Search found 565 matches

by Sumelic
08 Jul 2019 00:53
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
Replies: 11605
Views: 2043887

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]...
by Sumelic
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...
by Sumelic
23 Jun 2019 03:32
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
Replies: 11605
Views: 2043887

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...
by Sumelic
31 Jul 2018 04:38
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317754

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...
by Sumelic
31 Jul 2018 04:08
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317754

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Ælfwine wrote: 30 Jul 2018 00:04 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.
by Sumelic
13 May 2018 09:09
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: English Dialects
Replies: 78
Views: 43956

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 ...
by Sumelic
01 Apr 2018 23:19
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: English Orthography Reform
Replies: 402
Views: 197127

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...
by Sumelic
01 Apr 2018 11:05
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: English Orthography Reform
Replies: 402
Views: 197127

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...
by Sumelic
30 Jan 2018 23:27
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
Replies: 11605
Views: 2043887

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...
by Sumelic
27 Jan 2018 00:52
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: A Curious Kind of English
Replies: 7
Views: 7507

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...
by Sumelic
17 Dec 2017 18:57
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317754

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...
by Sumelic
30 Nov 2017 06:18
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
Replies: 11605
Views: 2043887

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

Ahzoh wrote: 30 Nov 2017 05:12 is /s/ > /a/ ever possible like "ism(a)" > "iam(a)"?
With enough sound changes, almost anything is possible. I can imagine something like /isma/ > /iʃma/ > /iʂma/ > /ixma/ > /iχma/ > /iʁma/ > /iɐma/ > /iama/.
by Sumelic
25 Nov 2017 23:55
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
Replies: 11605
Views: 2043887

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...
by Sumelic
21 Nov 2017 20:20
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
Replies: 11605
Views: 2043887

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 ...
by Sumelic
21 Nov 2017 08:03
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
Replies: 11605
Views: 2043887

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...
by Sumelic
18 Nov 2017 02:53
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: English Orthography Reform
Replies: 402
Views: 197127

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...
by Sumelic
15 Nov 2017 20:41
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
Replies: 11605
Views: 2043887

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...
by Sumelic
15 Nov 2017 18:56
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
Replies: 11605
Views: 2043887

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...
by Sumelic
07 Nov 2017 22:46
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317754

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...
by Sumelic
28 Oct 2017 00:58
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
Replies: 11605
Views: 2043887

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...