(Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

[Omzinesý]

p t k
b d g
t͡s t͡ʃ t͡ɕ
s ʃ ɕ h
m n ŋ
r l
v j

I have a new Uralic project gain, but "my basic Uralic phonology" would still need some extra/special/strange pheneme. How to make it interesting?

[Pabappa]

Vowels!

No, seriously, you didn't put in any vowels .... Vowels in uralic languages pull more than their own weight ... and although consonants can be interesting, it's hard to judge them without the context.

Is there consonant gemination?
gradations?

[Salmoneus]

I have a new Uralic project gain, but "my basic Uralic phonology" would still need some extra/special/strange pheneme. How to make it interesting?

My own tip: I don't think I've ever seen a language become "interesting" by having a "strange phoneme". If the language is interesting, it'll still be interesting if you take the strange phoneme out; if it's not interesting without a strange phoneme, there's no phoneme in the world strange enough to make it interesting.


Even in the relatively-unimportant sphere of phonology, interest comes much more from distribution and phonotactics than from phoneme inventory (consider how similar the phoneme inventories of so many, so different, European languages are).

[Nortaneous]

I know phonemic R-coloured consonants are (almost certainly) unattested and probably the only languages that ever have them at all are American English and Mandarin Chinese, but let's say a conlang had them and they caused adjacent vowels and the following consonant in consonant clusters to become allophonically R-coloured.

Since phonemically R-coloured consonants cause R-colouring of adjacent vowels, would the allophonically R-coloured consonants in clusters be likely to have the same effect on the following vowel? So, should eg. /omʴta/ become [oʴmʴʈa] or [oʴmʴʈaʴ]? I know there's no objectively correct answer, but which is hypothetically more naturalistic?

Prinmi (Pumi) has been claimed to have unit R-colored labial and velar stops.

When rhoticity exists, it tends to spread. Yurok has a e o > ɚ in any word where /ɚ/ appears: /nahks-/ 'three' > /nɚhks-ɚʔɚjɬ/ 'three animals'. R-coloring is also common in Qiangic, so you could look there for precedent as to how rhotic harmony would work -- IIRC (could be wrong, haven't checked in ages and don't have time to rn) Ronghong Qiang has rhotic harmony but it doesn't spread over an entire word like it does in Yurok.

[wintiver]

I'm working on some vaguely recollected information here so this could be wrong but if you say have a language with SOV word order and furthermore that language has a separate lexical class for adjectives then noun-like adjectives would precede the modified noun and verb-like adjectives may follow? Is this plausible?

If yes, then I was trying to come up with a justification for having a noun class system that is neither fully suffixing nor prefixing. I was going to justify this by saying, in the past adjectives that were commonly used to specify nouns and other modifying elements eroded down and grammaticalized. I was thinking that this resulted in a noun class system that for some classes had prefixes and other classes had suffixes.

Thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

---

When rhoticity exists, it tends to spread. Yurok has a e o > ɚ in any word where /ɚ/ appears: /nahks-/ 'three' > /nɚhks-ɚʔɚjɬ/ 'three animals'. R-coloring is also common in Qiangic, so you could look there for precedent as to how rhotic harmony would work -- IIRC (could be wrong, haven't checked in ages and don't have time to rn) Ronghong Qiang has rhotic harmony but it doesn't spread over an entire word like it does in Yurok.

Yurok's rhotic harmony absolutely decimates. That's too cool not to overtly steal. I think I have some PDFs containing grammar sketches and whatnot for Qiangic languages. I'll have to have a look see.

[Imralu]

I have a new Uralic project gain, but "my basic Uralic phonology" would still need some extra/special/strange pheneme. How to make it interesting

/ʙ̥ʼ/ voiceless ejective bilabial trill you're welcome

[Keenir]

Are there any good references for the Visigothic language? The page "Visigoths" in Wikipedia mentions that Visigothic names survive in Spanish and Portugese, but nothing beyond that is mentioned.

I've found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visigothic_script
& https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_language (but it doesn't mention how or if the language differed among the different Gothic branches, like the Ostrogoths et al)
& https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Gothic

Thank you.

[Birdlang]

p t k
b d g
t͡s t͡ʃ t͡ɕ
s ʃ ɕ h
m n ŋ
r l
v j

I have a new Uralic project gain, but "my basic Uralic phonology" would still need some extra/special/strange pheneme. How to make it interesting?

I guess a /f z ʒ ʑ x ʣ ʤ ʥ ɬ ʎ/ f z ž ź dz dž dź ł ľ and for vowels /ɘ ɯ ɤ/ ë ï õ (?)
Also /ɲ/ ň. Those romanizations I’d use since they seem Uralic (at least like Estonian).

[shimobaatar]

Are there any good references for the Visigothic language? The page "Visigoths" in Wikipedia mentions that Visigothic names survive in Spanish and Portugese, but nothing beyond that is mentioned.

I've found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visigothic_script
& https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_language (but it doesn't mention how or if the language differed among the different Gothic branches, like the Ostrogoths et al)
& https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Gothic

Thank you.

I've sought out this kind of information before myself, but I've never really been able to find anything substantial about any East Germanic language variety other than "Biblical Gothic". As I understand it, the Visigoths don't seem to have made any attempt to impose their language on the people they conquered in Iberia, and the ruling class really only used it amongst themselves, but, likely because of the lingering prestige of Rome and Latin, even they seem to have been quick to adopt the language of the people. Even if my understanding is completely off, the end result is that we don't really have many surviving records of the language of the Visigoths, if we have any at all.

I'd certainly like for this information to be out there somewhere, though, so I wish you the best of luck. Maybe you'll stumble across a goldmine, so to speak, somewhere I've never thought to look.

[Keenir]

Even if my understanding is completely off, the end result is that we don't really have many surviving records of the language of the Visigoths, if we have any at all.

While quite true, your statement reminded me of a language book (I think it was just Spanish(subtitle escapes me), a history of the language, whose first (second? prologue?) chapter talked about the Carthaginian linguistic past - and how "Hispania" comes from the word for conies and hyraxes. I'll see if I can find that as well.
{EDIT: https://www.amazon.com/Story-Spanish-Je ... h+language }

:D Visigothic...RL's naming language. :D

I'd certainly like for this information to be out there somewhere, though, so I wish you the best of luck. Maybe you'll stumble across a goldmine, so to speak, somewhere I've never thought to look.

I'd be content with a copper vein. Any texts I find, I will inform you of.

[shimobaatar]

:D Visigothic...RL's naming language. :D

Wow, you're not wrong there! I'd never thought of it like that, haha.

I'd be content with a copper vein. Any texts I find, I will inform you of.

Well said. I'll do the same, of course.

[this_is_an_account]

In pitch accent laguages, are accented vowels less likely to be reduced, like in stress accent languages, or are they usually pronounced just like an un-accented vowel but with a different pitch?

[Zekoslav]

It depends on the language. For example, in my dialect of Croatian, accented vowels are slightly longer than unaccented ones even though the accent is otherwise purely pitch and no stress (this has been checked by phonetic analysis), while in Japanese both accented and unaccented vowels are the same length and pitch is the only cue as to where the accented syllable is - from my experience of studying Japanese, this sometimes leads to confusion as I instinctively look for length as a cue for the location of accent (not to mention that the pitch contours of the two languages are very different!).

Traditionally, my dialect had a full-blown system of vowel reduction reminiscent of Russian (mergers of unaccented vowels, but no syncope/apocope etc.), which has been lost in the speech of younger generations - so it used to have an even more stress-like behavior.

[Ahzoh]

I remember someone (can't find who said it) saying a triconsonantal root system (or maybe it was an abjad) cannot have too many consonant phonemes. Is this really the case?

[sangi39]

I remember someone (can't find who said it) saying a triconsonantal root system (or maybe it was an abjad) cannot have too many consonant phonemes. Is this really the case?

I suppose it depends on what's meant by "large". WALS uses the boundart of 34 to mark out "large" consonant inventories, with 26-33 consonant making up "moderately large" inventories. If you use the same boundaries, then no known Semitic language has more than a moderately large inventory, nor does reconstructed Proto-Semitic.

IIRC, some of the Yokutsan language are claimed to have something like the triconsonantal root systems found in Semitic languages, and some of those languages do have 34+ consonants in their inventory.

[Frislander]

IIRC, some of the Yokutsan language are claimed to have something like the triconsonantal root systems found in Semitic languages, and some of those languages do have 34+ consonants in their inventory.

Well, from what I've seen I'm not entirely sure they're really compatible, it strikes me more as a system akin to that found in Wakashan languages where affixes impose vocalic templates on the root, rather than the Semitic system where it's the template itself that is primary.

But aside from that, Ethiopian Semitic is replete with examples of languages boasting 30+ consonants and robust triconsonantal morphology.

[Ahzoh]

But aside from that, Ethiopian Semitic is replete with examples of languages boasting 30+ consonants and robust triconsonantal morphology.

You're right, I've even found Semitic languages with 33+ consonants:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inor_language#Consonants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaha_lan ... and_vowels

[wintiver]

My current project has many noun classes. I want to have my class marking vary a bit with some noun classes being suffixes and some being prefixes. Is this possible?

My justification for this was, during some sort of grammaticalization process, some elements which were more noun-like become one type of affix and elements which were more verb-like become the complementary type of affix.

Eg. C1: Humans - Sing: -a Pl: -aha
C7: Instruments - Sing: el- Pl: um-

Or something to this extent.

[Random8k]

I just wanted feedback on this sound inventory, if it seems naturalistic or not.I'm making another protolang while I think about what I want to do with my first one.

I apologize if this is formatted incorrectly as well!

Plosive: /p b t c ɟ/ <p b t c/k j>
Nasal: /m ɱ n ɲ ŋ/ <m ɱ n na ng>
Tap/Flap: /ɾ/ <r>
Fricative: /ɸ θ s x/ <f th s ch>
Approximant: /ʋ j/ <v y>
Lateral Approximant: /l/ <l>

Vowels: /e ɤ o æ a/ <e oe o ae a>

[Keenir]

My current project has many noun classes. I want to have my class marking vary a bit with some noun classes being suffixes and some being prefixes. Is this possible?
Eg. C1: Humans - Sing: -a Pl: -aha
C7: Instruments - Sing: el- Pl: um-

It sounds plausible...not sure if its attested, but I'd be surprised if its not (and even if its not attested, that doesn't mean its implausible)

so yours would be...lets say "yorik" means "singing"...

C1: yorika, yorikaha a singer(s) singing.
C7: elyorik, umyorik an instrument(s) being played.

Though part of me wonders if speakers would attempt to split the difference...

C1: ayorik, yorikaha (or yorika, ahayorik)
C7: elyorik, yorikum (or yorikel, umyorik)

I wish you success with your conlang.