Conlang Random Thread

[Whimemsz]

Biblical Hebrew had all of /p ħ ʕ kʼ/--and [ɣ] counting begadkefet. My guess would be Akkadian.

And there's a strong suspicion that ayin additionally represented a phoneme like [ɣ] in words like the name of Gaza down to the time of the Septuagint.

Yes, Biblical Hebrew probably retained PS /x ɣ/ for a long time, but since Phoenician had merged these with /ħ ʕ/ early on (before the development of the alphabet), BH speakers had no way to write them separately, so they were just written with ayin and khet.

[Richard W]

Yes, Biblical Hebrew probably retained PS /x ɣ/ for a long time, but since Phoenician had merged these with /ħ ʕ/ early on (before the development of the alphabet), BH speakers had no way to write them separately, so they were just written with ayin and khet.

And the written distinction of sin and shin is quite late.

[Zaarin]

Biblical Hebrew had all of /p ħ ʕ kʼ/--and [ɣ] counting begadkefet. My guess would be Akkadian.

And there's a strong suspicion that ayin additionally represented a phoneme like [ɣ] in words like the name of Gaza down to the time of the Septuagint.

Yes, I recall reading that as an explanation for place names like Gomorrah instead of the expected Omorrah.

[Qwynegold]

I actually had the same feeling! But if we look like at all the world's languages, I wonder how many have problems with e.g. mn, ŋm, ŋt, ms?

Some of these I think are pretty common in languages that allow CC clusters. I've heard each of these in non-IE languages at some point. ŋm is even a phoneme (albeit not a cluster, but a co-articulation) in west Africa.

Okay, thanks! I'll think through these again.

[bradrn]

Is it plausible to have /ʔ/ but not /h/?

[akam chinjir]

Phoible has 849 languages with ʔ of which 213 lack h. Seems common enough.

[bradrn]

Phoible has 849 languages with ʔ of which 213 lack h. Seems common enough.

Thanks! I checked on PHOIBLE but couldn't figure out any way of comparing two segments - can you show me how?

[akam chinjir]

Thanks! I checked on PHOIBLE but couldn't figure out any way of comparing two segments - can you show me how?

I'm afraid all I've got is a script I wrote to search through the raw data (which they let you download). I could share it, I suppose, but it's just something I whipped out one day, nothing special.

[bradrn]

Thanks! I checked on PHOIBLE but couldn't figure out any way of comparing two segments - can you show me how?

I'm afraid all I've got is a script I wrote to search through the raw data (which they let you download). I could share it, I suppose, but it's just something I whipped out one day, nothing special.

Nice approach! It does look like they have a nice CSV data set which I missed - I presume this is what you're using? I might try writing my own tool at some point...

[akam chinjir]

Yeah, like that.

[malloc]

I have made some progress on my conscript but am still far from satisfied with the results. My attempts to implement the featural principle keep clashing with aesthetic considerations. It seems difficult to make the script truly transparent without allowing awkward grapheme combinations and conversely, adjusting things for aesthetic reasons obliterates the underlying featural elements. That said, here is a sample of what I have so far:

redscript_sample.png (4.31 KiB) Viewed 9935 times

[bradrn]

Looks amazing! Definitely one of the better conscripts I've seen. I don't know exactly what each letter represents, but I can definitely see the featural elements in how some letters are similar to others (e.g. letters 1/3 in word 1).

Three questions/comments/criticisms:

1. The punctuation seems very similar to Latin. Is there a reason for this?
2. At least two letters (e.g. letter 7, word 7 & letter 1, last word) are distinguished solely by straight/rounded corners. This feels extremely hard to read - I find it almost impossible to see those as different letters.
3. Further on the last point, the fact that some corners are straight while others are curved makes the whole script feel slightly inconsistent (see e.g. letter 4, line 3, which I think needs to be modified). Not sure how to solve this one though.

By the way, how did you make this image? Did you design a font, or use some other method?

[Travis B.]

Looks amazing! Definitely one of the better conscripts I've seen. I don't know exactly what each letter represents, but I can definitely see the featural elements in how some letters are similar to others (e.g. letters 1/3 in word 1).

Three questions/comments/criticisms:

1. The punctuation seems very similar to Latin. Is there a reason for this?
2. At least two letters (e.g. letter 7, word 7 & letter 1, last word) are distinguished solely by straight/rounded corners. This feels extremely hard to read - I find it almost impossible to see those as different letters.
3. Further on the last point, the fact that some corners are straight while others are curved makes the whole script feel slightly inconsistent (see e.g. letter 4, line 3, which I think needs to be modified). Not sure how to solve this one though.

By the way, how did you make this image? Did you design a font, or use some other method?

I agree with this completely. I would change it so no two characters are distinguished by corner curvature alone, but aside from that, it looks really good - better than anything I have tried to do.

[malloc]

The punctuation seems very similar to Latin. Is there a reason for this?

Partly because I have not settled on punctuation just yet and needed something as a placeholder. Also, this project is more my personal "cellar door" language than something connected to a specific conworld (at least for now).

By the way, how did you make this image? Did you design a font, or use some other method?

I drew the whole thing in GIMP by starting with some basic lines and curved corners and copying and pasting. Which is one reason why some characters are distinguished by round versus sharp corners. I originally intended the rounded parts of the glyphs as semicircles and such but making them round corners allowed me to adjust the proportions of the glyph elements as needed.

[alynnidalar]

The round corners vs sharp corners thing would be a difficult distinction to maintain when writing by hand, if that's a concern for you. You could always have an alternative handwritten form for those ambiguous letters.

[Xwtek]

I have 2 questions:

1. What keeps agricultural societies remain matrilineal while still having a medieval-like technology.
2. Is it realistic to have a kinship system like Crow kinship except father's father is father, and father's mother is aunt.

[Zaarin]

I have 2 questions:

1. What keeps agricultural societies remain matrilineal while still having a medieval-like technology.
2. Is it realistic to have a kinship system like Crow kinship except father's father is father, and father's mother is aunt.

1. Tradition I would suspect. The Tlingit were hunter-gatherers, but they had a very sophisticated society complete with nobility and heraldry--you might look at them for an example.
2. Don't ask me about Crow or Omaha kinship; they make my head spin. I tried developing a con-culture with Crow kinship and ended up so baffled I had to abandon it.

[Ares Land]

How do you feel about using apostrophes as syllable breaks, as in Pinyin?

I'm kind of hesitating between two possible romanizations, one using i and u for syllable-final /j/ and /w/, and apostrophes to disambiguate where needed, the other just using y and w.

For instance :
A. Tiye eh-Hiulet e'aro'an ap ehsan ka mim sa e'aro'ein wa ito.
B. Tiye eh-Hyulet earoan ap ehsan ka mim sa earoeyn wa ito.

A. Ei Yana, keu muba'i masii eh-sot ša-Terra im-Ismahu you gobreyisan yehsa?
B. Ey Yana, kew mubai masiy eh-sot ša-Terra im-Ismahu yow gobreyisan yehsa?

If it helps, in some dialects, vowel-initial syllables would actually begin with a glottal stops. So for some speakers, e'aro'ein / earoeyn would be [ʔe.ʔa.ro.ʔɛjn]

[Pabappa]

How do you feel about using apostrophes as syllable breaks, as in Pinyin?

I'm kind of hesitating between two possible romanizations, one using i and u for syllable-final /j/ and /w/, and apostrophes to disambiguate where needed, the other just using y and w.

Apostrophes have a long history of negative associations among conlangers because fantasy writers stuff them in to make words look more exotic with no intent on giving them a purpose. Some of us also dislike apostrophes even when used "properly" but I think its important to distinguish the two .... me, i dislike both apostrophes and syllable-final <y>/<w>, so if this were my language, i might just not bother to distinguish them at all. But thats probably not the way you want to go. Of your two options, I'd still lean towards the second, but it looks like even in the second option you end up using apostrophes at least occasionally. Im curious what the distinction is there.

[mèþru]

I don't like using <y> for /j/ in general, and I prefer writing about diphthongs as a series of vowels instead of of vowels and semivowels whenever possible. I also tend to use <v> for /w/ if the language has no /v/-like sounds in order to save space and because I feel an alphabet with <w> but no <v> looks kind of ridiculous - one is a clear modification of the other. I haven't noticed any language, natural or not, following me on that point though.

I avoid using apostrophes outside of ejectives, using them to disambiguate and using it as a reflection of the writing system's punctuation. You are doing the second, so it fits with my aesthetic.

C. Tije eh-Hjulet e'aro'an ap ehsan ka mim sa e'aro'ein va ito. Ei Jana, keu muba'i masii eh-sot ša-Terra im-Ismahu jou gobrejisan jehsa?

Or maybe you could use diaereses:
D. Tije eh-Hjulet eäroän ap ehsan ka mim sa eäroëin va ito. Ei Jana, keu mubaï masii eh-sot ša-Terra im-Ismahu jou gobrejisan jehsa?