Search found 565 matches
- 08 Jul 2019 00:53
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
- Replies: 11605
- Views: 2043786
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Any idea for interesting sound changes for geminate /h/ intervocalically? VhhV>? The rest of the inventory is currently: C= /p t k t͡s s h ç j ɸ w ɬ l r r̥ ɣ m n ŋ/; V= /a i u ai au/ Do you know the historical source of singleton [h]? It seems that often, languages have a sound that develops to [h]...
- 08 Jul 2019 00:34
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: German/Yiddish <z>/<tz>
- Replies: 4
- Views: 3044
Re: German/Yiddish <z>/<tz>
Aside from being used to mark a short vowel, double consonants are used in the spelling of some German names after a consonant, a context where they signify nothing special about the pronunciation. E.g. Schwartz, Hertz, Planck, Bismarck are pronounced just the same as if they were spelled "schw...
- 23 Jun 2019 03:32
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
- Replies: 11605
- Views: 2043786
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
•Are there any attested languages with no labial sounds at all? Would it be naturalistic to do so in a conlang? I haven't read of any natural languages that lack all kinds of labials (e.g. not only bilabials, but also labiodental fricatives, labialized consonants, and the labiovelar approximant). B...
- 31 Jul 2018 04:38
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
- Replies: 7086
- Views: 1317678
Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Had any Romance language/dialect treated Latin /a/ differently from /aː/? Or did they merge before any dialectal differences could affect them? I think Dalmatian or something turned long a into [ɔː], but now I can't find the page where I read about that. I haven't found any evidence of that. I beli...
- 31 Jul 2018 04:08
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
- Replies: 7086
- Views: 1317678
- 13 May 2018 09:09
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: English Dialects
- Replies: 78
- Views: 43939
Re: English Dialects
LOT/CLOTH [ɒ ~ ɔ] NORTH/FORCE/THOUGHT [ɔː ~ oː] LOT /O/ - non-native. Although at first, this might sound like a lot/cloth split - but that would also suggest European, because the lot/cloth split is something that's dying out in native British English, but that still gets emulated by conservative ...
- 01 Apr 2018 23:19
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: English Orthography Reform
- Replies: 402
- Views: 197099
Re: English Orthography Reform
I don't know if I'd say "abitrary", but I do find your vowels systematically counterintuitive. And given that you go to so much effort, I'm not sure why you retain ambiguities like your "y" standing for either /i:j/ or /jU:/, two totally different sounds. It probably goes withou...
- 01 Apr 2018 11:05
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: English Orthography Reform
- Replies: 402
- Views: 197099
Re: English Orthography Reform
Here is the introduction of the Wikipedia article English-language spelling reform rewritten in a reformed spelling I put together today. (It's a major reform, but it does contain some elements based on the current English spelling system.) but I'd be interested in hearing other people's thoughts ab...
- 30 Jan 2018 23:27
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
- Replies: 11605
- Views: 2043786
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Does it happen somewhere that if a language does not allow word-initial consonant clusters, s+t clusters undergo metathesis and become geminate ts ? I've never heard of that. The opposite type of metathesis, where an affricate changes to a cluster of sibilant+ stop, seems to have occured (unconditi...
- 27 Jan 2018 00:52
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: A Curious Kind of English
- Replies: 7
- Views: 7504
Re: A Curious Kind of English
I wouldn't categorize spelling as part of dialect or idiolect differences. None of the alternative spellings used in the sample text seem to represent any deviance in pronunciation from standard English. There are people today who use moderately reformed spelling along these lines, although not many...
- 17 Dec 2017 18:57
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
- Replies: 7086
- Views: 1317678
Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Is it not simpler to assume that me and my simply merged either in function or just pronunciation? This does seem simpler. But that doesn't fit because this merger of function isn't found anywhere else in the paradigm except in some varieties where "you" and "your" are both redu...
- 30 Nov 2017 06:18
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
- Replies: 11605
- Views: 2043786
- 25 Nov 2017 23:55
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
- Replies: 11605
- Views: 2043786
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
I am trying to think of some interesting ways word order can interact with case/definiteness. If a language is predominantly SOV, would the following be likely: woman.NOM man.ACC saw 'The woman saw a man' VS woman.NOM saw man.ACC 'The woman saw the man' With a definite object appearing after the ve...
- 21 Nov 2017 20:20
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
- Replies: 11605
- Views: 2043786
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
@Smtuval: I think hatelangs are a great way to realise that it’s actually quite difficult to find a feature that you continue hating once you get into it and explore its possibilities. That even goes for things that at first glance seem awful, such as the cluster fl (which incidentally is the only ...
- 21 Nov 2017 08:03
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
- Replies: 11605
- Views: 2043786
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
I am thinking about starting a hatelang, like Creyeditor's Omlut... what do people think of such a thing, and what do you think of the first few sentences that I have translated from "the North Wind and the Sun"? north-GEN wind and sun argue-PST-PLR about two he~PLR which more strong. Djba...
- 18 Nov 2017 02:53
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: English Orthography Reform
- Replies: 402
- Views: 197099
Re: English Orthography Reform
The English spelling system is perfectly fine. Strange, yes, but perfectly fine. As Xonen says, that's true if you define "perfectly fine" as something like "not entirely unusable", but there are all sorts of fairly obvious ways the spelling of English words could be improved (i...
- 15 Nov 2017 20:41
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
- Replies: 11605
- Views: 2043786
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
In the present day, some generativists seem to be trying to restrict the use of "linguists" I actually think I have to jump in here. It wasn't necessarily the generativists that first started this game. Some earlier paper introduced the terms B-linguists, C-linguists and D-linguists, whic...
- 15 Nov 2017 18:56
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
- Replies: 11605
- Views: 2043786
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
linguisticians It makes me irrationally angry that this word exists. It's "linguists" dammit! [+1] [+1] Seriously, the only reason this word is a "thing" is because laypeople don't know the word "polyglot" exists. I'm not normall one for prescriptivism but misuse of li...
- 07 Nov 2017 22:46
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
- Replies: 7086
- Views: 1317678
Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
I firmly believe that Turkish uses <z̧> for /ʒ/ and <j> for /dʒ/, since I refuse to participate in a reality where a major language gets away with using <c> for the latter. The one that always bothers me is Albanian using <x> for /dz/ and <xh> for /dZ/. Even more irritating is that the Bashkimi alp...
- 28 Oct 2017 00:58
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
- Replies: 11605
- Views: 2043786
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
The Australian languages were the ones I was thinking of initially, but I couldn't remember what restrictions they had. I think it was something to do with the plosives I think many Australian languages, which often have large coronal inventories with things like distinct dental, alveolar, retrofle...