first and probably main factor is that the Arabic-speaking world spans a huge ethno-culturally diverse region, the histories of which are very differen...

Well, "why" questions really get more into the theological/linguistic side of things, and I can't really answer. Depends on your denomination, I suppose. ... Thank you, Salmoneus. That was very useful! While such questions do verge into the 'theological' side of things, I think they are nonetheless...

Hello. I have some questions regarding headedness and compounding which hopefully somebody more knowledgeable might be able to explain/expand upon. 1) Does compounding always overwhelmingly follow the overall head direction of the language? E.g. considering just Noun-Noun compounds for now, are ther...

DzêtaRedfang wrote: ↑07 Sep 2020 10:11 The torch has been sent at last! Sorry about that guys.

Received, thanks!

Very late to the game, but I'd like to join if there is still space? I will use Common Dilmunidic, my latest conlang which I have been sketching and could do with some impetus to flesh it out. Thanks! Absolutely! [:D] In the interest of time, do you mind being added to Ring 2? Of course, that's fine!

Very late to the game, but I'd like to join if there is still space? I will use Common Dilmunidic, my latest conlang which I have been sketching and could do with some impetus to flesh it out. Thanks!

Interesting! [...] There you go, three different ways! None of them, to be honest, are particularly likely chains of events, but I think they're all conceivable plausible, and each elegant to some extent in its own way... Thank you, Salmoneus! All three of those solutions are indeed elegant in thei...

I have a stress related question. In this language, vowel length and gemination are non-phonemic, but play a prominent role due to allophony. Stress is non-phonemic, but somewhat idiosyncratic. Initial-vowels are never stressed which can often lead to word-final stress: azal > azál atraf > atráf Wor...

Revision I am unhappy with the focus marking and sentence final particles, and so will ignore these for now. Previous posts regarding these are obsolete. I think I want Waqħuuj to be typologically closer to a creole, which complex focus marking does not seem conducive to. Pronouns Pronouns do not ma...

I'm not too sure about the topic-comment clause - could you give me an example so I can consider how it might be dealt with? It's the "normal clause". "I love you" is a clause about "I" which is the topic. The "new" info is that I love you. Or is there any marker? There's no overt topic marking, so...

Isn't it quite abnormal that voiceless consonants cannot appear word-finally but the voiced ones can? Somali has something like that but the distinction is rather between aspirated and unaspirated (with several allophones) consonants. How is a normal topic-comment clause marked? A clause that has a...

Introduction Waqħuuj /waʕuːdʒ/ is a vaguely Cushitic-inspired conlang set in the far future of a conworld where it has become a global lingua franca. Many of its elements are also inspired by Creoles, such as limited inflectional morphology, TAM marking being expressed pre-verbally in the order of ...

Vowel-Initial Fricatisation Word-initial /a i u/ are most often realised as fricatives [ɦ ʑ β] except in very careful speech or when spelling out words. Diachronically, this is likely due to vowel-initial words being forbidden, i.e. they were [ɦa ji wu]. /e o/ are [je wo] utterance initially or in ...

Update: I am not entirely happy with /rʷ/ [ðˠ]. I think I will make [ʁ] the most common realisation, with [q] word-initially. Romanised <q>. Plurals Plurals are formed by a kind of (much eroded) reduplication which takes part in several morpho-phonemic processes. This makes plurals seem quite opaque...

I like that rhotics have properties of coronals and dorsals combined. That's a property of natlangs that I haven't seen in any conlang, IIRC. Thanks! You've actually just inspired an idea that I really like! Palatalisation and Labialisation are now only contrastive on velars, so: /k kʷ kʲ/ [k kʷ c]...

Apparently I can't seem to stick to any one language for any length of time...so here is my latest. Kwalryu /kʷaʑʑɨ/ is the result of a random phonology experiment. I have no ideas for setting or grammar yet, but hopefully they will come. The aesthetic goal was inspired by reasonably small phonologi...

I like this. Historical linguists would probably get headaches trying to classify this - parts of the morphology are quite clearly IE, other parts just as clearly Semitic, etc. - reminds me of the contentions about Etruscan, which some people believe to be related to IE (some even claim that it was...

I’m really enjoying this. Sounds like Qutrussan is right at home on Earth. It’s even more fun than the previous iteration. Thanks! I am enjoying the setting [:D] I apologize if this is a stupid question, but is Qutrussan a living language? Good question! I haven't given it much thought (yet), but I...

This is very impressive. This inspires me to interject a (con)language isolate with a heavy local substrate somewhere as well. Thanks! The idea is that Qutrussan is a 'mystery' Mesopotamian language of sorts. Whether or not it's actually an isolate is unclear, as parts of it seem reminiscent of IE ...

Common Gender Plurals Common gender plurals are perhaps the most complex part of Qutrussan nominal morphology, employing something similar to Semitic-style 'broken' plurals (i.e. templatic morphology). Initially, these plurals (as well as other parts of the morphology) led scholars to believe Qutru...