Invipudmun - A better IAL

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dan3697
hieroglyphic
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Joined: 22 Aug 2013 21:19

Invipudmun - A better IAL

Post by dan3697 »

For the sake of brevity, the majority of information is available in the following docs:
Glossary
Grammar Overview - French
Grammar Overview - English

Standing for "Ingalic vit pupus di munda" or "English with purpose for the world", I decided to create this language as more of a creole than a language to optimize it for easier learning. The main principle behind it was my dislike for the massive phonemic inventories common to IALs, and I wanted to go for a minimalist ideal. My main idea was a simple phonemic inventory that allows for maximum allophonic variation while continuing to be unambiguous. As an example, because of its simple system of stops, if your native language lacks voicedness distinction for said stops, like Mandarin, you can replace them with aspirated stops while still being easily understood. Additionally, and likely a breath of fresh air for most familiar with IALs, it can be typed on any keyboard, requiring no diacritics or special characters.

Of course, this a bare bones outline and I'm certain the attached docs will shed more light on the grammar and orthography.

I look forward to any comments or criticism you guys can give me so I can further improve it. [:D]
My Conlangs: Vérédæntsk, Tagawaha, Слувидроватскиј, Dareqar, Matoran (reconstruction of the Bionicle language), Krndmaz, Þęndeś, Sutspiki, Gwornligh
Salmoneus
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Joined: 19 Sep 2011 19:37

Re: Invipudmun - A better IAL

Post by Salmoneus »

The biggest issue is simply that you don't explain why you've done this. What do you mean, a "better" IAL? Without having some criteria, how can you judge it?

I must admit, I'm not really sure what the point is of a language that has a very European (even English) grammar, but randomly takes lexical items from half a dozen random languages.

I don't really understand some of your terminology, while at other times you seem to be glossing over things (it's no good saying "do X if it sounds better", if you don't define what does and doesn't sound better (which obviously depends on personal taste and native language)).

Surely you don't really mean that there's allophonic variation between voiced and aspirated stops!? That would be extremely confusing!

In general, it's difficult to define acceptable dialectical variations (which I think is what you mean by 'allophones', since you don't give them a phonological context like normal allophones) in advance. With a small inventory, speakers are likely to want to import a lot of their own details, including their own allophony, and this will unnecessarily clash with the overly-defined dialectical variation. For instance, in many languages, /ti/ would naturally be [tsi] or [tSi] or the like - but you've already defined that this must be confused with a dialectical variation of . That's certainly not impossible to do, but it seems to unnecessarily restrict your potential speakers.
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