Zompist Bboard Again

how does w > m /_u look?

I want to start working on a totally new language family, preferably something quite shallow so I can explore dialect variation more easily (which is one of the things I used to enjoy most about conlanging, but recently most of my projects have been very deep families where if I went into detail on ...

Japanese has a penchant for pervasively, even perversely, abbreviating common English borrowings down to three or four morae. Snowboard(ing) becoming sunobo (from sunooboodo), smartphone > sumaho (from sumaatohon), American football > amefuto (from amerika no futtobaaru). This is also done with Sin...

sinitic quebec french or something /pʰ tʰ kʰ ʔ/ /b̥ d̥ g̊/ /f s ʂ x ʁ/ /m n ɲ ŋ/ / r j/ /i y u/ / ɪ ʏ ʊ/ /e ø o/ / ɛ ɵ ~ ə ɔ/ /æ a/ /i˞ ɨ˞/ /e˞ o˞/ / ɵ˞/ /æ˞ a˞/ Syllable structure: (C)CV(ʔ, ɴ), where ɴ is a moraic nasal. Stress: left-aligned iambs major allophones: tʰ d̥ kʰ g̊ ʂ x > tsʰ dz̥ c ɟ̊ ɕ...

By the way, although I just noticed the Wikipedia article on Japanese phonology says nothing about vowel quality allophones, as a Spanish speaker I notice the Japanese /a/ is sometimes very retracted to something like [ɑ ɒ]. And I notice this because sometimes I can't tell whether a speaker is sayi...

That’s the conclusion I came to as well. (You’ll note that I always transcribe my /e o/ as [e̟ o̟].) Hmm, perhaps what I'm calling [o] is indeed closer to [o̞]. Of course, these are vague phonetic targets to begin with, not exact points as the IPA might imply. Anyway, here's a recording of me (atte...

Well, both [ u] and [ ʊ] are plainly distinct for me as an English speaker, and naively, neither sound remotely close to e.g. Spanish or Japanese [o]. If I didn't know any linguistics, I don't think I'd classify these vowels as similar at all. I too feel like I've heard Mandarin speakers with [o] i...

Nortaneous wrote: ↑Sat Mar 27, 2021 10:51 am Root-Controlled Accent in Cupeño?

Yes! Thank you! edit: actually, it appears I was thinking of Cupeño Stress Shift: Diachronic Perspectives, but anyway you got the language right.

kodé wrote: ↑Fri Mar 26, 2021 9:40 pm [
I’m guessing the language might be Copala Triqui?

I don't think so; I was 80% sure the language was Cubeo, but after searching the paper hasn't come up.

Well, I'm starting this thread because I'm looking for a specific paper that I can't seem to find. It was on the lexical pitch-accent system of either a Central or South American language, whose name I believe started with a 'c'. Unfortunately I can't remember for the life of me what the language wa...

Time for something new or not yet? If so, I suggest the following text: Hito ha nanika no gisei nashi ni nanimo eru koto ha dekinai. [çi̥to wa nanʲika no gʲiseː naɕi nʲi nanʲimo eɾɯᵝ koto wa dekʲinai] Nanika wo eru tame ni ha, doutou no daika ga hitsuyou ni naru. [nanʲika o eɾɯᵝ tame nʲi wa | doːto...

Ĕza iñ žawir zboža baveḱa žaǯu žiǯo̬. E̬ ʒaḱ mda šeja aḱ gaǵi šme bacop swi čă. ['ezə 'iɲ 'ʒoawɪr 'zbuoʒə bə'βiecə ʒə'd͡ʒuː ʒɪ'd͡ʒɔː || 'ɛː 'd͡zac 'mdoa 'ʃejə 'ac gə'ɟiː ʃme bə't͡sop swɪ 't͡ʃa] iñ, ǯe, če, pizvaji, be̬ [ˈiɲ ˈd͡ʒie ˈt͡ʃie pɪz'βoajɪ 'bɛː] This language has reached, frankly, absurd le...

I'd like to add in the rest of the PIE numbers (swéḱs septḿ̥ h₃eḱtṓw h₁néwn̥ déḱm̥t ḱm̥tóm) but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the tone stuff in the first couple of posts tbh As per mine and Nort's changes, *swéḱs *septḿ̥ *h₃eḱtṓw *h₁néwn̥ *déḱm̥t *ḱm̥tóm should become swéś(s) septóm aś...

h₂ólyoes ǵʰmónes h₁léwdʰeroes somHóeskʷe gʷr̥Htóteh₂ti h₃r̥ǵtúsukʷe ǵn̥h₁yóntor. éybʰos dh₃tóy ménos ḱḗrkʷe h₁stés h₂énteroeykʷe sm̥h₂éleyes bʰréh₂tr̥bʰos swé h₂éǵoyh₁n̥t. I know next to nothing about early IE diachronics, or what would really be plausible here, so let's just take this somewhere un...

Otto Kretschmer wrote: ↑Sun Mar 21, 2021 2:37 pm I wonder whether there could be a Portuguese or Dutch settlement in Japan before 1600 with the language surviving until the present day?

That's a very real possibility, if history had gone a bit differently. I... might actually have to explore that as an alt-history set up

@Otto Kretschmer

Can we add texts of our own to be evolved, or would you like to be the sole arbiter of that duty? I have a particular text I think would be interesting for the next round.

I appreciate the thorough reply, but this part of the analysis more or less convinces me that the analysis is wrong. That is, "zero cats" certainly does not make an assertion about the null set Ø. Actually, I think it does, at least in the context priscianic is discussing. Certainly if I ...

Ok, here's my list. Languages I've actually tried to learn: As I mentioned above, the language I've studied the most by far is Japanese. I'm actually embarrassingly rusty at this point (I've barely spoken the language in the past year). I first decided I wanted to learn Japanese when I was about 11 ...

Epperiense, vow naon awttawritey Wair in vih woart wair riih inowh tow mey Tow payh oaw wow vah ih in mæriait Foar lordinga, sih ie twai yair wah ow ait... [ɛpʰˈpʰɛj.ri.ɛ̃.sə voː nɔ̃w ɔːtˈtɔː.ri.teː] [wɛ:ʴ ĩ viː wɔʴːt wɛ:ʴ riːç i'noːh toː meː] [toː pʰɛːç ɔː woː vaː iː ĩ mæ.riˈɛːt ] [fɔʴː 'loʴ.dĩ.ga...

Of course, I'm sure most people on this board would say they're interested in all languages to some degree or another. Still, it seems many people have particular languages or families they've dedicated an especially large amount of study to (whether learning to speak the language(s), or just studyi...