(Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]

[Vlürch]

In Japanese, there was a historical shift of [ɸ] (from earlier [p]) > [h] before [a e o] and [ɸ] > [ç] before [i], with [ɸ] being preserved only before the high back vowel. If I remember correctly, this only occurred initially, since intervocalic [ɸ] became [w].

Some pronounce it as [x] before /u/, pretty much completing the /p/ -> /h/ shift, but AFAIK that's not the norm (at least yet) and AFAICT the same people (at least usually?) still have [ɸ] in free variation. The shift might be completed fully in a couple of generations? IIRC pretty much the same shift happened in (all of?) the Mongolic and (some?) Tungusic languages, and if I'm not misremembering absolutely incorrectly, some Uralic languages as well. Apparently it happened in Kannada, too. I think some Polynesian languages had it as well, right?

It's a pretty cute shift, I think, although [p] is also a cute consonant so if the result is the complete removal of [p] from a language (without it being regained through other means), it happening is not as cute as it not happening since /h/, regardless of what its exact articulation is, is not as cute. /p/ -> /b/ intervocalically, though, is a very cute shift imho. Why am I rambling about language cuteness again? I should've just stopped after the first paragraph, but I just keep typing... and when you realise/remember that I'm a 25-year-old dude with a beard and shit, this obsession with language cuteness just becomes weird...

Yeah, all my posts are pointless and I should just stop posting.

[Nachtuil]

In Japanese, there was a historical shift of [ɸ] (from earlier [p]) > [h] before [a e o] and [ɸ] > [ç] before [i], with [ɸ] being preserved only before the high back vowel. If I remember correctly, this only occurred initially, since intervocalic [ɸ] became [w].

Some pronounce it as [x] before /u/, pretty much completing the /p/ -> /h/ shift, but AFAIK that's not the norm (at least yet) and AFAICT the same people (at least usually?) still have [ɸ] in free variation. The shift might be completed fully in a couple of generations? IIRC pretty much the same shift happened in (all of?) the Mongolic and (some?) Tungusic languages, and if I'm not misremembering absolutely incorrectly, some Uralic languages as well. Apparently it happened in Kannada, too. I think some Polynesian languages had it as well, right?

It's a pretty cute shift, I think, although [p] is also a cute consonant so if the result is the complete removal of [p] from a language (without it being regained through other means), it happening is not as cute as it not happening since /h/, regardless of what its exact articulation is, is not as cute. /p/ -> /b/ intervocalically, though, is a very cute shift imho. Why am I rambling about language cuteness again? I should've just stopped after the first paragraph, but I just keep typing... and when you realise/remember that I'm a 25-year-old dude with a beard and shit, this obsession with language cuteness just becomes weird...

Yeah, all my posts are pointless and I should just stop posting.

Haha! I appreciate your ramblings though. Cuteness is subjective but I appreciate it. It has given me more to think about for the language I am working on.

[zyma]

In Japanese, there was a historical shift of [ɸ] (from earlier [p]) > [h] before [a e o] and [ɸ] > [ç] before [i], with [ɸ] being preserved only before the high back vowel. If I remember correctly, this only occurred initially, since intervocalic [ɸ] became [w].

Some pronounce it as [x] before /u/, pretty much completing the /p/ -> /h/ shift, but AFAIK that's not the norm (at least yet) and AFAICT the same people (at least usually?) still have [ɸ] in free variation. The shift might be completed fully in a couple of generations?

Oh, interesting! Do you know what varieties do that? I'm most familiar with the standard.

IIRC pretty much the same shift happened in (all of?) the Mongolic and (some?) Tungusic languages, and if I'm not misremembering absolutely incorrectly, some Uralic languages as well. Apparently it happened in Kannada, too. I think some Polynesian languages had it as well, right?

I wouldn't be surprised. I believe that [p] > [ɸ] > [h] > [Ø] is thought to have happened, outside of clusters, in the history of the Celtic languages as well.

[yangfiretiger121]

Well, if you already have creaky voice, [a, a̰ → ɑ, æ̰] is plausible.

Yep. Thanks for the help. The plan is shifting after creaky voice emerges. Thus, the protolanguage's full vowel system is /ɑ, æ̰, e, ḛ, i, ḭ, o, o̰, u, ṵ, y/.

[Creyeditor]

That makes sense.

[Vlürch]

Haha! I appreciate your ramblings though.

Cuteness is subjective but I appreciate it. It has given me more to think about for the language I am working on.

Oh, I didn't even mean to ramble in relation to your conlang; I was just rambling about language cuteness because it's something I do whenever there's an even remotely cute feature being discussed. But yeah, language cuteness is definitely subjective just like every other kind of cuteness, only even more so.

Personally I think /t͡ɕ ɸ ð ɰ/ are among the cutest consonants and /ø y ɯ/ are among the cutest vowels, but a lot of people probably disagree on all of that. I know most Finns consider front rounded vowels gross and are one of the reasons "Finnish is ugly" is a common sentiment, but ever since I got into other languages I started to realise that Finnish is actually pretty cute by the same measurements that make other cute languages cute; it could be cuter, of course, but no language is 100% cute. And of course cuteness also depends on intonation, etc. and speakers' voices. I mean, even Somali and Vietnamese can sound cute when spoken softly (or just "cutely" in some abstract way?) by women with mid-high/high voices, so... even if I made the cutest conlang, it wouldn't be cute if I spoke it...

Oh, interesting! Do you know what varieties do that? I'm most familiar with the standard.

I didn't even think that it could be regional or anything, but I don't know? I mean, the contexts I've noticed it in have all been standard Japanese AFAIK (I mean, my only exposure to Japanese (except in writing) is music, films and sometimes random Youtube videos if they have subtitles (since my level in Japanese is that of a newborn tbh)), at least.

If examples in music count (those are the only ones I can think off of the top of my head), these three came to mind instantly: 1, 2 and 3. But actually, I guess the second one is the only one where it's clearly [x] rather than an outright [h] or whatever, and it does have some labialisation, so maybe it doesn't count as it's probably more like [xᵝ~x͡ɸ] or whatever and that's barely different from the standard... hmm. Still, closer to [xɯ̟] than [ɸɯ̟] in all three unless I'm deaf. The links could be marked with "nostalgia warning (or cringe warning if you're a totes no homo bro)", "vibrato warning (if you listen to the whole song or any other song by the band)" and "cuteness overload warning (unless you're a heartless monster)" respectively, but this is a serious post so I didn't do that. I mean, a serious post by my standards...

[yangfiretiger121]

I have a few questions about Modern Skaran's development.

1. Currently, in English fight is noted as /ɑ͡ɪ/ because it's /ɪ/'s only appearance in the language. How likely is it fronting to /æ͡ɪ/ to approximate its reconstructed Proto-Skaran pronunciation of /aɪ̯/? "Reconstructed" because knowledge of Ancient Common and Ancient Baikal before Early Skaran (/ɑḭ̑/ for reference) is from fragmentary inscriptions in-universe.

2. Originally, I'd planned on the diphthongs being /æ͡ɪ, æo̯, oæ̯/. But, the post-creaky voice consolidation nixed that idea. While I'd love to include /æo̯, oæ̯/, are they more likely to have occurred before or after contact with another planetary language?

[Pabappa]

Oh, interesting! Do you know what varieties do that? I'm most familiar with the standard.

I didn't even think that it could be regional or anything, but I don't know? I mean, the contexts I've noticed it in have all been standard Japanese AFAIK (I mean, my only exposure to Japanese (except in writing) is music, films and sometimes random Youtube videos if they have subtitles (since my level in Japanese is that of a newborn tbh)), at least.

If examples in music count (those are the only ones I can think off of the top of my head), these three came to mind instantly: 1, 2 and 3. But actually, I guess the second one is the only one where it's clearly [x] rather than an outright [h] or whatever, and it does have some labialisation, so maybe it doesn't count as it's probably more like [xᵝ~x͡ɸ] or whatever and that's barely different from the standard... hmm. Still, closer to [xɯ̟] than [ɸɯ̟] in all three unless I'm deaf.

Thanks, that might help me with a problem in the allophony of Late Andanese, which is partly modeled on Japanese. perhaps Late Andanese /hu/ can be [xu] when preceded by a vowel-only syllable, but remain [hʷu] when preceded by an ordinary CV syllable.

[Nortaneous]

The links could be marked with "nostalgia warning (or cringe warning if you're a totes no homo bro)",

Dir en Grey isn't that gay - look up Daigo Stardust

[Vlürch]

Is it "acceptable" to use several different reconstructions of the same proto-language (with obviously slightly different results if the same words were derived from) as sources for vocabulary in a conlang that's meant to be naturalistic? What I mean is, does it require additional justification, like one set being conically loanwords and another being conically native or whatever?

Asking because I started working on a "Tibeto-Altaic" conlang; basically a priori but with vocabulary and some grammar that's meant to combine Sino-Tibetan and Altaic languages (regardless of whether Altaic is a genetic family or not), and although I have some sound changes that can make Tibeto-Burman words sound like Altaic words and vice versa, a part of me feels like the timeline just doesn't add up for that to be realistic. Like, I have some "reverse" sound changes that would have to be relics from a conical Pre-Proto-Sino-Tibetan but also some of the same sound changes in words that are only Proto-Mongolic or whatever...

Should I just not bother with sound changes being chronologically consistent between proto-languages if the results are cool? I mean, a "Tibeto-Altaic" language that isn't a creole is probably such a ridiculous idea to begin with that it's not exactly the most realistic thing from the start... but it is meant to be "naturalistic", so...

perhaps Late Andanese /hu/ can be [xu] when preceded by a vowel-only syllable, but remain [hʷu] when preceded by an ordinary CV syllable.

Seems like a weird conditioning environment for that allophony, but pretty interesting. I'd assume the reason behind the Japanese [x] is decreased rounding of the vowel, though? I mean, I could swear I've heard full-blown [xu] occasionally, but still, when the vowel is usually [ɯ̟ᵝ], it makes sense for the consonant to be [ɸ], and if it's unrounded all the way to [ɯ̟], it makes sense for it to be [x]. Or at least that seems logical to me since they're more "uniform" and as such easier pronunciations.

Dir en Grey isn't that gay

True, but in my experience guys who're not at all into visual kei tend to have strong "LOL GAAAAY!!!" reactions to their old videos (or even just hearing their old songs), the one I linked in particular. Or any 90's or early 00's visual kei, really, not to say that newer stuff wouldn't elicit that reaction from them as well, although I'd say it generally doesn't as much for some reason.

Maybe the "LOL GAAAAY!!!" isn't as common anymore? But I mean, at least some 100% srs bsns metalheads still get incredibly butthurt if you tell them you like any band that has ever been labelled visual kei by anyone. There are literally people out there who refuse to acknowledge that this song is metal because they used to be visual kei (and arguably are again if the definition that it's just an aesthetic and not anything concrete is used). Like, what kind of mental gymnastics does that require?

And in case it's not obvious, my favourite band of all time is Dir en grey. They've literally never done anything that sounds bad. There are other bands that have never done anything that sounds bad, too, but usually those are bands that haven't been active nearly as long as them, and honestly I can't think of any other band that's as consistently great while being as versatile.

look up Daigo Stardust

Hmm, some serious David Bowie vibes all around. And sure enough, Wikipedia explains why. But mmh, this seems fairly gay and definitely in a good way.

[Salmoneus]

Should I just not bother with sound changes being chronologically consistent between proto-languages if the results are cool? I mean, a "Tibeto-Altaic" language that isn't a creole is probably such a ridiculous idea to begin with that it's not exactly the most realistic thing from the start... but it is meant to be "naturalistic", so...

I don't understand.

First, if by 'Tibeto-Altaic' you mean a Tibetan language that looks like it's been part of the Altaic sprachbund, then what on earth is 'ridiculous' about that? Tibetan languages are spoken adjacent to Altaic languages, the two families have had considerably cultural contact, and it's very likely that much of what is now altaic 'territory' was once (Sino-)Tibetan-speaking. So what's weird about the idea that a (macro-)Tibetan language might have survived in the Altai mountains and been influenced by neighbouring languages!?

Second: what? What do you mean 'chronologically consistent between proto-languages'?

Each language has a proto-language. Its (non-borrowed) words are derived from that of the proto-language through mostly regular soundchanges. I'm not sure what your issue with this is. What is "conical pre-proto-sino-tibetan" and how can words in a tibetan language be "proto-mongolic"?

Grasping at straws here, are you saying you want recent loanwords to retrospectively apply three or four thousand years of soundchanges that happened in a language that those loanwords were never found in? Why would you want to do that!?

[LinguistCat]

Should I just not bother with sound changes being chronologically consistent between proto-languages if the results are cool? I mean, a "Tibeto-Altaic" language that isn't a creole is probably such a ridiculous idea to begin with that it's not exactly the most realistic thing from the start... but it is meant to be "naturalistic", so...

I don't understand.

First, if by 'Tibeto-Altaic' you mean a Tibetan language that looks like it's been part of the Altaic sprachbund, then what on earth is 'ridiculous' about that? Tibetan languages are spoken adjacent to Altaic languages, the two families have had considerably cultural contact, and it's very likely that much of what is now altaic 'territory' was once (Sino-)Tibetan-speaking. So what's weird about the idea that a (macro-)Tibetan language might have survived in the Altai mountains and been influenced by neighbouring languages!?

Second: what? What do you mean 'chronologically consistent between proto-languages'?

Each language has a proto-language. Its (non-borrowed) words are derived from that of the proto-language through mostly regular soundchanges. I'm not sure what your issue with this is. What is "conical pre-proto-sino-tibetan" and how can words in a tibetan language be "proto-mongolic"?

Grasping at straws here, are you saying you want recent loanwords to retrospectively apply three or four thousand years of soundchanges that happened in a language that those loanwords were never found in? Why would you want to do that!?

Sal, I think a lot of your misunderstanding comes from thinking Vlürch is deriving forward to a daughterlang and not back to a proto-language connecting the sino-Tebetan and Altaic families. And the loanwords Vlürch is referring to are not modern loans.

More of your misunderstanding comes from not realizing that "conical" is supposed to be "canonical", what I assume means the reconstructions that have already been made by other linguists.

[Salmoneus]

Huh? But he can't 'derive back' (i.e. reconstruct) the protolanguage from which both Altaic and Sino-Tibetan descend, because there never was such a language. Or at least, not for tens of thousands of years.

As a result, there are no good reconstructions of proto-Tibeto-Altaic possible, because if they were, it wouldn't be a conlang, it would be an astonishing scientific breakthrough.

Obviously, you CAN imagine that a certain language gave rise to both families. But the nature of that language is arbitrary - it might as well be one thing as another, because everything is 100% wrong. Just as, if you had to reconstruct the common ancestor of English "red" and Motu "kakakaka", it doesn't make much sense to ask if we should reconstruct *bob or *mnluxiptek - since no consisted soundchanges can be constructed no matter what option we choose! [unless, I suppose, we choose *red|kakakaka and so on, and have a consistent rule than English drops clicks and all post-click sounds, and Motu drops clicks and all pre-click sounds...]

[sangi39]

As far as I understood Vlürch, it seems to be:

a) Proto-Sino-Tibetan has a number of reconstructions
b) When Vlürch uses one reconstruction (say, Reconstruction X), starting with one word, the resulting descendant sounds less Altaic
c) When Vlürch uses one reconstruction (say, Reconstruction Y), starting with one word, the resulting descendant sounds more Altaic
d) Is it reasonable for Vlürch to use Reconstruction X and Reconstruction Y, depending on which result is "better", or
e) Should Vlürch stick to just Reconstruction X or Reconstruction Y regardless, or
f) Can Vlürch use Reconstruction X most of the time, but then use Reconstruction Y where the results are "better", but say that those words entered the language at some later stage, but still relatively early on (I'd assume something along the lines of, say, Proto-Anatolian words re-entering Late Proto-Indo-European).

[this_is_an_account]

English has this construction that acts similarly to complementization that uses the genitive, eg:

It's not a problem that he left.
His leaving is not a problem.

What if a language had a similar construction, but had a marked possessive case rather than a genitive case, eg:

3SG house-POSS
"His house."

3SG leave-POSS
"His leaving."

Is it plausible for the possessive case on the verb to be re-interpretted as a non-finite marker?

[Creyeditor]

There are languages where most if not all non-finite clauses look like nominalizations, so yes.

[yangfiretiger121]

Of my setting's two main languages, Skaran's (SKR) a creole of the Empire's planetary languages that's used for intraempire communications, and Galactic Standard's (GXS) a SKR-based creole with influences from languages spoken throughout the galaxy. Are features from GXS likely to bleed into SKR over time?

[Vlürch]

As far as I understood Vlürch, it seems to be:

Yeah, that's exactly one part of what I was asking. I know I worded the question really weirdly, half because I was super-tired and hadn't slept in like 48 hours or whatever, and half because it's just a weird question. It's just that even though an "ambiguously Tibeto-Altaic language" is pretty nonsensical, I'd still prefer it to be as naturalistic as possible...

More of your misunderstanding comes from not realizing that "conical" is supposed to be "canonical", what I assume means the reconstructions that have already been made by other linguists.

No, that's kind of the opposite of what I meant. By "conincal" I mean "conlang/conworld-internal"; it's con(structed) as an adjective/adverb on its own, and I never remember that it might not be obvious to everyone that that's what it means. You know, for example, "conically the language had its own writing system before the adoption of the Latin alphabet, but the romanisation was simple transliteration and not a phonetic alphabet" could be used to justify orthographic irregularities similar to what English has without actually having to make a conscript, or "an a posteriori language derived from Sumerian, spoken in France, because conically the Sumerians migrated to France" or whatever.

So, "conical Pre-Proto-Sino-Tibetan" is a hypothetical precursor to Proto-Sino-Tibetan that (almost certainly) never existed but is necessary to enable certain sound changes, like Proto-Sino-Tibetan's initial /*x/ -> conlang's /p/; because /p/ -> /x/ is attested (and was just discussed ITT lol) but the opposite doesn't really make sense, the conlang's /p/ in those words has to be from a "Pre-Proto-Sino-Tibetan" which had /*p/ that became /*x/ in Proto-Sino-Tibetan. There aren't many sound changes like that (in fact, this is the only one so far that couldn't be justified some other way), but some of the sound changes from PST are pretty big too... and some chronological implications may come with that, too.

Huh? But he can't 'derive back' (i.e. reconstruct) the protolanguage from which both Altaic and Sino-Tibetan descend, because there never was such a language. Or at least, not for tens of thousands of years.

Of course, but it's not supposed to be Proto-Tibeto-Altaic but a modern-day language (isolate?) that has some kind of ancient relation to both Altaic and Sino-Tibetan languages in such a way that if its relationship with them was evaluated, it couldn't be conclusively connected to one or the other. I guess in practice it's a mixed language regardless of how I go about it, but the mixing would've had to go back to at least Proto-Altaic and Proto-Sino-Tibetan times, and at the very least have one (unconstructed) a priori substrate language muddling things up.

What do you mean 'chronologically consistent between proto-languages'?

While Proto-Altaic and Proto-Sino-Tibetan may have been spoken around the same time, obviously Proto-Sino-Tibetan and Proto-Tibeto-Burman weren't. I'm deriving a lot of the language's vocabulary from Proto-Tibeto-Burman but use the same sound changes as from Proto-Sino-Tibetan, but also different reconstructions of Proto-Sino-Tibetan with slightly different sound changes.

Examples of both:
A) Long vowels get broken up into two identical vowels separated by /ɣ/ in vocabulary derived from both Proto-Sino-Tibetan and Proto-Tibeto-Burman.
B) I'm deriving /fəj/ from <*phj> in Coblin's reconstruction of PST but /p/ from <*phj> in Starostin's reconstruction of PST.

I suppose A doesn't require that much justification, but what about B? It's not like there are many words with <*phj> in the first place so maybe I could just handwave it, but if in the future I end up having more different sound changes from different reconstructions... well, is it at all naturalistic without one group being conically loanwords or whatever?

[LinguistCat]

Thank you for clearing things up Vlürch. This sounds like an interesting project.

[Ahzoh]

What's the nature/relationship of names with regards to the grammar of a language? Like, how would they work if the name is still transparent in meaning?

For example, if there was a name like the Akkadian names Šamaš-šuma-ukin "Shamash has established an heir" and Nabû-kudurri-uṣur "O god Nabu, preserve/defend my firstborn son". How would such names, which are basically entire sentences, work grammatically in the sentence?

And if a language had case, how could the case interact with such a name? If the component of the name had case, would it need suffixnauhme?

I'm having troubles coming up with names because I can't figure out how they'll interact with the syntax.