Conlang Random Thread

[bbbosborne]

Palindrome? By that do you mean each is the other spelled backwards, or that they are both palindromes intenrally?

the latter. well, almost:

isouka to die /isoka/
kousi to exist /kosi/

syllables cannot end in a consonant, so it's not a total palindrome. however, word-final vowels do lost in a daughterlang so they will end up as exact mirror versions.

[Knit Tie]

So my latest conlang, a future derivative of english, got drowned in yods during the diachronic shifts. jC and Cj clusters are everywhere and in every position. So I said "fuck it" and decided that if there be so many yods, I might as well play around with palatalisation as an entire historical process, besides, Russian is my native language, so I know what palatalisation is intimately, anyway.

Thing is, I want to do something differeny from Russian and Irish, or at least different enough to be noticeably unrelated. So I've been toying with the following:

1) labials /p b m f w/ all have palatalised forms /pʲ bʲ mʲ fʲ βʲ~ɥ/, which are the only remaining actual palatalised phonemes in the language.

2) velars /k x ŋ/ have palatalised to /kʃ ʃ ɲ/ throuɡh /kʲ xʲ/ → /kç ç/ → /kʃ ʃ/ and /ŋʲ/ → /ɲ/. /kʃ/ is treated as two consonants, so it ɡets an epenthenic /i/ after it when in clusters or word-final to conform to phonotactics.

3) dentals /t̪ d̪/ have palatalised to /t̪s̪ z̪/ (from dz)

4) alveolars /t d n l s/ have palatalised to /tʃ j ɲ ʎ ʃ/, /j/ was formerly /dʒ/. /rj/ remains as a cluster.

That's without the clusters. How's that, so far?

[Pabappa]

Are the lips shaped any differently for the palatalized labials vs the normal ones? And can they occur in the coda? E.g. like from "supper"...would that end in a /p_j/?

[Salmoneus]

I never actually posted this, come to think of it.

It's a translation of the Lord's Prayer into Old Wenthish, with explanatory notes, and a tentative suggestion of what it might be in Modern Wenthish. [I would post it directly here but having to manually reformat everything's a bugger]

Any comments, substantive or superficial, would be most welcome if anyone had any, here or there.

[bradrn]

I never actually posted this, come to think of it.

Amazing! You've clearly put a lot of work into the details of Old Wenthish. This actually reminds me a lot of Yng's Risha Cubhi glosses on the old board.

[I would post it directly here but having to manually reformat everything's a bugger]

If you want, I'd be happy to convert it for you.

[Knit Tie]

Are the lips shaped any differently for the palatalized labials vs the normal ones? And can they occur in the coda? E.g. like from "supper"...would that end in a /p_j/?

The lips, I'd say, are only shaped differently for the palatalised /w/, where they are closer together for some speakers, but otherwise they are shaped the same as for the regular ones. And palatalised labials certainly can occur in coda, like for example the reflex of the word "herb," which is /xɛpʲ/. The reflex of the word "supper" is /sapʲa/, actually, and the language shows a moderate preference for CV-type syllables in general.

[Xwtek]

Is it realistic if I only allow these consonants word finally/t d k ts tɬ tʃ s ɬ ʃ x ʔ/? There is additional cluster /st sk ɬt ɬk ʃt ʃk/.

[Knit Tie]

Is it realistic if I only allow these consonants word finally/t d k ts tɬ tʃ s ɬ ʃ x ʔ/? There is additional cluster /st sk ɬt ɬk ʃt ʃk/.

Sounds pretty good to me! I'm playing with word-final consonant restrictions myself, actually.

[Xwtek]

Is it realistic if I only allow these consonants word finally/t d k ts tɬ tʃ s ɬ ʃ x ʔ/? There is additional cluster /st sk ɬt ɬk ʃt ʃk/.

Sounds pretty good to me! I'm playing with word-final consonant restrictions myself, actually.

The problem is that I have voiced fricatives.

[Whimemsz]

It's perfectly realistic (and very common, in natlangs) to have only a restricted set of phonemes permissible word-finally.

[Kuchigakatai]

Yes. For example, in Spanish:

- List of all consonant phonemes: /p t tʃ k b d g m n ɲ f (θ) s (ʃ) x ʝ r ɾ l (ʎ)/.
- Phonemes that are NOT allowed in word-final position: /ɲ ʝ r (ʎ)/, so, the palatals plus the trill.

But it hasn't always been like this:

- In Old Spanish only dental/alveolar consonants were allowed, but labials and velars have now become allowed in the past couple centuries after borrowing words containing them at the end, mostly from French and English (clip, baobab, chef, sándwich, rash, coñac, gulag).
- However, word-final /x/ comes from the few words in Old Spanish that ended in /ʃ/: reloj 'clock', carcaj 'quiver', boj 'boxwood shrub' (plus a few more recent borrowings, like sij 'Sikh').
- Word-final /t/ has a bit of a funny history. 12th century Old Spanish vascillated between ending words in /t/ or /d/, e.g. undat ~ undad 'unity', but in the end speakers agreed on using /d/ only. This meant /t/ only survived for a while after the 15th century in learnèd usage of Latin borrowings: fíat, magníficat, íncipit, éxplicit, cenit, hábitat. However, borrowings from French in the 18th century revived it in normal usage afterwards: clóset, ballet, buffet, debut, entrecot, complot, chalet, and usage of /t/ has been further expanded since then by borrowings from English during the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, such as críquet, boicot, robot, set, jet /ʝet/, Internet, megabit, output /ˈautput/.

[Ares Land]

I never actually posted this, come to think of it.

It's a translation of the Lord's Prayer into Old Wenthish, with explanatory notes, and a tentative suggestion of what it might be in Modern Wenthish. [I would post it directly here but having to manually reformat everything's a bugger]

Any comments, substantive or superficial, would be most welcome if anyone had any, here or there.

I don't much about either Old English or Irish, so I'm probably not in the best position to comment...

In the Modern Wentish version, what does the repeated line 'an so lietch thi, Ab' mean?
Also, does 'cystung' still mean something like 'tribulation' in the modern language? Wouldn't they have revised this to 'temptation'? (Though I'm by no means an expert, but I understood nobody objected to 'temptation' nowadays and that the debate is more about whether God leads us into it or allows us to fall into it)
It'd be great to hear more about the distinction between the locative/existential copulas.

Oh, and I love the sound of the word 'midyarde'. It's recognizably Midgard, and yet it sounds just like something between a front yard and a backyard

[Kuchigakatai]

I was reading the Conlang book on Wikibooks, and I had a good laugh when I found a page that quoted a few paragraphs by Jeff Burke (vohpenonomae) on Cheyenne morphology, originally written on the ZBB. The page also includes a link to zbb . spinnwebe . com for those who want to read further...

[Zaarin]

In the Modern Wentish version, what does the repeated line 'an so lietch thi, Ab' mean?

If I had to guess, "if it pleases you, Father."

[masako]

Looks lovely! How does it differ from the original Mongolian script?

Sorry. Just seeing this. It doesn't really, except for distinguishing between /a/ and /e/ with a dot to the right of the /e/. The same technique is used to distinguish /t/ and /d/. I've also tried to consistently used the dot on /n/, not just in the initial position.

However, since I posted this, I've reconsidered. I'm probably going to continue to use kamiya.

[bradrn]

Looks lovely! How does it differ from the original Mongolian script?

Sorry. Just seeing this. It doesn't really, except for distinguishing between /a/ and /e/ with a dot to the right of the /e/. The same technique is used to distinguish /t/ and /d/. I've also tried to consistently used the dot on /n/, not just in the initial position.

However, since I posted this, I've reconsidered. I'm probably going to continue to use kamiya.

I haven't seen Kamiya before, but I think it looks very nice! However, I do feel that it feels a bit too much like a copy of Semitic abjads in general and Hebrew in particular, in that many of the letters are almost unchanged from Hebrew. Does this have an in-universe explanation or is it an accident?

Also, if the Hebrew resemblance is intended, then the order of letters is very weird. Personally, I think it should be something like this:
alha, bet, gamla, dal, ha, wa, om, yad, ita, kapu, lam, mem, nun, samka, eyin, pe, qupa, ra, shin, ta

[Xwtek]

Is it realistic to turn rhotacized vowel into creaky voiced vowel?

[Xwtek]

So my latest conlang, a future derivative of english, got drowned in yods during the diachronic shifts. jC and Cj clusters are everywhere and in every position. So I said "fuck it" and decided that if there be so many yods, I might as well play around with palatalisation as an entire historical process, besides, Russian is my native language, so I know what palatalisation is intimately, anyway.

Thing is, I want to do something differeny from Russian and Irish, or at least different enough to be noticeably unrelated. So I've been toying with the following:

1) labials /p b m f w/ all have palatalised forms /pʲ bʲ mʲ fʲ βʲ~ɥ/, which are the only remaining actual palatalised phonemes in the language.

2) velars /k x ŋ/ have palatalised to /kʃ ʃ ɲ/ throuɡh /kʲ xʲ/ → /kç ç/ → /kʃ ʃ/ and /ŋʲ/ → /ɲ/. /kʃ/ is treated as two consonants, so it ɡets an epenthenic /i/ after it when in clusters or word-final to conform to phonotactics.

3) dentals /t̪ d̪/ have palatalised to /t̪s̪ z̪/ (from dz)

4) alveolars /t d n l s/ have palatalised to /tʃ j ɲ ʎ ʃ/, /j/ was formerly /dʒ/. /rj/ remains as a cluster.

That's without the clusters. How's that, so far?

Sounds like Polish

[masako]

I haven't seen Kamiya before, but I think it looks very nice!

kusanti Thank you!

However, I do feel that it feels a bit too much like a copy of Semitic abjads in general and Hebrew in particular, in that many of the letters are almost unchanged from Hebrew.

Well, that was sort of the goal.

Does this have an in-universe explanation or is it an accident?

This is an artlang, not a conlang associated with any conworld.

Also, if the Hebrew resemblance is intended, then the order of letters is very weird. Personally, I think it should be something like this:
alha, bet, gamla, dal, ha, wa, om, yad, ita, kapu, lam, mem, nun, samka, eyin, pe, qupa, ra, shin, ta

The ordering is not meant to indicate any consistency with Semitic abjads. Instead, I just wanted to use ABC ordering for ease of tracking.

When working on Kala I developed an intricate code to establish the "pataka" ordering, and I was/am not inclined to do the same for what is essentially a side-project.

[Knit Tie]

Sounds like Polish

Was the major inspiration, actually! It's the one Slavic language that preserved palatalisation through shifting almost the entire secondarily articulated series into different phonemes, as opposed to just losing everything like Czech or preserving most of the things, like Russian.

Though unlike Polish, my conlang has only one postalveolar series and no real voicing distinction beyond /b d z/. It's also mostly vowel-heavy, with not many consonant clusters, while Polish just spams the damn things all over the place.

One other thing I'm thinking about is actually having post-nasal fortition, though I'm not sure how to make it interplay with the palatalisation. Retaining /dz/ and /dʒ/ after /n/ sounds like a good idea to me, which would turn them into, as the current stage of the language, allophones of /z/ and /j/, respectively, while the rest of the interaction between these two processes I'm still thinking about.