The CBB

In wordlists of North Bougainville languages, "boat" is almost always given as boato . Most words were given in the "definite" (it's not actually a definite, but 1950s missionaries were bad at naming things -- words can take the "definite" and the "indefinite"...

Has anyone else ever noticed how, when a person reaches the age of, oh, let’s say “67” just to pick a random number, they’ll know every word of the sentence they’re about to say when they start saying it, but by the time they get to the end of the sentence they can no longer quite recall the last w...

cognates miʔ - miʔ ɒʔ - eʔ pʰɯm - pkæ̤m tʰɯj - dak ɯj - ak ɓɯj - pik tʰwil - duːl sɒʔ - ɲsaʔ ʄim - kĩːm jɤh - ɲãn ɓɒ - peː ɗɯɲ - tiŋ ɗɤp - tba lɯm - tma̤ lɯh - ta̤ tʰɒ - nẽː tʰæn - nŋ̊æ̤n tʰæ - nẽw tʰok - tɓa̤w ɠɤɬ - pɲiː ɠwi - muwa̤ mɒl - mɨ̃n̥ ʄwɤ - mˀŋna̤ ɬæh - ɲkiː jɯ - akæw ɠɒŋ - ʔŋˀæ ɓjɤ - lmˀ...

What: Syxas ik ñê maña. [sʔɐs ɪk ɲeː mɐˈɲɐ] COP.GNO 3SG=ACC POSS fishing_net He is a fisherman. The What "gnomic copula" is unusual in occurring sentence-initially and taking accusative marking. This is because it is descended from an imperative form. An overly literal translation would be...

SkyFry wrote: ↑28 Apr 2019 21:27

Nortaneous wrote: ↑28 Apr 2019 19:22 Biskyt ntoxmyxiahbm phûryn xei, ngykra pujîu typiôhk oman tia.
I like biscuits, but I don't eat bread anymore...

Nachki vhren?
Gluten allergy?

Sygiah, xên tunguau pha xyngxia iññan-nhauh, gai nû kâbyk tia ñanhynua.
No, I just don't want to get fat, so I don't eat carbs.

Biskyt ntoxmyxiahbm phûryn xei, ngykra pujîu typiôhk oman tia.
I like biscuits, but I don't eat bread anymore...

In the one language with a vertical vowel system where we can apply reconstruction to get to a stage where it didn't exist yet (Marshallese), feature transfer from vowels to consonants, while present, didn't play that much of a role -- it split *l *n into three consonants and generated the rounding ...

... Vtsznxmqye Pvpchqpye Zzxzzyx. /úsə̂ɴmāɴjə̄ pùtjwàjə̄ dzə̂nî/ Is Mxyzptlk a common name in your conculture? That isn't a possible word. Mx has to be one syllable (/mu31/), so the next syllable has to be either yz or yzp (/jə33/ or /jə11/) - but this would have to be a dialectal form, since the s...

Wrote a few lines of a bad Hlu adaptation of the epic poem about the founding of the empire they live in, which in the original language is called the Vtsznxmqye Pvpchqpye Zzxzzyx.

/úsə̂ɴmāɴjə̄ pùtjwàjə̄ dzə̂nî/

Next question: Plants/crops that are grown but not for food in your conworld? There are two non-food cash crops whose common names come from Miar: zʷar , known as rviru ~ rviju in Enzielu and transmitted west through pre-Amqoli *zbirup (> Amqoli zberu ) > Narngic *zɨbürüh > Vengic *zi.byur.yuh > Zz...

So your TRAP ones are all TRAP in RP, except 'castle', and 'rather', which is, as I say, clearly an independent analogy. Oh, and "castor" (except for "Castor", which being a loanword takes TRAP. Wait, does that mean (given American BATH loanwords) that some US dialects say "...

How did High German get <fünf> /fʏnf/ from Proto-Germanic *fimf? As far as I can tell, umlaut did not operate in this word, nor can I see anything internal that would cause /ɪ/ to round. I'm not an expert on Germanic but if I had to make a guess the /f/ and /m/ is probably why, since they're both l...

Some words that might be worth testing if you have a splitter to hand might be: TRAP: gaff, mastic, fantastic, asp-, gasket, jasper, castle (and castor, castigate), rather BATH: asp, mass (and cast, caster, caste), alas, fasten missing from the dictionary: bastion, crass Also TRAP: ant (but no othe...

Take cot-caught merged American. We have two possible models: A: - like other southern englishes, all american splits LOT and CLOTH - like many other englishes, including RP, CLOTH merges with THOUGHT - like other west country englishes (the english dialects american outside of boston is most simil...

Starting in the west and going east. The westernmost notable language is Zzyxwqnp, which is tonal. I'm not sure how the tones should work, so I'll ignore them. [wɒ jumõ bijĩzz̩ wɒ bõ fv̩ʎi jẽ jiko jĩ dʑiȵĩtɕi jẽ ɺəjitsz̩ || dʑe wɒ jĩda wi ʎisə̃ jẽ kɒ̃ɕẽ jẽ ɕu ja to wɒnə̃nɒ̃də jĩ wɒ sz̩piʎi wɒ buɺədə...

In any dialect anywhere? There's a lot of possibilities... Not all dialects need to be descended from the same maximally recent common ancestor. Is there a reason to posit a 'surrender' of the LOT-CLOTH split, rather than saying it just didn't happen in those dialects in the first place? And why sh...

LOT = THOUGHT?

So... what all are the possible low vowel outcomes in the English dialects? TRAP BATH MAD FATHER LOT CLOTH THOUGHT START GenAm æ æ æ ɑ ɑ ɔ ɔ ar PA/NJ æ æ eə ɑ ɑ ɔ ɔ ar Boston æ æ æ ɑ ɔ? ɔ? ɔ ɑ WestAm æ æ æ ɑ ɑ ɑ ɑ ar RP æ ɑ æ ɑ ɒ ɒ ɔ ɑ (+NORTH/FORCE = THOUGHT) Kheme æ a æ ɑ ɑ? ɔ? ɔ ar? Newfndl æ æ æ...

What does the T stand for in the 3T.M notations? Noun classes T, S, and L. They govern verb agreement, but not much else. Probably should have adjective agreement too, but Amqoli morphology needs to be completely redone anyway. I also am uncertain about <NONF>heap-V>N.be_over Generic nonfinite form...

Amqoli: Qoryaskri pshilxashi chom ldze zdurshtluq!!! Lgosa shindrixal ryamzhe qapshchile me mebgumxzha, i sha qhamnu lim medzruzha. Chxelyadi. [qoˈʝaskçi ˈpʃijxaʃi tʃõ‿ⁿdze zdur̥ʃtɫuʁ || ˈɫɣosa ˈʃiⁿdrixaɫ ˈʑãʒe qaˈpʃtʃiɫe me meˈbɣũɣʒa | i ʃa ˈqʰamnu jĩ meˈdzruʒa || tʃʰeˈjaði] tadpole-COLL cigarette-...