Search found 320 matches

by LinguistCat
28 Jun 2023 18:00
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Replies: 1110
Views: 282674

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Others have suggested something like retracted tongue root or velarisation to explain RUKI, iirc - i.e. something made /r/ sound like /k/. [the real question: why the hell would /i/ be treated like /r/, /k/ and /u/?] Re: the *i in RUKI, I've often wondered the same thing myself, but so far I haven'...
by LinguistCat
26 Jun 2023 18:01
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Replies: 1110
Views: 282674

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

I'm interested in learning more about the pitch accent patterns found in the Ryukyuan languages, and how they differ from Japanese. I personally could not find too much on it. If you have any knowledge or resources about the Ryukyuan accents, I'd love for you to share! Most of my research lately (w...
by LinguistCat
23 Jun 2023 17:58
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Replies: 1110
Views: 282674

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

I'm interested in learning more about the pitch accent patterns found in the Ryukyuan languages, and how they differ from Japanese. I personally could not find too much on it. If you have any knowledge or resources about the Ryukyuan accents, I'd love for you to share! Most of my research lately (w...
by LinguistCat
23 Jun 2023 17:27
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Replies: 1679
Views: 347714

Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Isolation was usually given as the standard answer for Austronesian, especially Oceanic, in 'the olden days' but nowadays Vanuatu is usually given as a counterexample because languages diverged rapidly even though speaker communities were in constant contact and often on one and the same Island. Th...
by LinguistCat
24 May 2023 21:46
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: What is the newest word in your conlang?
Replies: 76
Views: 22511

Re: What is the newest word in your conlang?

Üdj wrote: 24 May 2023 20:37
LinguistCat wrote: 24 May 2023 19:32 [conlang] Old Nyango /pəru/ - to want, to desire
If you want the conlanging pyramid emoji, it's : con :.
Ah thanks! I forgot to preview to check if it worked and somehow couldn't find it in the selection. Editing
by LinguistCat
24 May 2023 19:32
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: What is the newest word in your conlang?
Replies: 76
Views: 22511

Re: What is the newest word in your conlang?

:con: Old Nyango /pəru/ - to want, to desire
by LinguistCat
25 Apr 2023 23:21
Forum: Everything Else
Topic: Birthdays!
Replies: 29
Views: 17706

Re: Birthdays!

Saturday was my 35th. And tomorrow my kid's going to be six months old. [:O] Time is going too fast.
by LinguistCat
11 Apr 2023 07:53
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Replies: 1110
Views: 282674

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

I'm a little late to the penultimate dropped /l/ discussion, but I wanted to add something. I've noticed occasionally that some Americans will drop the l from wolf, pronouncing it identically to the word woof. I wonder if this is determined regionally, or if it is also seemingly random like the oth...
by LinguistCat
02 Apr 2023 02:10
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: tones for a protolang
Replies: 3
Views: 334

Re: tones for a protolang

Thank you both for your replies and the quick answers. @ Creyeditor: From a quick readover I'd say you've accurately assessed what I was asking and the system I was going for. (Also good to know the difference between Africanist and Chinese povs on this.) I'm going to sit down to dinner soon so I'll...
by LinguistCat
31 Mar 2023 21:00
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: tones for a protolang
Replies: 3
Views: 334

tones for a protolang

I'm not great with tones so I've mostly ripped of Mandarin with a couple tweaks for this. I do have a couple specific questions though. /a e o i u/ <a e o i u> /a_M a:_M a_R a:_FR a_F/ <a ā á ǎ à> Right now I have plain vowels and vowels written with macrons as having the same tone value (mid, no co...
by LinguistCat
24 Mar 2023 17:45
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: "cheating" in making a conlang
Replies: 5
Views: 420

Re: "cheating" in making a conlang

I assume you think I haven't done any of that in the 20 or so years I've been a conlanger. Granted, most of that was on the zbb under the name vampyre_smiles, so I understand if you thought I was a newbie making things harder on myself than needed. But, if any of that worked I'd think it would have ...
by LinguistCat
22 Mar 2023 06:10
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: "cheating" in making a conlang
Replies: 5
Views: 420

Re: "cheating" in making a conlang

It seems to me that carefully gathering roots from multiple source languages, creating a substitution cipher, and then enciphering the source words to produce results indistinguishable from randomly-generated roots (but with weird phonotactics!) would be an awful lot more work for no obvious benefi...
by LinguistCat
21 Mar 2023 17:56
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: "cheating" in making a conlang
Replies: 5
Views: 420

"cheating" in making a conlang

I know there isn't actually a way to "cheat" in making conlangs, as long as you don't rip off someone else's conlang and claim it as your own (but that's more akin to plagiarism I'd think). But the idea I had feels like cheating and I think I just need someone outside my own head to remind...
by LinguistCat
27 Jan 2023 20:35
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Replies: 1679
Views: 347714

Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

There was a period in Japanese's early development where words could have more than one high tone, as long as they were not next to each other. However, since that point, one or the other of the high tones dropped in different dialects. So for example, a four syllable word could have HLHL as its ori...
by LinguistCat
26 Jan 2023 19:55
Forum: Everything Else
Topic: Introduction thread(s)
Replies: 723
Views: 424707

Re: Introduction thread(s)

Hello, there is indeed at least one otherkin here [:D] I must have missed your intro earlier, so glad to welcome you to the board, criminalmammal!
by LinguistCat
17 Jan 2023 21:25
Forum: Games
Topic: Romanization game #2
Replies: 3392
Views: 311511

Re: Romanization game #2

/p t k/ <p t k>
/s ʃ ɕ x/ <s sh c x>
/t͡s t͡ʃ t͡ɕ/ <ts tsh tc>
/m n ŋ/ <m n gn>
/l ɻ j w/ <l r y w>

/i u/ <i u>
/e o/ <e o>
/a ɑ/ <a ä>

next:

/p t~k ʔ/
/s/
/ps ts/
/m/

/i~j y u~w/
/e ø ə o/
/ɛ œ ɔ/
/a/
by LinguistCat
13 Jan 2023 19:01
Forum: Beginners' Corner
Topic: How regular do sound changes need to be?
Replies: 5
Views: 9676

Re: How regular do sound changes need to be?

I think one thing to remember is that these "irregular sound changes" are going to act more often on words/word parts that are used more often. For example, in Japanese, the ends of adjectives went from having -k- to -∅- when followed by -i or -u, and verbs ending in -ki in the infinitive ...
by LinguistCat
10 Jan 2023 21:41
Forum: Language Learning & Non-English
Topic: Last word you learned in a foreign language
Replies: 116
Views: 112693

Re: Last word you learned in a foreign language

Mimi kikoenai (hard of hearing or deaf in Japanese)

I've been able to watch some Japanese dramas recently, and the one I started with is about a friend group where one of the characters lost his hearing just as they all went off to college. I'm not usually a drama person but the show is really good.
by LinguistCat
09 Dec 2022 21:27
Forum: Language Learning & Non-English
Topic: For English Speaker, Korean or Japanese? [ Question Thread ]
Replies: 3
Views: 8901

Re: For English Speaker, Korean or Japanese? [ Question Thread ]

A friend asks me if I know any words that end in the Japanese symbol for N, and I mention all I can think of is Chan. But even though I mean that as just a word I found, it interpreted as my calling him Chan, which isn't something I generally do. In short: How easy is it to establish the distinctio...
by LinguistCat
26 Sep 2022 18:11
Forum: Games
Topic: Romanization game #2
Replies: 3392
Views: 311511

Re: Romanization game #2

/m n/ <m n> /p b t d k ɡ/ <p b t d k g> /t͡s t̠͡ʃ/ <ts tsh> /f s z ʃ ʒ x/ <ph s z sh zh kh> /ʋ l j/ <v l j> /r/ <r> /i ɨ u/ <i y u> /e o/ <e o> /ä/ <a> Next, something Japonic based /m n ŋ/ / m b n d n z ŋ g/ /p t s k/ /j r w/ /i ɨ u/ /e əi ə o/ /a/