The CBB Makes a conlang

[ɶʙ ɞʛ]

What about diphthongs?

Probably they can emerge from vowel hiatus.

Maybe also this, since plenty of languages already do something similar:

β > ʉ̯ V_C
ʁ > ɐ̯ V_C

Some might produce monophthongs instead:
oβ > u:
aʁ > a:
əʁ > ɜ:

[Kijetesantakalu042]

SYNTAX TIME

Don't we need phonotactics first?

[WizardOfWar]

SYNTAX TIME

Don't we need phonotactics first?

Oh yeah, Forgor

[Omzinesý]

can we all clarify what conlang we want to create? Artlang, auxlang or engelang? A priori or a posterori? Analytic, synthetic or polysynthetic? Fusional, agglutinative or isolating? And how our conlang will look?

/h~f/ because it's rare in conlangs, I like it and it's naturalistic.

How about making /h~f/ contrast with one of /h̪͆/, /ɸ/ or /θ̼/? Any one of these three can be chosen, or more than one in allophony.

I most like the first.

My submission will be /h̪͆/ then, unless someone objects.

What is it?

[Arayaz]

My submission will be /h̪͆/ then, unless someone objects.

What is it?

A bidental fricative, produced as /h/ but with the teeth touching each other.

[Egerius]

My submission will be /h̪͆/ then, unless someone objects.

What is it?

A bidental fricative, produced as /h/ but with the teeth touching each other.

Is that going to be a language for rodents with oversized front teeth?
Rodentèrra already exists.

[VaptuantaDoi]

*p t k̟ k̠
*b d g̟ g̠
*s x̠
*m n ŋ̠
*r


k̟ k̠ g̟ g̠ → k~tʃ q dʒ ɢ
p b → f β
d dʒ → ð ʒ
s → ɬ
ð ʒ → θ ʃ
x̠ → χ → h̪͆
ŋ̠ → ɴ
r → ʁ

That's almost sensible

[Arayaz]

*p t k̟ k̠
*b d g̟ g̠
*s x̠
*m n ŋ̠
*r


k̟ k̠ g̟ g̠ → k~tʃ q dʒ ɢ
p b → f β
d dʒ → ð ʒ
s → ɬ
ð ʒ → θ ʃ
x̠ → χ → h̪͆
ŋ̠ → ɴ
r → ʁ

That's almost sensible

Hey, yeah!

Perhaps we should work by making proto-words and evolving them through this. Though I'd wanna throw some juicy conditionality in there. I question *χ → h̪͆ a bit but, what can ya do

For a name, I propose *sibibi, which by these sound changes becomes a modern Livivi /ɬiβiβi/, though of course it would be something else with some conditional sound changes.

Perhaps *s had advanced and retracted realizations too, by environment ─ the retracted one, an allophone possibly realized as [ʂ] that occurred around dorsal consonants and /i/, becomes modern [ʃ].

And maybe *b was actually lenited to something like [m] intervocalically in unstressed syllables (with parallels for *d *g̟ *g̠, of course). Then, with penultimate stress (though that, too, is up for debate), we get /ʃiβimi/ Sivimi.

[VaptuantaDoi]

I question *χ → h̪͆ a bit but, what can ya do

In the one natlang which has /h̪͆/, it evolved from /x/, idk how but it did.

[TBPO]

Two symbols are unavailable on my claviature, so I'll write them as T and N.

Edit: You'll forgot vowels when making sound changes...

[YoungConlanger]

IMO I think /a i ə o/ structure is not super stable, after all /o/ is the only back vowel (in the first phonology at least) & damn close to [ ə ], & humans AFAIK like to make sounds as easy to distinguish as possible, so they get as different as possible. Why don't we turn /o/ into /u/? [ u ] is farther from [ ə ], so they're more distinguishable. If you don't want to abandon the sound [ o ], then [ u ] can be an allophone, & the phoneme will become /o~u/.

My suggestion:
If we say only [ u ] stays:
o > u / everywhere
If we say both stay:
o > u / if after q ɢ ʁ ɴ h h̪͆ or other vowels

[Arayaz]

IMO I think /a i ə o/ structure is not super stable, after all /o/ is the only back vowel (in the first phonology at least) & damn close to [ ə ], & humans AFAIK like to make sounds as easy to distinguish as possible, so they get as different as possible. Why don't we turn /o/ into /u/? [ u ] is farther from [ ə ], so they're more distinguishable. If you don't want to abandon the sound [ o ], then [ u ] can be an allophone, & the phoneme will become /o~u/.

My suggestion:
If we say only [ u ] stays:
o > u / everywhere
If we say both stay:
o > u / if after q ɢ ʁ ɴ h h̪͆ or other vowels

[ə] and [o] aren't that close ─ no closer than [ə] and [a], surely.

Now, precisely because we have a smaller vowel system, the vowels will have wide ranges of allophones. (Relevant.) So /o ~ u/ is actually quite likely.

I'm a fan of this as allophonic ranges go:
/a/: [a æ] (low unrounded)
/ə/: [ə e ɛ] (mid unrounded)
/i/: [i ɨ ɯ] (high unrounded)
/o/: [o u ø ɒ] (rounded)

[Omzinesý]

My submission will be /h̪͆/ then, unless someone objects.

What is it?

A bidental fricative, produced as /h/ but with the teeth touching each other.

OK
Sounds exotic

[Arayaz]

OK
Sounds exotic

It's found in exactly one dialect of Adyghe, corresponding to /x/ in others. No clue how it got there.

[HolyHandGrenade!]

IMO I think /a i ə o/ structure is not super stable, after all /o/ is the only back vowel (in the first phonology at least) & damn close to [ ə ], & humans AFAIK like to make sounds as easy to distinguish as possible, so they get as different as possible. Why don't we turn /o/ into /u/? [ u ] is farther from [ ə ], so they're more distinguishable. If you don't want to abandon the sound [ o ], then [ u ] can be an allophone, & the phoneme will become /o~u/.

My suggestion:
If we say only [ u ] stays:
o > u / everywhere
If we say both stay:
o > u / if after q ɢ ʁ ɴ h h̪͆ or other vowels

What about /i a ɑ u/, where ə > ɑ? Get a vowel in each corner. We could have one rounded vowel with /u~o/ or two if we wanted to go /ɑ~ɔ/.

[Arayaz]

I'm not a huge fan of an /a ɑ/ contrast in a four-vowel system, though I suppose we have worse contrasts here

[VaptuantaDoi]

/i ɨ o a/ is fairly well attested, so we might say that /ə o/ are [ɨ~ə ʊ~o~ɔ], i.e. /i ə/ are phonological high vowels in opposition to /a o/. Some Eastern Abenaki dialects do apparently have /i ə o a/ but I'm not sure about allophony. Here's a very bludgey tabulation of my ideas:

Code: Select all

           LAB  COR   DORSAL
                     frnt back
     plos.       t   k~tʃ  q
OBST stri.  h̪͆    θ    ʃ    ʁ
     fric.  β    ɬ         h
NASAL       m    n         ɴ

       FRNT CTRL BACK
HIGH    i    ə
NONH         a    o

I know /h̪͆/ isn't labial but just don't look at that bit of the table

[TBPO]

Ok, so what now?

[VaptuantaDoi]

Usually at this stage I give up and move on to a new project.

[Omzinesý]

Maybe people could suggest example words from which we could derive phonotactics and maybe some phonetic rules.