Zompist Bboard Again

Thanks for your insights and great advices, Bob! I wish you well with your Pakuni conlang project! I'm impressed by how much you've achieved in the study of human history, languages and writing systems. I too believe that enthusiasm and devotion towards the subject (and of course, hard work) is an e...

Hello everyone, I'm a beginner conlanger and I'm looking for some help with my first conlang. If you're interested, you can find the details below. Kilikili So, how far did you end up getting with this? Is there some website now where we can see the finished project? Want any help from me? I'm also...

It’s great to hear you’re still working on this! I look forward to seeing what you’ve done when you post it here. I realized that I can't do anything reasonable without a solid proto-language, so now I'm focusing on it. I've decided on the exact phonetic inventory and syllable structure, and I'm wo...

Aha, I see. How is your project going? Slowly, but steadily :) Btw, sorry for disappearing for so long, real life things happened that ate up my time, so the project will proceed in a much slower pace. I realized that I can't do anything reasonable without a solid proto-language, so now I'm focusin...

I have two questions: Under what realistic conditions can fricatives become related stops (or nasals)? Examples: f → p, s → t, x → k. I want to get rid of most of the fricatives in my conlang somehow but I was told that an unconditional change into stops is very unlikely. I think youve found your s...

Under what realistic conditions can fricatives become related stops (or nasals)? Examples: f → p, s → t, x → k. I want to get rid of most of the fricatives in my conlang somehow but I was told that an unconditional change into stops is very unlikely. You can get away with it, particularly with inte...

Thank you very much for the help! You've given me some great ideas I can work with.

I have two questions: Under what realistic conditions can fricatives become related stops (or nasals)? Examples: f → p, s → t, x → k. I want to get rid of most of the fricatives in my conlang somehow but I was told that an unconditional change into stops is very unlikely. Suppose that I want to intr...

Fricatives, except for /ɬ~ɮ/, became stops It is very weird for all fricatives (or even most of them) to become stops, unconditionally . In our world, fricativelessness is an extremely uncommon areal feature confined mainly to Australia. Either make this change conditional, or exclude some more fri...

Sound changes for consonants (still very uncertain): These look much more interesting than what I usually come up with! But I do have a couple of critiques: Fricatives, except for /ɬ~ɮ/, became stops It is very weird for all fricatives (or even most of them) to become stops, unconditionally . In ou...

Sound changes for consonants (still very uncertain): Fricatives, except for /ɬ~ɮ/, became stops Retroflexes palatalize before front unrounded vowels ( i , e ), merge with alveolars anywhere else (/ʈ~ɖ/ -> t, /t~d/ -> d introduces voicing contrast) Palatalization of /ɬ~ɮ/: /ɬ~ɮ/ -> /ɕ~ʑ/ before i and...

Just posting some consonant charts. I'm still not satisfied with the logic of sound-changes I've came up with, so I'll write about them later. Proto-language (no phonemic voicing contrast; sounds in parentheses are under consideration): Consonants Bilabial Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Glo...

Looks great! I don’t think I’ve seen a conlang with vowel harmony before, so it’s nice to see that you’ve worked that out in detail. Some other conlangs with vowel harmony by ZBBers: - Vædty Qys, by akam chinjir (first conlang in his scratchpad ) [sporadic backness-based harmony] - Dasaro , by DePa...

Looks great! I don’t think I’ve seen a conlang with vowel harmony before, so it’s nice to see that you’ve worked that out in detail. I do have one critique though: it is very, very odd to have a language with /ɯ/ but not /u/. Unconditional /ɯ/ → /u/ as a sound change is also unrealistic, so I would...

-velar vs. uvular plosives: [k]-[q], [g]-[ɢ], [x]-[X] and [ɣ]-[ʁ]. I can pronounce the velars more back in my throat but they doesn't sound very different. Also, I wouldn't be able to tell them apart if I hear them in speech. Maybe I'm just not used to this distinction yet, idk. for uvular, use the...

Vowel-harmony Proto-language: Vowels are grouped by backness and roundedness Back vowels: a , o , ı , u , front vowels: e , ö , i , ü Unrounded vowels: a , e , ı , i , rounded vowels: o , ö , u , ü A morpheme contains all-front or all-back vowels, but roundedness can mix Vowels in an affix must agr...

Romanization I'll follow the turkish notation, because I think that's the most logical for this system: a /ä/, o /o̞/, e /e̞/, ö /ø̞/, ı /ɯ/, u /u/, i /i/, ü /y/ and ō /ə/. Note that you get the front version of a back vowel by adding diacritic (umlaut or tittle) to it. Since e is not exactly the f...

Phonetics General CV(C) syllable structure (more about this later) Stress is always on the first syllable of the root Agglutinative morphology, lots of suffixes Vowels Progressive, stem-controlled, backness vowel-harmony (plus a secondary roundedness agreement of affixes, as in hungarian) No diphth...

The two things I struggled the most with recently: -velar vs. uvular plosives: [k]-[q], [g]-[ɢ], [x]-[X] and [ɣ]-[ʁ]. I can pronounce the velars more back in my throat but they doesn't sound very different. Also, I wouldn't be able to tell them apart if I hear them in speech. Maybe I'm just not use...

As a start, I'd like to follow the steps described in this series of videos by Biblaridion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHK1gO2Mh68&list=PL6xPxnYMQpqsooCDYtQQSiD2O3YO0b2nN In short, the steps are: phonology (+syllable structure), syntax, grammar and lexicon (then phonological evolution, gra...