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How common are these vowels

Posted: 14 Dec 2019 18:17
by Teck
I was wondering how common creaky and nasalized vowels are and whether there are any languages that have short, long, nasalized and creaky vowels; or if there are any combinations with only three possible?

Re: How common are these vowels

Posted: 14 Dec 2019 18:54
by Creyeditor
phoible.org lists 7 languages that have creaky voiced nasalized vowels /ã̰/ or /ḭ̃/. None of them has a length contrast in vowels. There are two languages that have long creaky voiced /ḭː/. A bunch of languages (approx. hundred) have long nasalized vowels. So from the combinations you listed long nasalized vowels are most common I guess, but that might just be because creaky voice in general is rather rare.

Re: How common are these vowels

Posted: 14 Dec 2019 18:57
by sangi39
Teck wrote: 14 Dec 2019 18:17 I was wondering how common creaky and nasalized vowels are and whether there are any languages that have short, long, nasalized and creaky vowels?
According to WALS, it seems that nasal vowels contrast with oral vowels in around 25% of languages.

Jalapa Mazatec contrasts modal voice, creaky voice and breathy voice on all five vowels, and each of those sets also have a contrastive nasal counterpart. Creaky voice, though, seems to be quite rare (it seems that the eastern Oto-Manguean is the main group that gets mentions as containing them as a contrastive feature), although it does co-occur alongside tone in languages like Burmese, and, I think, Tuvan(?), but in those languages creaky voice isn't contrastive in and of itself (in Burmese, for example, it occurs alongside slight vowel lengthening and a high-falling tone).

Having a four-way distinction between short, long, nasalised and creaky wouldn't seem all that weird to me [:)]

Re: How common are these vowels

Posted: 14 Dec 2019 21:01
by Creyeditor
Just wanted to mention that for some languages the different dimensions (length, creaky voice, nasality) are independent, so you get combinations of these. But others don't, so it's up to you.

Re: How common are these vowels

Posted: 15 Dec 2019 06:10
by qwed117
sangi39 wrote: 14 Dec 2019 18:57
Teck wrote: 14 Dec 2019 18:17 I was wondering how common creaky and nasalized vowels are and whether there are any languages that have short, long, nasalized and creaky vowels?
According to WALS, it seems that nasal vowels contrast with oral vowels in around 25% of languages.

Jalapa Mazatec contrasts modal voice, creaky voice and breathy voice on all five vowels, and each of those sets also have a contrastive nasal counterpart. Creaky voice, though, seems to be quite rare (it seems that the eastern Oto-Manguean is the main group that gets mentions as containing them as a contrastive feature), although it does co-occur alongside tone in languages like Burmese, and, I think, Tuvan(?), but in those languages creaky voice isn't contrastive in and of itself (in Burmese, for example, it occurs alongside slight vowel lengthening and a high-falling tone).

Having a four-way distinction between short, long, nasalised and creaky wouldn't seem all that weird to me [:)]
The modal phonation varies per language. A phonation that might be creaky in one language is modal in another, so there might be reason to include languages with breathy-modal phonation systems as equivalent (and those are common as well). I do suspect however, it would be unusual to contrast short, long, nasalized and creaky directly; it might be more reasonable to contrast short and long, and modal, modal nasalized, and creaky, that is having 6 different vowel series.

Re: How common are these vowels

Posted: 18 Dec 2019 21:08
by Teck
Thank you everyone for the input! I greatly appreciate it!
qwed117 wrote: 15 Dec 2019 06:10
sangi39 wrote: 14 Dec 2019 18:57
Teck wrote: 14 Dec 2019 18:17 I was wondering how common creaky and nasalized vowels are and whether there are any languages that have short, long, nasalized and creaky vowels?
According to WALS, it seems that nasal vowels contrast with oral vowels in around 25% of languages.

Jalapa Mazatec contrasts modal voice, creaky voice and breathy voice on all five vowels, and each of those sets also have a contrastive nasal counterpart. Creaky voice, though, seems to be quite rare (it seems that the eastern Oto-Manguean is the main group that gets mentions as containing them as a contrastive feature), although it does co-occur alongside tone in languages like Burmese, and, I think, Tuvan(?), but in those languages, creaky voice isn't contrastive in and of itself (in Burmese, for example, it occurs alongside slight vowel lengthening and a high-falling tone).

Having a four-way distinction between short, long, nasalised and creaky wouldn't seem all that weird to me [:)]
The modal phonation varies per language. A phonation that might be creaky in one language is modal in another, so there might be reason to include languages with breathy-modal phonation systems as equivalent (and those are common as well). I do suspect however, it would be unusual to contrast short, long, nasalized and creaky directly; it might be more reasonable to contrast short and long, and modal, modal nasalized, and creaky, that is having 6 different vowel series.
I should have been clearer on what I wanted to do to start with, but if I understand you, what you're saying is kind of what I was planning.

What I was thinking of having as contrasts were (with /e/ as example): /e/, /ẽ/, /ḛ/, /e:/, /ẽ:/, /ḛ:/

So this would be naturalistic?