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Hs!lɓuə scratchpad
Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2018 5:16 pm
by Ryan of Tinellb
Phonology
Voiceless plosive: p q
Voiced plosive: b d ɟ
Implosive: ɓ
Nasal: n
Approximant: l ʎ ɾ ɹ ɥ ʍ
Fricative: s z x
Click: ! ʇ ʞ
Vowels: ɯ u o ə ʌ ɔ ɐ
Grammar
Hs!lɓuə is generally head-initial, with OVS word order and postpositions. The prefix /pə-/ marks past tense for regular verbs. Plural nouns are prototypically marked with either /s-/ or /sə-/.
Lexicon
/unəɯ/ menu
/ʇɐɔ/ cat
/ɓop/ dog
/ɓuɐluoɔ/ conlang
/əʞoɾ/ joke
Re: Hs!lɓuə scratchpad
Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2018 5:20 pm
by Ryan of Tinellb
I'm sure this has been done before.
When I was working in fast food, I saw the word unəɯ every day, so it got stuck in my head. The plethora of vowels makes reading most English words this way fairly easy.
Re: Hs!lɓuə scratchpad
Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2018 8:24 pm
by bbbosborne
this is the greatest idea i have ever seen
Re: Hs!lɓuə scratchpad
Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2018 8:28 pm
by Zaarin
I see what you're doing, but is it actually possible to have a language with clicks and not have a gazillion consonants?
Re: Hs!lɓuə scratchpad
Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 12:33 am
by Vijay
Zaarin wrote: ↑Tue Oct 02, 2018 8:28 pm
I see what you're doing, but is it actually possible to have a language with clicks and not have a gazillion consonants?
Damin?
Re: Hs!lɓuə scratchpad
Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 10:52 am
by Zaarin
Vijay wrote: ↑Wed Oct 03, 2018 12:33 am
Zaarin wrote: ↑Tue Oct 02, 2018 8:28 pm
I see what you're doing, but is it actually possible to have a language with clicks and not have a gazillion consonants?
Damin?
Aye, but that's a ritual language; my general impression is that natural languages with clicks have consonant inventories to make the Caucasus and PNW look tame by comparison.
Re: Hs!lɓuə scratchpad
Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 11:38 am
by Frislander
Zaarin wrote: ↑Wed Oct 03, 2018 10:52 am
Vijay wrote: ↑Wed Oct 03, 2018 12:33 am
Zaarin wrote: ↑Tue Oct 02, 2018 8:28 pm
I see what you're doing, but is it actually possible to have a language with clicks and not have a gazillion consonants?
Damin?
Aye, but that's a ritual language; my general impression is that natural languages with clicks have consonant inventories to make the Caucasus and PNW look tame by comparison.
The problem is though, because Clicks are so geographically restricted we not only have a small sample size but there are areal effects to consider. So it would be possible for a click languages to not have a ridiculous number of consonants (Khoekhoe only has 31, which I think is the smallest count of any such language), but all the languages that have them or have acquired them probably acquired their large inventories from contact as well (compare Nguni Bantu and Proto-Bantu, or even many other extant Bantu branches and you can see the difference - the Nguni languages have clearly acquired a lot of other contrasts such as glottalisation and breathy stops from Khoisan as well as the clicks).
Re: Hs!lɓuə scratchpad
Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 2:01 pm
by Zaarin
Frislander wrote: ↑Wed Oct 03, 2018 11:38 am
Zaarin wrote: ↑Wed Oct 03, 2018 10:52 am
Aye, but that's a ritual language; my general impression is that natural languages with clicks have consonant inventories to make the Caucasus and PNW look tame by comparison.
The problem is though, because Clicks are so geographically restricted we not only have a small sample size but there are areal effects to consider. So it would be possible for a click languages to not have a ridiculous number of consonants (Khoekhoe only has 31, which I think is the smallest count of any such language), but all the languages that have them or have acquired them probably acquired their large inventories from contact as well (compare Nguni Bantu and Proto-Bantu, or even many other extant Bantu branches and you can see the difference - the Nguni languages have clearly acquired a lot of other contrasts such as glottalisation and breathy stops from Khoisan as well as the clicks).
Fair, and one might compare ejectives, which frequently turn up in languages with large inventories but also appear in languages with small inventories.
Re: Hs!lɓuə scratchpad
Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 10:43 pm
by Ryan of Tinellb
I've been Janko'd. So here, I guess. Here are the numbers from one to ten:
1: /əuo/
2: /oʍʇ/
3: /əəɹɥʇ/
4: /ɹnoɟ/
5: /əʌ!ɟ/
6: /x!s/
7: /uəʌəs/
8: /ʇɥɓ!ə/
9: /əu!u/
10: /uəʇ/
Re: Hs!lɓuə scratchpad
Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 11:11 pm
by bbbosborne
lol how do you even pronounce this
Re: Hs!lɓuə scratchpad
Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2018 5:00 pm
by Zaarin
Re: Hs!lɓuə scratchpad
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2018 8:05 am
by Xwtek
It seems that there is no language that has syllable-final clicks, let alone clicks in a word without vowel.