Zompist Bboard Again

Posted: **Sun May 02, 2021 10:50 pm**

I’ve gotten pretty much all of the CT logosyllabic canon mapped out in my notebook. Now I can work on new symbols to supplement what I have so far.

Posted: **Mon May 03, 2021 4:59 am**

I've worked on researching for and creating the particle system for my currently unnamed conlang (I call it a particle system because it's pretty inspired by the Japanese postpositional system -- referred to as particles. Japanese and Spanish being large influences overall on this conlang). And because I feel like I should put something out there for the several months I've been working on this, here's part of the sketch I have so far.

inSketch project Central v0, Unnamed Conlang

This language is a primarily analytical language, with a default word order of SOV -- which is pretty strictly upheld save for some few shenanigans, and makes heavy use of particles to convey grammatical information. Verbs are inflected for past/non-past, negation, and simple/perfective/imperfective/perfect aspects, and indicative/narrative moods. A verbs plain form may be used informally. Formality is reflected in voicing and word choice, and which voice you use is largely determined by personal familiarity -- professional settings usually enjoying the most formal uses of language regardless. A lack of informal speech around friends can be seen as being overly stiff or distant, or that a person is 'too used to their working voice' -- generally it isn't taken as an insult. On the flipside, speaking too plainly or informally in environments or to people who would require formal speech can be taken as being flippant or as treating your station as unimportant.

Tentative Working Phonology ...

C: m n ŋ, p b t d k g, f s z sh /ʃ/ j /ʒ/ (x) h, ts ch /tʃ/ (dʒ), r (ɾ) l w (r the trill at the start of words and when marked, otherwise it's a flap as with Spanish.)
Vː e i o a u (I'm working on so/me variation stuff with the vowels, but it's essentially a five vowel system as far as distinctions go).
Vowels are enunciated fully when placed next to each other. /t/ and /d/ are dentalized.

[(C¹)(C¹S)]V(C²) syllable structure. S represents the last three listed under C. Coda consonants may nasals or fricatives.
Stress is placed on the penultimate syllable by default, but prefers the ultimate syllable if it's lighter.
Syllable weight is determined in three tiers -- V, VC and CV syllables are light, CSV and CVC syllables are heavy, and CSVC syllables are "superheavy" (I don't like this term but I can't think of another one ;-; ). Light syllables are 1 mora, otherwise a syllable is 2 mora (yes, /kwa/, /kwan/, and /kan/ should be the same length -- vowels are conditionally lengthened to make this work).

Some example words!

kai /ka.i/ n. The first person singular pronoun
ne /ne/ n. The second person singular pronoun

ja /ʒa/ ptcl. Subject marker, used at the end of the S Noun Phrase; used to nominalize verbs when placed after the verb,
det /det/ ptcl. Used to mark the instrumental, roughly "with" or "by means of" (I'm not super happy with how this one sounds, definitely going to change it)

ko /ko/ ptcl. Stative copula

da /da/ ... pretty much "the"
(a)na /a.na/ ... pretty much "a(n)"
das /das/ ... pretty much "that"

kanbeu /kan be u/ n. Sand
bocha /bo tʃa/ n. Water
ŋeena /ŋe e na/ n. A strong, soft material; a cotton-like weave
aŋka /aŋ.ka/ n. Ink
marui /ma.ru.i/ v. To drink
keini /ke i ni/ v. To write calligraphy; to write beautifully

Example phrasesǃ

kai ja bocha marusu / 1s NOM water drink.past / I drank water
ne ja keini aŋka det / 2s NOM write ink INST / I write with ink
kanbeu das ko / sand that COP / That is sand

The particles I did research for and worked on today!

- Focus particle, which can be sprinkled around the sentence to bring attention to something in particular – the way English brings focus through intonation, e.g. You want that onion? / this also works as a topic marker, which can be used to front a particular noun.
: You want that [] onion? / Onion [] You want that ? -> Then eat (that onion)
- Nominative particle, used to mark subject and agent in a phrase, and nominalizes verbs when placed directly after the VP; when combined with the connecting particle has a meaning like “is, and therefore”
: I’m [] sleeping. / You [] shot what?
- Stative Copula particle “to be” covers general statements and remarks on permanent states
: I [am] an ostrich, deal with it. / This [is] a sandwich.
- Locative Copula particle “to be at/in” also marks temporary states
: Are you talking [about] the Notre Dam? / Wait, you’re [in] France? / This [is] home.
- Dative particle “for, to, at”
: The package is [for] him / I’m going [to] Puerto Rico / Fire [at] the wall!
- Benefactive particle “for, to”; when combined with the connecting particle has a meaning like “because of, due to”
: You did what [for] him? / Why did you give that package [to] him? [Because] it was his.
- Instrumental particle “with, by means of”
: I cut the meat [with] a knife. / I spent too much time waiting [on] this bench. / I sleep [on] a bed. / I was woken up [by] the clock
- Vocative particle, used when calling somebody’s name or when singling them out as the recipient of an utterance.
- Genitive particle, used to mark the possessor in a noun phrase, also used to connect nouns together in names “of”
: [My] cat / State [] Building
- Connecting particle, “and, with”, used for the comitative and to connect nouns together in names, used to compound particles
: Silent [] Hill. / I work [with] John. / I sleep [with] my boyfriend / Me [and] you
- Question particle, placed at the end of a phrase to mark an utterance as a question, can be followed by other particles to create a more specific meaning, also compounds with pronouns to create an interrogative
: You want an onion [] ? Why [] ?
(Add compounds to express uncertainty, to wonder about, expect agreement, etc?)
- Isolating particle, translates to “just, only” or used as a quantifier for upper bounds “up to ...”
: She’s the [only] cat in the house / [There can only be] 355 mL in this bottle
- NTDB 1 particle, translates to “or, but”, can be used as an introjection something like “ah ...” when you want to rephrase something, has a somewhat negative connotation; when combined with the connecting particle has a meaning like “nonetheless” or “in spite of”

... and that's as far as I got today with it.

Posted: **Mon May 03, 2021 5:26 am**

Welcome Hollow1134! Have some pickles and tea:

(It’s a tradition here for welcoming new members. No, I don’t know why.)

Some comments:

Hollow1134 wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 4:59 am Syllable weight is determined in three tiers -- V, VC and CV syllables are light, CSV and CVC syllables are heavy, and CSVC syllables are "superheavy" (I don't like this term but I can't think of another one ;-; ). Light syllables are 1 mora, otherwise a syllable is 2 mora (yes, /kwa/, /kwan/, and /kan/ should be the same length -- vowels are conditionally lengthened to make this work).

Hmm, this seems really weird to me. For whatever reason, syllable weight almost never depends on the onset — you can assume that V, CV and CSV syllables will all be 1μ in whatever language you might look at. I’d suggest doing:

V/CV/CSV — light
VC/CVC/CSVC — heavy

Also, how exactly does the allophonic lengthening work?

(Oh, and ‘superheavy’ is perfectly standard terminology for a 3μ syllable.)

ja /ʒa/ ptcl. Subject marker, used at the end of the S Noun Phrase; used to nominalize verbs when placed after the verb,

What do you mean by ‘S’ here? I assume you’re using it here to mean ‘nominative subject’, but it’s worth noting that it has a standard use for ‘intransitive subject’ specifically.

da /da/ ... pretty much "the"
(a)na /a.na/ ... pretty much "a(n)"
das /das/ ... pretty much "that"

I’m a bit uncomfortable with terms like ‘pretty much’. To what extent are these words similar/different to their English translations?

kanbeu /kan be u/ n. Sand
bocha /bo tʃa/ n. Water
ŋeena /ŋe e na/ n. A strong, soft material; a cotton-like weave
aŋka /aŋ.ka/ n. Ink
marui /ma.ru.i/ v. To drink
keini /ke i ni/ v. To write calligraphy; to write beautifully

Interesting set of words to choose as basic vocabulary — I like the conworlding apparent here!

- Focus particle, which can be sprinkled around the sentence to bring attention to something in particular – the way English brings focus through intonation, e.g. You want that onion? / this also works as a topic marker, which can be used to front a particular noun.
: You want that [] onion? / Onion [] You want that ? -> Then eat (that onion)

This looks more like a marker of ‘topic’ than one of ‘focus’. Despite the similarity in their names, the two are very nearly opposites of each other — see e.g. chris_notts’s post for the difference between them. That being said, it’s nice to see a conlang with a topic marker.

- Nominative particle, used to mark subject and agent in a phrase, and nominalizes verbs when placed directly after the VP; when combined with the connecting particle has a meaning like “is, and therefore”
: I’m [] sleeping. / You [] shot what?
…
- Locative Copula particle “to be at/in” also marks temporary states
: Are you talking [about] the Notre Dam? / Wait, you’re [in] France? / This [is] home.
- Dative particle “for, to, at”
: The package is [for] him / I’m going [to] Puerto Rico / Fire [at] the wall!
- Benefactive particle “for, to”; when combined with the connecting particle has a meaning like “because of, due to”
: You did what [for] him? / Why did you give that package [to] him? [Because] it was his.
- Instrumental particle “with, by means of”
: I cut the meat [with] a knife. / I spent too much time waiting [on] this bench. / I sleep [on] a bed. / I was woken up [by] the clock
- Vocative particle, used when calling somebody’s name or when singling them out as the recipient of an utterance.
- Genitive particle, used to mark the possessor in a noun phrase, also used to connect nouns together in names “of”
: [My] cat / State [] Building
- Connecting particle, “and, with”, used for the comitative and to connect nouns together in names, used to compound particles
: Silent [] Hill. / I work [with] John. / I sleep [with] my boyfriend / Me [and] you

I’d be curious to know why these are analysed as ‘particles’ rather than case-markers?

- Isolating particle, translates to “just, only” or used as a quantifier for upper bounds “up to ...”
: She’s the [only] cat in the house / [There can only be] 355 mL in this bottle
- NTDB 1 particle, translates to “or, but”, can be used as an introjection something like “ah ...” when you want to rephrase something, has a somewhat negative connotation; when combined with the connecting particle has a meaning like “nonetheless” or “in spite of”

I like these two! I regularly come across ‘just’ particles in natlangs (Komnzo =nzo is the first which comes to mind), but I rarely see them in conlangs. Meanwhile, I really like the interesting semantics of the ‘NTDB 1’ particle. (Though I’d suggest using different words for ‘or’ and ‘but’ — the former is disjunction, the latter conjunction.)

One question: what does ‘NTDB’ stand for?

Posted: **Mon May 03, 2021 7:54 am**

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 5:26 am Hmm, this seems really weird to me. For whatever reason, syllable weight almost never depends on the onset — you can assume that V, CV and CSV syllables will all be 1μ in whatever language you might look at. I’d suggest doing:

V/CV/CSV — light
VC/CVC/CSVC — heavy

That makes a lot more sense and I'm pretty sure I made that choice arbitrarily. Likely I'll adopt your suggestion and keep CSVC has a superheavy syllable -- also I know that superheavy is standard I'm just not a huge fan of it aesthetically lmao. Also also I've never seen the character μ before, does it just refer to syllable weight in this context?

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 5:26 am What do you mean by ‘S’ here?

Errors I made in terminology can likely be chalked up to sleep deprivation (the fact that it is 5:30 am for me right now ... welp, I've gotten some rest since) -- I do mean the 'nominative subject' -> agent, I was just tired and threw my hands up at typing out the whole word I think.

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 5:26 am I’m a bit uncomfortable with terms like ‘pretty much’. To what extent are these words similar/different to their English translations?

I wrote 'pretty much' because I have written on a sideboard somewhere that I want to play around with specific uses for determiners -- English has some really interesting use cases for them and I wanted to look at what other languages did before just using them how English does. The little things like this are what make me happy to conlang ^^ But for now they are just the English articles with a 'probably going to change' sticker on them.

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 5:26 am Interesting set of words to choose as basic vocabulary — I like the conworlding apparent here!

I have a largely fleshed out conworld behind this project, I'm developing this as the Standard language for the central providence. I'm hesitant to make a lot of words before I've ironed out my remaining misgivings with the phonology / actually finished detailing the phonotactics, but more so because I haven't sat down to think about the essential metaphors of the people who speak it, so I'm looking forward to getting to spend some more time conworlding by extension when I sit down with the lexicon proper.

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 5:26 am This looks more like a marker of ‘topic’ than one of ‘focus’. Despite the similarity in their names, the two are very nearly opposites of each other — see e.g. chris_notts’s post for the difference between them. That being said, it’s nice to see a conlang with a topic marker.

Probably a Topic marker then, this is one thing I really need to read more about -- and what I have down here is the result of research and some free time exploring the space over my weekend. And I'm surprised more conlangs don't use topic markers, they make things remarkably simple -- from what I've heard, less so seen, people seem really preoccupied with the solution to 'how do I not use pronouns' by sticking them on the verb. That isn't not using pronouns >.> /lh /hj

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 5:26 am I’d be curious to know why these are analysed as ‘particles’ rather than case-markers?

I call them particles because they're largely inspired by the Japanese particle system, which is waaaay more complicated than I thought it was when I started learning the language. But at least in english the postpositional system they use are called particles, because the postpositions are mixed in with case markers and whatnot and they all kind of work the same, so.

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 5:26 am I like these two! I regularly come across ‘just’ particles in natlangs (Komnzo =nzo is the first which comes to mind), but I rarely see them in conlangs. Meanwhile, I really like the interesting semantics of the ‘NTDB 1’ particle. (Though I’d suggest using different words for ‘or’ and ‘but’ — the former is disjunction, the latter conjunction.)

One question: what does ‘NTDB’ stand for?

I like them too! I think I like having 'or' and 'but' as translations, just because of the semantics -- it makes it more interesting to me, and as far as I know it isn't too much of an issue to have a word that shares semantic space between the two of them. NTDB is a typo of NTBD which means 'Name To Be Determined' -- I think I overcommitted when I didn't just give up and slap a number on all of them for reference ;-;

I'm planning on more particles like the last two, I just didn't have enough time this weekend to really flesh out more than what I presented here for it. Mostly I got the straightforward case marking stuff out of the way and dabbled a bit outside of that before deciding I needed to lay in bed for a while. But My insomniac butt is not asleep and so I am up again, and I deeply appreciate coming back to some tea and pickles ^^ <3 I didn't know this was a tradition, but I love it.

Also to actually answer the question I missed at the beginning about allophonic vowel lengthening -- to get used to it I'm literally tapping out a quick beat and pronouncing the syllables with the appropriate count. <kanbeu> -> kan-be-u (2-1-1). I have absolutely no idea if this is how mora timing works but Hey! It's what I'm doing and it sounds pretty to me.

Posted: **Mon May 03, 2021 8:46 am**

Hollow1134 wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 7:54 am
bradrn wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 5:26 am Hmm, this seems really weird to me. For whatever reason, syllable weight almost never depends on the onset — you can assume that V, CV and CSV syllables will all be 1μ in whatever language you might look at. I’d suggest doing:

V/CV/CSV — light
VC/CVC/CSVC — heavy
That makes a lot more sense and I'm pretty sure I made that choice arbitrarily. Likely I'll adopt your suggestion and keep CSVC has a superheavy syllable -- also I know that superheavy is standard I'm just not a huge fan of it aesthetically lmao. Also also I've never seen the character μ before, does it just refer to syllable weight in this context?

μ = mora. The other one you’ll see a lot is σ = syllable.

Also to actually answer the question I missed at the beginning about allophonic vowel lengthening -- to get used to it I'm literally tapping out a quick beat and pronouncing the syllables with the appropriate count. <kanbeu> -> kan-be-u (2-1-1). I have absolutely no idea if this is how mora timing works but Hey! It's what I'm doing and it sounds pretty to me.

‘Sounds pretty to me’ is good enough for a conlang

But generally, a mora is either a nucleus, a coda consonant, or a long vowel. (In some languages, coda consonants don’t form moras, but from your example it seems that here they do.) So kanbeu can be divided up into moras and syllables as follows:

Code: Select all

 σ   σ σ
/|\ /| |
|μμ |μ μ
||| || |
kan be u

Now, I’m not actually too sure what sort of conditioning factors are usual for vowel lengthening, but one thing you could implement is lengthening such that each syllable is at least two moras — that is, vowel lengthening in monomoraic syllables:

Code: Select all

 σ   σ  σ
/|\ /|\ |\
|μμ |μμ μμ
||| ||| ||
kan beː uː

Or, alternately, you could group syllables into iambic feet, then lengthen the strong syllables:

Code: Select all

(–) (⏑ –)
 σ   σ σ
/|\ /| |\
|μμ |μ μμ
||| || ||
kan be uː

(Or do the same with trochaic feet, I suppose, but that doesn’t seem to be as plausible.)

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 5:26 am Interesting set of words to choose as basic vocabulary — I like the conworlding apparent here!
I have a largely fleshed out conworld behind this project, I'm developing this as the Standard language for the central providence. I'm hesitant to make a lot of words before I've ironed out my remaining misgivings with the phonology / actually finished detailing the phonotactics, but more so because I haven't sat down to think about the essential metaphors of the people who speak it …

Oh, good to know I’m not the only one who feels like this!

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 5:26 am This looks more like a marker of ‘topic’ than one of ‘focus’. Despite the similarity in their names, the two are very nearly opposites of each other — see e.g. chris_notts’s post for the difference between them. That being said, it’s nice to see a conlang with a topic marker.
Probably a Topic marker then, this is one thing I really need to read more about -- and what I have down here is the result of research and some free time exploring the space over my weekend. And I'm surprised more conlangs don't use topic markers, they make things remarkably simple -- from what I've heard, less so seen, people seem really preoccupied with the solution to 'how do I not use pronouns' by sticking them on the verb. That isn't not using pronouns >.> /lh /hj

Off-topic, but I’d say that a language with only cross-reference markers certainly qualifies as having ‘no pronouns’. This also seems to be the position of the books I’ve seen on the topic. (Either way, I have no idea what topic markers have to do with lack of pronouns — there’s plenty of languages with both.)

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 5:26 am I’d be curious to know why these are analysed as ‘particles’ rather than case-markers?
I call them particles because they're largely inspired by the Japanese particle system, which is waaaay more complicated than I thought it was when I started learning the language. But at least in english the postpositional system they use are called particles, because the postpositions are mixed in with case markers and whatnot and they all kind of work the same, so.

Ah, OK. (Though I’d resist the temptation to name things purely based on their analogues in other languages; see e.g. Gil on Escaping Eurocentrism: fieldwork as a process of unlearning.)

Posted: **Mon May 03, 2021 9:47 am**

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 8:46 am So kanbeu can be divided up ...

I have learned my lesson about being online and trying to be intelligible while sleep deprived. The actual example I wanted to use was literal gibberish using the phonology but I decided to use a word that doesn't actually apply instead -- something like kwata /kwa.ta'/ which could quite happily be pronounced with 2 mora, would be lengthened to 3 mora; 2-1. What I forgot to actual write anywhere for some reason, is basically this (and from what you wrote I definitely need to do a lot more research into this) ...

Light syllables (V CV) are 1μ and gain +1μ when stressed.
Heavy Syllables (VC CVC CSV) are 2μ and gain +1μ when stressed.
Supeheavy Syllables (CSVC) are 3μ and retain that length when stressed.

CSV syllables naturally lengthen the vowel by 1μ, which is why they're included in Heavy syllables.

Thus, the following should be true ...

Code: Select all

  σ  σ     σ   σ  σ
/ |\ |\   /|\ /|\ |
| μμ |μμ  |μμ |μμ μ
kwa: ta:  kan be: u

I'll definitely look into the paper you linked to, I should probably try to get some more rest at this point though. I'm not entirely sure myself what I meant by some of what I wrote. Which is definitely proof that I shouldn't be writing online. Regardless, thank you ^^ I hope to see you around when I've actually slept a decent amount.

Posted: **Thu May 06, 2021 3:04 pm**

Finally started some more serious work of my relay conlang - fleshed out the morphology a bit. I also made it so that only certain category elements can be seen in my program, which is really helpful for inspecting the morphology of the language.

Posted: **Tue Jun 01, 2021 10:57 am**

This thread doesn't deserve to fade. Really, remembering its existence is a prod (a small prod) to get me doing something.

Lately I'm trying to re-think and re-shape the morphosyntax of my a posteriori, Tungusic-in-Japan project, yet again. I can never really commit to a specific, concrete level of how much it's going to be "relexified Japanese" vs. retaining more Tungusic categories & structures and stuff. I guess I don't honestly expect to solve it this time either, but I feel inspired to give it a good try again

Posted: **Tue Jun 01, 2021 12:31 pm**

Planting season just started where I live (yeah, this late) and I got some seedlings into the planter boxes. Also been reworking Nyango now that I have more resources for both the Japanese side and Chinese side of things.

@Fusijui high five for Japan based conlangs

Posted: **Tue Jun 01, 2021 12:43 pm**

fusijui wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 10:57 am This thread doesn't deserve to fade. Really, remembering its existence is a prod (a small prod) to get me doing something.

Lately I'm trying to re-think and re-shape the morphosyntax of my a posteriori, Tungusic-in-Japan project, yet again. I can never really commit to a specific, concrete level of how much it's going to be "relexified Japanese" vs. retaining more Tungusic categories & structures and stuff. I guess I don't honestly expect to solve it this time either, but I feel inspired to give it a good try again

I've been working on reworking some, incidentally Japonic, sound changes. It's incomplete, however, since I've been having focus issues these past few days. I do like Japonic structures, but I have rather little knowledge of Tungusic.

Posted: **Fri Jun 04, 2021 1:36 am**

relative verbs do be interesting:
sāʾammēsu! "you, who must come!"
sāʾammēsutu! "you, who must not come!"
īyammēsu! "you, who must go!"
īyammēsutu! "you, who must not go!"

iyāya lagâm zūdnēse
"A fool's laugh that I heard"

It can be used in a vocative sense:
Rēbni sāʾammēsi.
[ˈrɛːb.ni sɒː.ʔɒmˈmɛː.si]
man-1s.POSS NFUT-come-DIR-2ms<REL>
"Come, my husband."

Pitini rūburam īyammēsutu liḫāra ku!
[ˈpi.ti.ni ˈruː.bu.rɒm iː.jɒmˈmɛː.su.tu liˈx̹ɒː.rɒ ˈk̹u]
daughter-1s.POSS planting-OBL.SG NFUT-go-DIR-2fs<REL>-NEG today-OBL.SG at
"My daughter, you must not go planting today!"

It is probably better to recognize the relative infix -ēs- as now part of the person marker

Posted: **Fri Jun 04, 2021 11:15 am**

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 12:43 pm I've been working on reworking some, incidentally Japonic, sound changes. It's incomplete, however, since I've been having focus issues these past few days. I do like Japonic structures, but I have rather little knowledge of Tungusic.

Oh, yeah, that reminds me of the same problem of indecision — how much to Japanese-ize the phonology of the conlang? I'd like it to be rather a lot (in principle, at least), but when I look at the results I find them either uninteresting or unappealing, and go back to the beginning… And the conworlding element I settled on adds more complications, in that it's set in NW Honshu, and really ought to ape the local Japanese dialect as much as standard Japanese… and zuzuben is, of course, what happens when you decide standard Japanese has just far too many consonant and vowel distinctions and goes around collapsing them gaily. Everything ends up sounding the same: slushy.

I seriously wonder why I keep doing this crap. It's ridiculous even by conlanger standards. But, cats do seem to enjoy chasing their tails…

Posted: **Fri Jun 04, 2021 11:48 am**

fusijui wrote: ↑Fri Jun 04, 2021 11:15 am
Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 12:43 pm I've been working on reworking some, incidentally Japonic, sound changes. It's incomplete, however, since I've been having focus issues these past few days. I do like Japonic structures, but I have rather little knowledge of Tungusic.
Oh, yeah, that reminds me of the same problem of indecision — how much to Japanese-ize the phonology of the conlang? I'd like it to be rather a lot (in principle, at least), but when I look at the results I find them either uninteresting or unappealing, and go back to the beginning… And the conworlding element I settled on adds more complications, in that it's set in NW Honshu, and really ought to ape the local Japanese dialect as much as standard Japanese…

Why, exactly, would it have to do that? Look at Welsh! It's phonologically quite dissimilar from the English superstratum that's been above it for a few centuries.

and zuzuben is, of course, what happens when you decide standard Japanese has just far too many consonant and vowel distinctions and goes around collapsing them gaily.

I really thought it had too few, so I managed to press some voiced initials, and /l/, out of Proto-Japanese; it was quite a challenge, though, making the phoneme inventory significantly larger than it was where I started (the objective was a language that would sound kind-of like Japanese, but without a massive lump of Sinitic loan-vocabulary to provide the impetus for certain characteristics becoming widespread).

Everything ends up sounding the same: slushy.

Maybe you want some splits with your mergers?

I seriously wonder why I keep doing this crap. It's ridiculous even by conlanger standards. But, cats do seem to enjoy chasing their tails…

Because the elusive result will bring you happiness!

Posted: **Fri Jun 04, 2021 12:47 pm**

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Fri Jun 04, 2021 11:48 am Because the elusive result will bring you happiness!

Or pain as you finally bite down on your own tail.

Posted: **Fri Jun 04, 2021 12:51 pm**

In more Japonic news, I've decided on some beginning sound changes for my cat language. I've decided that it's not going to be 100% historically accurate to Old Japanese or Pre-Old Japanese, including some distinctions that might not have ever been made or stopped being made before the point I'm starting from. But it gives me more fodder for some sound changes I wanted to make, and later grammatical changes, so I'm trying not to care. I also had to make some decisions one what i1 vs i2, e1 vs e2 and o1 vs o2 meant (i decided that 1s were more palatal/less rounded and 2 were less palatal/more rounded depending on the exact vowel and went from there).

I haven't decided on a sound change that might incorporate roundedness like I have with palatalness, though since this is supposed to be spoken by cat youkai, I might change roundedness to some other secondary articulation on the consonant.

Posted: **Fri Jun 04, 2021 2:26 pm**

I tend to like the supposition that there were probably seven Proto-Japonic vowels */a i ɨ u e o ə/, with */ɨ ə/ having mostly merged in Old Japanese, but being at least partly responsible for some early vowel interactions, as */kə/~*/ki2/ ("tree"), also note 今朝 ("kesa")「けさ」and the historical form of, "kefu"「けふ」, of 今日 (modern「きょう」"kyō"). The resulting language being for a fantasy setting unconnected with our world, though, I can take quite a few liberties of interpretation that a more historically-strict approach might disprefer.

Posted: **Fri Jun 04, 2021 4:32 pm**

I wish I'd accomplished more today...but hey, I've got a whole weekend now to do absolutely nothing I want to get done. []

Posted: **Fri Jun 04, 2021 4:52 pm**

JT the Ninja wrote: ↑Fri Jun 04, 2021 4:32 pm I wish I'd accomplished more today...but hey, I've got a whole weekend now to do absolutely nothing I want to get done. []

Join our budding Japonic clique thingy!

Posted: **Mon Jun 07, 2021 8:08 am**

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Fri Jun 04, 2021 4:52 pm
JT the Ninja wrote: ↑Fri Jun 04, 2021 4:32 pm I wish I'd accomplished more today...but hey, I've got a whole weekend now to do absolutely nothing I want to get done. []
Join our budding Japonic clique thingy!

If only I knew more than a handful of Japanese words...not nearly weeb enough, I suppose. []

Posted: **Tue Jun 08, 2021 10:23 pm**

Yesterday, I read an article about the Japanese conquest of the - ~~probably~~ {nope, definately} not entirely correctly spelled - Ryukoan Kingdom to their south, which was a vassal state of sorts until shortly after Perry The Non-Platypus showed up.

I think it was this month's Military History at Barnes&Noble, but I'll double-check if it helps anyone. (if nothing else, it has place names and personal names)

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