Help With Sound Changes
- Arayaz
- roman
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Help With Sound Changes
Hello!
I was hoping to get some suggestions for sound changes in my new language. Sound change has always been the hardest part for me; I just never really have ideas.
Here's the phonology:
Stops: /p b t d k g q/ <p b t d k g q>
Nasals: /m n/ <m n> plus /ŋ ɴ/ as allophones of /n/ before velar and uvular consonants respectively
Fricatives: /f s ʃ x/ <f s sh ch> and the uvular fricative <kh>, which it won't let me type for some reason.
Liquids: /l j w/ <l y w>
Vowels: /i u e o a ɑ/ <i u e o ä a>
Syllable structure: CCVC
Illegal sequences: /wu/, /wo/, /uw/, /ji/
So far, I have some sound change ideas, but the words don't change very much, and I need help.
I was hoping to get some suggestions for sound changes in my new language. Sound change has always been the hardest part for me; I just never really have ideas.
Here's the phonology:
Stops: /p b t d k g q/ <p b t d k g q>
Nasals: /m n/ <m n> plus /ŋ ɴ/ as allophones of /n/ before velar and uvular consonants respectively
Fricatives: /f s ʃ x/ <f s sh ch> and the uvular fricative <kh>, which it won't let me type for some reason.
Liquids: /l j w/ <l y w>
Vowels: /i u e o a ɑ/ <i u e o ä a>
Syllable structure: CCVC
Illegal sequences: /wu/, /wo/, /uw/, /ji/
So far, I have some sound change ideas, but the words don't change very much, and I need help.
Proud member of the myopic-trans-southerner-Viossa-girl-with-two-cats-who-joined-on-September-6th-2022 gang
Ruykkarraber languages, Izre, Ngama, Areyaxi languages, ???, 2c2ef0
my garbage
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Ruykkarraber languages, Izre, Ngama, Areyaxi languages, ???, 2c2ef0
my garbage
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Re: Help With Sound Changes
What do you want to have after the sound changes?
Ideas that came to my mind without thinking:
Geminated stops become ejectives
pp tt kk qq -> p' t' k' q'
Palatalization of alveolars before /i/
t -> c etc.
Ideas that came to my mind without thinking:
Geminated stops become ejectives
pp tt kk qq -> p' t' k' q'
Palatalization of alveolars before /i/
t -> c etc.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
Re: Help With Sound Changes
Can you give us a set of say like 20 example words? Also a lot of the change between languages is grammatical or derivational. There are quite a few words that are more or less identical between Spanish, Sardinian and Italian. If you need ideas you can hit up the Index Diachronica.Üdj wrote: ↑14 Sep 2022 00:09 Hello!
I was hoping to get some suggestions for sound changes in my new language. Sound change has always been the hardest part for me; I just never really have ideas.
Here's the phonology:
Stops: /p b t d k g q/ <p b t d k g q>
Nasals: /m n/ <m n> plus /ŋ ɴ/ as allophones of /n/ before velar and uvular consonants respectively
Fricatives: /f s ʃ x/ <f s sh ch> and the uvular fricative <kh>, which it won't let me type for some reason.
Liquids: /l j w/ <l y w>
Vowels: /i u e o a ɑ/ <i u e o ä a>
Syllable structure: CCVC
Illegal sequences: /wu/, /wo/, /uw/, /ji/
So far, I have some sound change ideas, but the words don't change very much, and I need help.
Spoiler:
- Arayaz
- roman
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- Joined: 07 Sep 2022 00:24
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Re: Help With Sound Changes
Here are some example proto-words:
äqste ['aq.ste]
tachwa ['tɑ.xwɑ]
manqeli [maɴ.'qe.li]
läkh [lax] *the x in this word is supposed to be the uvular fricative, but for some reason, the CBB forum's text boxes just turn that character into x.
eyeta [e.'je.tɑ]
geshalä [ge.'ʃɑ.la]
ngafu ['ŋgɑ.fu]
äqste ['aq.ste]
tachwa ['tɑ.xwɑ]
manqeli [maɴ.'qe.li]
läkh [lax] *the x in this word is supposed to be the uvular fricative, but for some reason, the CBB forum's text boxes just turn that character into x.
eyeta [e.'je.tɑ]
geshalä [ge.'ʃɑ.la]
ngafu ['ŋgɑ.fu]
Proud member of the myopic-trans-southerner-Viossa-girl-with-two-cats-who-joined-on-September-6th-2022 gang
Ruykkarraber languages, Izre, Ngama, Areyaxi languages, ???, 2c2ef0
my garbage
she/her
Ruykkarraber languages, Izre, Ngama, Areyaxi languages, ???, 2c2ef0
my garbage
she/her
Re: Help With Sound Changes
Known phpBB problem, you can make it a capital 'X' if it becomes a problem. Do you have an idea of the inventory and phonotactics you want to end up with? I'm noticing that your words primarily have penultimate stress, and are mostly disyllables. Do you have an idea of the derivational morphology of the protolanguage?Üdj wrote: ↑14 Sep 2022 04:13 Here are some example proto-words:
äqste ['aq.ste]
tachwa ['tɑ.xwɑ]
manqeli [maɴ.'qe.li]
läkh [lax] *the x in this word is supposed to be the uvular fricative, but for some reason, the CBB forum's text boxes just turn that character into x.
eyeta [e.'je.tɑ]
geshalä [ge.'ʃɑ.la]
ngafu ['ŋgɑ.fu]
(Also you can DM me a larger list of proto-words. A lot of changes only become evident when you see close words diverge, and distant words converge)
Spoiler:
- Arayaz
- roman
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Re: Help With Sound Changes
Some ideas I had for the new phonology:
- Irregular stress is very fun; contrastive stress is even better.
- It might be nice to turn [ŋ] and [ɴ] from allophones of /n/ into true phonemes.
- I definitely want a fun new vowel system; if I could trigger length somehow, I could raise long vowels and get ɛ and ɔ.
- Irregular stress is very fun; contrastive stress is even better.
- It might be nice to turn [ŋ] and [ɴ] from allophones of /n/ into true phonemes.
- I definitely want a fun new vowel system; if I could trigger length somehow, I could raise long vowels and get ɛ and ɔ.
Proud member of the myopic-trans-southerner-Viossa-girl-with-two-cats-who-joined-on-September-6th-2022 gang
Ruykkarraber languages, Izre, Ngama, Areyaxi languages, ???, 2c2ef0
my garbage
she/her
Ruykkarraber languages, Izre, Ngama, Areyaxi languages, ???, 2c2ef0
my garbage
she/her
- eldin raigmore
- korean
- Posts: 6352
- Joined: 14 Aug 2010 19:38
- Location: SouthEast Michigan
Re: Help With Sound Changes
I cannot pronounce [ɴ] .
I cannot imagine both [ŋ] and [ɴ] co-occurring in the same phoneme inventory together except as allophones of each other.
I assume it’s attested in some natlang; is it? Does anyone have some examples?
But I can easily imagine neither one being an allophone of /n/.
To me your ideas seem feasible, as long as I’m not the one trying to “feas” them.
What would you hope to accomplish by adding two or so new consonant phonemes and two or so new vowel phonemes?
Technically I suppose “I just want to” is entirely acceptable as an explanation; and technically whatever your explanation, you don’t have to wait on anyone else to accept it.
But usually a conlanger like you seem to be, does have something in mind. Or so I think.
If you don’t, though, you’re in good company, along with e.g. Martin Luther’s preface to his translation of Romans.
My minicity is http://gonabebig1day.myminicity.com/xml
- VaptuantaDoi
- roman
- Posts: 1067
- Joined: 18 Nov 2019 07:35
Re: Help With Sound Changes
Greenlandiceldin raigmore wrote: ↑14 Sep 2022 21:52I cannot pronounce [ɴ] .
I cannot imagine both [ŋ] and [ɴ] co-occurring in the same phoneme inventory together except as allophones of each other.
I assume it’s attested in some natlang; is it? Does anyone have some examples?
Re: Help With Sound Changes
The first thing is to reiterate that words don't have to all look totally different. Changes in grammar, lexical replacement (and semantic shift), and small but systematic sound shifts can yield languages with very different feels. In practice, lots of words can continue to look very similar across thousands of years of evolution!Üdj wrote: ↑14 Sep 2022 04:13 Here are some example proto-words:
äqste ['aq.ste]
tachwa ['tɑ.xwɑ]
manqeli [maɴ.'qe.li]
läkh [lax] *the x in this word is supposed to be the uvular fricative, but for some reason, the CBB forum's text boxes just turn that character into x.
eyeta [e.'je.tɑ]
geshalä [ge.'ʃɑ.la]
ngafu ['ŋgɑ.fu]
Famously, there are sentences that are identical in spelling (though slightly different in pronunciation) in English and Afrikans, despite nearly two thousand years of divergent evolution between them:
My pen was in my hand
My hand was in warm water
If we compare the words to the original Proto-Germanic:
my < PGmc mi:naz
hand < handuz
was < was
in < in
warm < warmaz
water < wato:r
pen < Latin penna
As you can see, these words have barely changed! Particularly when you realise the -az ending was probably entirely lost by West Germanic (the latest ancestory of English and Afrikaans) nearly two thousand years ago. [the -uz had lost its -z, though the -u stayed around a little longer, at least in English]
Even more extreme is a sentence like: In mare irato, in subita procella, invoco Te, nostra benigna Stella. This sentence is exactly the same in Latin and in Italian.
[indeed, even when sound changes or replacement do alter individual words, languages can retain very similar phonologies overall. That's how we end up with sentences like I vitelli dei romani sono belli, which have valid translations in both Italian and Latin despite the words being mostly unrelated historically (in Italian it means "the calves of the Romans are beautiful", whereas in Latin it means "Go, Vitellius, to the sound of the Roman war god!").]
So conlangers shouldn't worry too much about totally changing all or most of the words in a language - at least unless they're attempting a very-long-timedepth language family!
That said, a few small changes CAN radically change the appearance of words and the feel of a language quite quickly. In that spirit, here's your wordlist in two daughter languages:
(I'm not suggesting these are particularly great sound changes or interesting daughter languages, just plausible pathways to quite different locations)
Idea one:
Spoiler:
tɑ:w
ma:qew
la:
ɛ:ad
gʒɑw
ŋɔf
Idea two:
Spoiler:
tòfu
màgelja
là
étu
kéala
gofi
- Arayaz
- roman
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Re: Help With Sound Changes
Thanks for everyone's help! This is such good advice and will be so useful. (Also, that Italian - Latin thing is very funny.)
Proud member of the myopic-trans-southerner-Viossa-girl-with-two-cats-who-joined-on-September-6th-2022 gang
Ruykkarraber languages, Izre, Ngama, Areyaxi languages, ???, 2c2ef0
my garbage
she/her
Ruykkarraber languages, Izre, Ngama, Areyaxi languages, ???, 2c2ef0
my garbage
she/her
Re: Help With Sound Changes
/q/ and uvular /x/ could be a nice source of changes in the vowels, e.g. /i u e o a ɑ/ > [ɪ ʊ̙ ɛ ɔ ɑ ɑ] when adjacent to the uvulars within the same syllable:
['aq.ste] > ['ɑq.ste]
[maɴ.'qe.li] > [mɑɴ.'qɛ.li]
[lax] > [lɑx]
This could then be followed by two changes, 1) vowels lengthen before coda /x/ (both the uvular and the velar one), and 2) all of coda /q x x/ (uvular a velar) are dropped, giving:
['aq.ste] > ['ɑ.ste]
[maɴ.'qe.li] > [mɑɴ.'qɛ.li]
[lax] > [lɑ:] (something like <läch>, with the velar fricative, would give [la:] instead
That gives you a phonemic distinction between long as short /i u e o a ɪ ʊ̙ ɛ ɔ ɑ/. After that, you could collapse the vowel system down, e.g.:
/i: u: e: o: a: ɪ: ʊ̙: ɛ: ɔ: ɑ:/ > /i: u: e: o: a: e: o: ɛ: ɔ: ɑ:/
/i u e o a ɪ ʊ̙ ɛ ɔ ɑ/ > /i u e o ɛ e o ɛ a a/
['ɑ.ste] > ['a.ste]
[mɑɴ.'qɛ.li] > [maɴ.'qɛ.li]
[lɑ:] > [lɑ:] ([la:] > [la:])
The majority of your words will probably look the same after this, but it does give you the the option to play around with some fun morphology, like, say, a dative case that appears as a suffix -/q/ that, due to these changes, instead surfaces as a vowel alternation in the daughter languages ['aq.ste] > ['a.ste] vs. ['aq.steq] > ['a.stɛ], and you get a handful of vowel mergers in there as well, which can always be fun
['aq.ste] > ['ɑq.ste]
[maɴ.'qe.li] > [mɑɴ.'qɛ.li]
[lax] > [lɑx]
This could then be followed by two changes, 1) vowels lengthen before coda /x/ (both the uvular and the velar one), and 2) all of coda /q x x/ (uvular a velar) are dropped, giving:
['aq.ste] > ['ɑ.ste]
[maɴ.'qe.li] > [mɑɴ.'qɛ.li]
[lax] > [lɑ:] (something like <läch>, with the velar fricative, would give [la:] instead
That gives you a phonemic distinction between long as short /i u e o a ɪ ʊ̙ ɛ ɔ ɑ/. After that, you could collapse the vowel system down, e.g.:
/i: u: e: o: a: ɪ: ʊ̙: ɛ: ɔ: ɑ:/ > /i: u: e: o: a: e: o: ɛ: ɔ: ɑ:/
/i u e o a ɪ ʊ̙ ɛ ɔ ɑ/ > /i u e o ɛ e o ɛ a a/
['ɑ.ste] > ['a.ste]
[mɑɴ.'qɛ.li] > [maɴ.'qɛ.li]
[lɑ:] > [lɑ:] ([la:] > [la:])
The majority of your words will probably look the same after this, but it does give you the the option to play around with some fun morphology, like, say, a dative case that appears as a suffix -/q/ that, due to these changes, instead surfaces as a vowel alternation in the daughter languages ['aq.ste] > ['a.ste] vs. ['aq.steq] > ['a.stɛ], and you get a handful of vowel mergers in there as well, which can always be fun
You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.
Re: Help With Sound Changes
Here's the couple of things that I've doneÜdj wrote: ↑14 Sep 2022 13:50 Some ideas I had for the new phonology:
- Irregular stress is very fun; contrastive stress is even better.
- It might be nice to turn [ŋ] and [ɴ] from allophones of /n/ into true phonemes.
- I definitely want a fun new vowel system; if I could trigger length somehow, I could raise long vowels and get ɛ and ɔ.
Spoiler:
Admittedly not too much has changed, but with a similar level of lexical and grammatical change, the language would likely be unintelligible to the speakers of the proto-language
Spoiler:
- eldin raigmore
- korean
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- Location: SouthEast Michigan
Re: Help With Sound Changes
I’d rather do without the uvular nasal but include the palatal nasal.I cannot imagine both [ŋ] and [ɴ] co-occurring in the same phoneme inventory together except as allophones of each other.
I assume it’s attested in some natlang; is it? Does anyone have some examples?
Greenlandic
Just because I can pronounce bilabial & alveolar & palatal & velar nasals, but not uvular nasals.
But it looks like Greenlandic does have the nasal phonemes Üdj has been proposing!
Thanks, Vaptuandoi!
Last edited by eldin raigmore on 16 Sep 2022 21:38, edited 2 times in total.
My minicity is http://gonabebig1day.myminicity.com/xml
Re: Help With Sound Changes
I don't see a problem in /N/.
If /nd/ -> /n/, /ng/ -> //, the old coda /n/ could be pushed to /N/ when not followed by a stop.
If /nd/ -> /n/, /ng/ -> //, the old coda /n/ could be pushed to /N/ when not followed by a stop.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
-
- greek
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Re: Help With Sound Changes
Mapos Buang, some dialects of Bai (PDF), and it's alleged for some Sino-Tibetan varieties spoken in/around Tibet but that's all preliminary fieldwork so who knows.eldin raigmore wrote: ↑14 Sep 2022 21:52 I cannot pronounce [ɴ] .
I cannot imagine both [ŋ] and [ɴ] co-occurring in the same phoneme inventory together except as allophones of each other.
I assume it’s attested in some natlang; is it? Does anyone have some examples?
Re: Help With Sound Changes
non-syllabic /u/ or /w/ become /p/ or /k/ when found in the coda of a syllable. non-syllabic /i/ or /j/ become /k/ (if u>p) or /c/ (if u>k)
ajta > /akta/ or /acta/
sausu > /sapsu/ or /saksu/
ajta > /akta/ or /acta/
sausu > /sapsu/ or /saksu/