If natlangs were conlangs

[Nortaneous]

I will say that I do not believe the reports of this-and-that South American language having /t̪ʙ̥/ as a phoneme. I'm not saying that as a joke, either: like "haha that is so outrageous, anadew amirite?". I am being serious: I literally do not believe it. Napoleon Chagnon in one of his books talks about an entire village making up fake and lewd-sounding names for each member of their tribe as a prank to pull on Chagnon, and sustaining that prank for months without anyone ever breaking character. Methinks the [t̪ʙ̥] business is another example of Amazonian tribal humor.

It's still attested from Sangtam, which is spoken in an area where bilabial trills aren't so rare (a few other TB languages have syllabic bilabial trills as positional allophones of /u/ or /v̩/), but it could be fake in Piraha.

Dear creator of Japanese, what the heck's going one with your vowel devoicing process? Everyone else just uses it on all vowels regardless of quality, but you've linked it to height of all things! What on earth is it about high vowels that makes them more prone to voicelessness than other vowels I ask you! I certainly can't think of anything.

Something similar must have happened in Proto-Slavic, where Balto-Slavic /i/ /u/ became reduced vowels (written ь, ъ), still attested in Old Church Slavic and Old Russian, which in the later stages of the Slavic languages were either dropped or fortified to full vowels, depending on position and environment, with different results in the individual languages.

Some Romance languages lost all final vowels except /a/. Height crosslinguistically correlates with length: high vowels tend to be shorter than low vowels.

[bradrn]

Apparently Washo has a case-sensitive orthography. And to think I was foolish enough to assume Klingon was the only language with that particular mistake…

(More specifically, ⟨ŋ Ŋ m M l L w W y Y⟩ correspond to /ŋ ŋ̊ m m̥ l l̥ w w̥ j j̊/ in Washo. At least this is better than Klingon, though: Klingon only has ⟨q Q⟩ as contrastive, and all the other capital letters have no corresponding lowercase letters.)

[Whimemsz]

Use of capital letters is normal Americanist phonetic notation for voiceless resonants, so this is essentially just Washo using linguists' phonetic alphabet as its regular orthography (for the most part), which is moderately common in North America, though less so than in the past. (Not saying this doesn't make it unusual to have a case-sensitive orthography for normal use, btw, just explaining the origin.)

[bradrn]

Use of capital letters is normal Americanist phonetic notation for voiceless resonants, so this is essentially just Washo using linguists' phonetic alphabet as its regular orthography (for the most part), which is moderately common in North America, though less so than in the past. (Not saying this doesn't make it unusual to have a case-sensitive orthography for normal use, btw, just explaining the origin.)

I didn’t know the Americanist notation used uppercase letters! Washo doesn’t seem nearly as weird now; there’s lots of Native American languages using glyphs like ⟨ƛ⟩ or ⟨꞉⟩ or ⟨c̓⟩ or ⟨θ⟩ or ⟨ʔ⟩…

[Richard W]

Use of capital letters is normal Americanist phonetic notation for voiceless resonants, so this is essentially just Washo using linguists' phonetic alphabet as its regular orthography (for the most part), which is moderately common in North America, though less so than in the past. (Not saying this doesn't make it unusual to have a case-sensitive orthography for normal use, btw, just explaining the origin.)

And of course there is the Kyoto-Harvard ASCII writing of Sanskrit.

[Kuchigakatai]

(Not saying this doesn't make it unusual to have a case-sensitive orthography for normal use, btw, just explaining the origin.)

Beautiful triple negative right there.

[Xwtek]

Apparently Washo has a case-sensitive orthography. And to think I was foolish enough to assume Klingon was the only language with that particular mistake…

(More specifically, ⟨ŋ Ŋ m M l L w W y Y⟩ correspond to /ŋ ŋ̊ m m̥ l l̥ w w̥ j j̊/ in Washo. At least this is better than Klingon, though: Klingon only has ⟨q Q⟩ as contrastive, and all the other capital letters have no corresponding lowercase letters.)

I actually think Saanich is worse. And you already know it.

(For other that want to know what he says, here):

Oh yes, I completely forgot about Saanich! That has to be the weirdest Latin-script orthography I know of! For those who aren’t acquainted with the sheer bizarreness (is that a word?) of Saanich orthography (a.k.a. SENĆOŦEN), here are some details:

• All capital letters, except <-s> for some reason
• Stroked letters ȺȻꝀȽŦȾ (yes, T is stroked two different ways!)
• Comma for glottal stop (why? good question)
• Acute accent used with A/Á, C/Ć, K/Ḱ, S/Ś for no apparent reason (e.g. A and Á are the same, except the latter is used after post-velar consonants (what sort of language distinguishes palatal, pre- and postvelar?)) EDIT: palatal/pre/postvelar turns out to be the Americanist terminology for palatal/velar/uvular, which is indeed somewhat common.

Resulting in the following easy-to-read text:

SI,SI,OB BE₭OȻBIX̲ ,UQEȾ. ,ESZUW̲IL ELQE,. ,ESTOLX ELQE, ESDUQUD ,ESXEĆBID ȽṮUBEX̲ ELQE, ŚÍISȽ ,ÁL,ÁLŦ.

(That weird triangle X thing should actually be X with line below.)

Oh, and according to Wikipedia, Saanich uses regular metathesis for aspect. All in all, it makes the rest of Salishan look positively sane… which is an impressive achievement. (I do wonder sometimes why Salishan got all the crazy stuff… extreme polysynthesis, weird orthography, nounlessness, occasional vowellessness…)

[Whimemsz]

Oh yeah, Saanich is DEFINITELY worse

[bradrn]

No, there’s no question that Saanich has the worst orthography ever invented. But at least it’s not case-sensitive!

[Xwtek]

Used between a velarized ("broad") and a palatalized ("slender") consonant:

To write the sound /əu̯/ (in Donegal, /oː/):

⟨abhai⟩, ⟨amhai⟩, ⟨obhai⟩, ⟨odhai⟩, and ⟨oghai⟩
To write the sound /əi̯/ (in Donegal, /eː/):

⟨adhai⟩, ⟨aghai⟩
To write the sound /əi̯/:

⟨oidhi⟩ and ⟨oighi⟩
To write the sound /oː/:

⟨omhai⟩
Used between a slender and a broad consonant:

To write the sound /əu̯/ (in Donegal, /oː/):

⟨eabha⟩ and ⟨eamha⟩
To write the sound /əi̯/ (in Donegal, /eː/):

⟨eadha⟩
Used between two slender consonants:

To write the sound /əi̯/: ⟨eidhi⟩ and ⟨eighi⟩

You must be kidding me. why would you need five letter for that, when you can do that at two or three letters?

Also, <ao> for iː between two broad slender consonants? Why the <ao>? There is nothing that looks like front vowel there.

[bradrn]

You must be kidding me. why would you need five letter for that, when you can do that at two or three letters?

Also, <ao> for iː between two broad slender consonants? Why the <ao>? There is nothing that looks like front vowel there.

No, don’t bother trying to look for any sort of sanity in Irish spelling. I’ve tried a couple of times to understand it, and haven’t succeeded yet. Here’s some more interesting examples, all names:

• The name ⟨Niamh⟩ is pronounced /ˈniːəv/.
• ⟨Aoife⟩ /ˈiːfʲə/ is nearly as bad.
• ⟨Siobhan⟩ is /ʃəˈvoːn/, I think, although that one at least makes sense
• ⟨Tadhg⟩ is /t̪ˠəiɡ/

There’s a lot more interesting words in Irish, but I can’t find them right now. I’ll update this post if I find any worse ones.

(But you can at least be very, very, very thankful that you’re not trying to learn Old Irish…)

[Vijay]

You must be kidding me. why would you need five letter for that, when you can do that at two or three letters?

Because Irish has consonant mutations. There are morphophonemic processes that make e.g. m change to mh.

Also, <ao> for iː between two broad slender consonants? Why the <ao>? There is nothing that looks like front vowel there.

Because Irish has phonemic palatalization and uses <e> and <i> (both with and without the ') to indicate it, so you need something else to indicate [iː] after a non-palatalized consonant.

[zompist]

To write the sound /əu̯/ (in Donegal, /oː/):

⟨abhai⟩, ⟨amhai⟩, ⟨obhai⟩, ⟨odhai⟩, and ⟨oghai⟩

Surely these are disappeared consonants rather than an outré way of writing vowels? Compare English higher, weighing, doughy.

[Vijay]

If anything, I would think they're disappeared vowels...i.e. something like [əu̯ə] > [əu̯].

[Salmoneus]

No, don’t bother trying to look for any sort of sanity in Irish spelling. I’ve tried a couple of times to understand it, and haven’t succeeded yet.

Well, it's mostly very regular and predictable, and generally quite intuitive, with the exception of a few vowel combinations.

Here’s some more interesting examples, all names:


[*] The name ⟨Niamh⟩ is pronounced /ˈniːəv/.

...that's literally just pronounced as it's written. Assuming you know that broad <mh> is /v/, which is intuitive enough (-h indicates lenition).

[*] ⟨Aoife⟩ /ˈiːfʲə/ is nearly as bad.

You do have to learn that <ao> is /i:/ in all words other than derivatives of aon (or /e:/ in Munster), which is certainly counterintuitive, but also quite memorable.

[*] ⟨Siobhan⟩ is /ʃəˈvoːn/, I think, although that one at least makes sense

There's a distinction here between the English name 'Siobhan', and the Irish-language name, which is 'Siobhán'.
The Irish version has /U/ as the first vowel and first-syllable stress, outside Munster. The second vowel is /a:/. In Munster, the stress is indeed on the second vowel, reducing the first to schwa. And notably, /a:/ between broad consonants can be very back and in some places even rounded, so in the area of English /A:/ or /O:/, or lengthened /Q/. It shouldn't, however, ever be up around /o:/, which is an entirely different vowel and spelling.

Meanwhile, the broad /v/ is actually /w/ in some places, particularly Ulster.

The English name, sans acute, is pronounced as we hear the Munster version - so as you have it, but with /O:/, not /o:/.

[*] ⟨Tadhg⟩ is /t̪ˠəiɡ/

Straightforward enough!

There’s a lot more interesting words in Irish, but I can’t find them right now. I’ll update this post if I find any worse ones.

Oh, there's an endless number of 'interesting' Irish words. Phonologically, it's hard to beat dleathach and dlaoitheach, both pronounced as written, but one meaning "lawful" and the other meaning "tressy".
In terms of irregularity, the words for 'brother' and 'sister' are good examples. Brother is deartháir, but in Ulster it's pronounced deártháir, in Munster it's pronounced dreatháir, and in Connacht it's pronounced in various ways, including dricheáir. And sister is deirfiúr, but pronounced variously driofúr, drifiúr or deiriofur (Munsters), dreabhthar, dreithiur, deirfiur or deirthiúr (Connacht), or deirfeár or deirfear.

Most of the really egregious polygraphs were eliminated in the big spelling reform, though. So, beiríu used to be spelled beirbhiughadh and so on...

[bradrn]

No, don’t bother trying to look for any sort of sanity in Irish spelling. I’ve tried a couple of times to understand it, and haven’t succeeded yet.

Well, it's mostly very regular and predictable, and generally quite intuitive, with the exception of a few vowel combinations.

Are you sure? It seems completely random to me when I’ve tried to figure it out. Do you have any good resources?

Here’s some more interesting examples, all names:


[*] The name ⟨Niamh⟩ is pronounced /ˈniːəv/.

...that's literally just pronounced as it's written. Assuming you know that broad <mh> is /v/, which is intuitive enough (-h indicates lenition).

⟨mh⟩ as /v/ is the exact opposite of intuitive. Something intuitive would have been /m̥/.

[*] ⟨Aoife⟩ /ˈiːfʲə/ is nearly as bad.

You do have to learn that <ao> is /i:/ in all words other than derivatives of aon (or /e:/ in Munster), which is certainly counterintuitive, but also quite memorable.

Yes, it’s certainly counterintuitive yet memorable. I think that’s a pretty good description of most Irish spelling rules, actually.

[*] ⟨Siobhan⟩ is /ʃəˈvoːn/, I think, although that one at least makes sense

There's a distinction here between the English name 'Siobhan', and the Irish-language name, which is 'Siobhán'.
The Irish version has /U/ as the first vowel and first-syllable stress, outside Munster. The second vowel is /a:/. In Munster, the stress is indeed on the second vowel, reducing the first to schwa. And notably, /a:/ between broad consonants can be very back and in some places even rounded, so in the area of English /A:/ or /O:/, or lengthened /Q/. It shouldn't, however, ever be up around /o:/, which is an entirely different vowel and spelling.

Meanwhile, the broad /v/ is actually /w/ in some places, particularly Ulster.

The English name, sans acute, is pronounced as we hear the Munster version - so as you have it, but with /O:/, not /o:/.

Interesting! I’ve only ever heard it pronounced as /ʃəˈvoːn/, but then again I don’t know any Irish speakers, and English speakers are renowned for mangling names.

[*] ⟨Tadhg⟩ is /t̪ˠəiɡ/

Straightforward enough!

Yes, that was a bad example.

[Vijay]

It seems completely random to me when I’ve tried to figure it out.

It's impossible to make sense of without being familiar with Irish phonology and morphophonemics because that's what the orthography is all about. Obviously, this is not a problem for native speakers of Irish because they know (intuitively, at the very least) how their own language works.

Irish makes a distinction between palatalized and velarized (or at least non-palatalized) consonants across the board. It also has consonant mutations; for example, lenition, which Sal mentioned, is involved in forming the genitive case of a noun. Irish orthography indicates lenition by adding an <h> after the lenited consonant. Hence an baile /ə ˈbˠalʲə/ 'the house' but an bhaile /ə ˈvˠalʲə/ 'of the house'.

[bradrn]

It seems completely random to me when I’ve tried to figure it out.

It's impossible to make sense of without being familiar with Irish phonology and morphophonemics because that's what the orthography is all about. Obviously, this is not a problem for native speakers of Irish because they know (intuitively, at the very least) how their own language works.

This should be the case with any non-logographic orthography — if a native speaker can’t figure it out given their knowledge of their own language, then it isn’t much use as an orthography.

Irish makes a distinction between palatalized and velarized (or at least non-palatalized) consonants across the board. It also has consonant mutations; for example, lenition, which Sal mentioned, is involved in forming the genitive case of a noun. Irish orthography indicates lenition by adding an <h> after the lenited consonant. Hence an baile /ə ˈbˠalʲə/ 'the house' but an bhaile /ə ˈvˠalʲə/ 'of the house'.

I know all this. I find it doesn’t really help with understanding the orthography. The main problem is the vowel sequences: if you want to transition from a ‘broad’ to a ‘slender’ consonant (to use the Irish terms) or vice versa, you need to add a bunch of vowels in between in order to get the letters to match up correctly.

[Vijay]

I don't understand why that's a problem.

[bradrn]

I don't understand why that's a problem.

Well, if you have a sequence like ⟨aoi⟩, is this supposed to be /a/, or /o/, or /i/, or /ai/, or /ao/, or /oi/, or /aoi/, or /awi/, or some other random combination I didn’t list? Simply put, how do I know which vowel, if any, is silent?