New CBB

I believe he is referring to the fourth post on page 2.

Phonology isn't really my strong suit, but I can try to write up some pointers—possibly tomorrow.

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任何事物的发展都是物极必反，否极泰来。

Thank you very much.

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Magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri. -Multomixtor

However I feel like you need to consider then when they "want" the allophony of your conlang they aren't actually craving for it - they ask for it because they are trying to help you proceed on the steps necessary to develop your conlang.

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L1:
Fluent (on a good day):
Written:
Beginner:
Working on: ~ Eil

Last time I waited longer, I never got a response.

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Magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri. -Multomixtor

It's too Germanic-y to my taste. And the orthography is a mess too.

What sound?

What does it mean? Is the letter <q> used only in word final position? Why's that so?

Why do you use a whole syllable to separate vowels? How do you then separate, say, /a/ and /i/?

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UNUS•ET•UNICUS

Time to cry:

Yes, your phonology is Englishy as ***.

Some things aren't really logical in a language sense, I mean that serie of voiced stop and unvoiced one, until suddenly, that /k/ is aspirated. You added some French sounds to it, but it still yells ENGLISH to my ears.

You also tried hard to make give a single pronunciation to each of the 26 letters of the alphabet, which can't work at all for a natlang.

My suggestion: ditch it, go read about conlangs and natlangs (other than eurolang), then do another phonology.

Helpful links:

http://www.zompist.com/kit.html

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任何事物的发展都是物极必反，否极泰来。

And I wasn't rude.

Edit: Depending on the point of view, I might have been rude, and apologize.

I'll still restate this: he should rethink he's phonology in order to make it less Englishy. If that is what he had in mind.

You asked us if it was Englishy, it is at many levels. Is it your deep intention?

I made it that way because I just wrote in my conscript and had to latinize it to show you guys. How can I make it just a little less Englishy? And how is the orthography a mess?

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Magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri. -Multomixtor

I have some ideas that you might find useful, wakeagainstthefall. However, it's just opinion that you can take or leave.

- One thing that is slightly confusing is that your k is aspirated, but your other voiceless plosives (p, t) aren't. I'd suggest either making it so that all the series are aspirated, or, better, don't aspirate the k. Then you can get rid of the -q.

- Your <o> becomes /ʊ/ at the end of words, necessitating you to create an ó character. In my eyes, there's just too many accented characters in your writing system. Allow /ʊ/ to be written <u> in all positions, thus getting rid of the ó.

- ā, ē typically make the onlooker think that the vowel length is altered (as the macron does in the likes of Latin, Maori and others). The last thing I would have thought they'd stand for, if I hadn't seen your explanations, were diphthongs. <ai> and <ei> are nice digraphs. I'd recommend that you use them for all instances of [ai] and [ei], and get rid of ā and ē.

- It's very confusing to use the macron for diphthongs for ā and ē, but to denote a different vowel quality for ū and ī, and to denote a vowel-consonant combination for ō. I recommend above getting rid of ā and ē, and ō could be written <ox>. If you want to keep the macrons, keep them for ū and ī. If not, get rid of them all is what I'd say.

- Three rhotics is a bit excessive. ŕ isn't too bad, but gg for [ʀ] is very unaesthetic, particularly at the beginning or end of the word. I suggest that you eliminate one of your rhotics. You could write one as r (the flap, perhaps), one as rr (if you kept the alveolar trill) or as rh for the uvular trill perhaps.

- If you're trying to make your language less English-like, here are a couple of suggestions:

* [θ] and /ð/ being both represented by <th> is a real weakness of modern English. I'd write the voiceless [θ] as th, or even þ, and write [ð] as ð, or dh. Representing them both as th, just one has an accented t, doesn't cut it in my book, but others may disagree. They're fairly uncommon, so you could get rid of these two sounds if you wanted something very un-English, though I have both in my main conlang and it's not necessary to get rid of them if you are attached to them.

* /x/ - I'd use it for your [x], and use ks for [ks]. That or get rid of your [ɔx] and remove x entirely.

* All your consonants, bar the rhotics and the weird [ɔx] thing you got going on, are seen in standard English. If you want something less English, get rid of some of your consonants! It'll go a long way. You could get rid of your voiced consonants for instance or replace the distinction between p vs b, t vs d with aspirated p versus unaspirated p as an example. Or you could pick a few consonants, for example all your fricatives bar s and z, and do away with them. Then you can always add new sounds.

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Mereð netholic!
- | - | - | -
- wish list

If I may interject my own question here, as it falls in line with what’s being talked about: From a lot of the conlang places I’ve been there seems to be the general consensus that a conlang sounding like English is bad. I’ve never really been given a good reason behind this. Is it just because, and I’m generalizing, that when creating a conlang it is considered ideal to make one removed from your own?
Personally I am a fan of European languages. I like the sounds English has (though not always the specific phonotactics) I have listened to languages from around the world and aesthetically they have not hit my ear as well as the European ones.

While I understand sound is the primary factor when judging how, shall we say, beautiful a language is, I guess my true question is: can a conlang sound like English (or any other Natlang) but be so different in other areas to merit it being unique, interesting and worthy of discussion?

PS. Loved the big post describing all three steps. I know what I’m going to be working on tomorrow.

Generally, reinventing English conflicts with a conlang's design goals. However, this is not necessarily true. For some languages, similarity with English is a very good thing.

If a language is meant to be spoken by a fictional group of people not related to any community of English speakers, then it isn't realistic for it to bear a noticeable resemblance to English.

Also, a conlang that too closely resembles English in whatever aspect is often a sign of ignorance—the conlanger didn't mean for the language to be overly-reminiscent of English, but because they didn't know enough about how different languages work, it didn't occur to them that certain things could be done differently. This, in my experience, is what most criticisms about English resemblance are really targeting.


For some definition of "beautiful"


Oh, most definitely.

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任何事物的发展都是物极必反，否极泰来。

Thank you, that makes perfect sense. For an race of people with no front teeth, having a whole series of dental-plosives would certainly fit the description of ‘ignorant on behalf of the conlanger’/’going with the only sounds they know’. All this time I had incorrectly attributed it to a rebellious spirit against European language/ English’s presence on the world stage.



Thank you; this was what I was needing to hear. As, after listening to all the sounds in the IPA section of Wikipedia for a few days and picking the ones I liked, when I realized a good portion of them were native to English I came down with a case of ‘no-one’s-going-to-like-this-conlangitis’

You were not the first, you shall not be the last .


Whenever you post information about one of your projects, it's always a good idea to open with a quick rundown of what your design goals for the language are. Since it sounds like one of your big goals is to design a language that conforms to your personal phonological aesthetic, mention that at the beginning. Then if anyone criticizes the Englishyness of the phonology, just refer them to your design goals and say "Yes, and?" (Or perhaps more tactfully, "Yes, but it's supposed to be that way. What do you think of the morphology?")

Do be aware, of course, that people will only comment on your language if they find it interesting, and have something interesting to say. If the only driving force behind a phonology is to sound nice to the creator, then there is very little discussion to be had about it. So if you want comments, be sure to give people something to comment about. (But it seems you've figured this much out already.) Other possible areas for discussion include morphology, syntax, pragmatics, diachronics...

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任何事物的发展都是物极必反，否极泰来。

As I understand it there is some African language -- I think it's Ewe -- which is so similar typologically to English that it amounts to a re-lex, though with no phonological similarity at all between English's morphemes and that language's morphemes.

So just because it isn't realistic doesn't mean it doesn't happen in a natlang.

ANADEW strikes again.

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I am not responsible for the accuracy of my sources; they're responsible for their own mistakes, if any, and also responsible for defending their own statements if you disagree with them.

Having learned some basic Ewe from a Peace Corps worker, I find that...surprising. It certainly didn't feel English-shaped when we were speaking it. Of the features the wiki mentions, only SVO, possessive-before-head, relative-clauses-after-head match English.


However, this is certainly true :)

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任何事物的发展都是物极必反，否极泰来。

Maybe it wasn't Ewe.
Or maybe my source was wrong.
Or maybe I misunderstood my source.
Or possibly some combination of the above.

But thanks for agreeing with my main point; I think that will help M. Park.

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I am not responsible for the accuracy of my sources; they're responsible for their own mistakes, if any, and also responsible for defending their own statements if you disagree with them.

The reason conlangers don't like English clones is the same reason that people don't like stories that are storms of obvious "plot twists" and characters who are purely cliches: You already know everything that's going on right from the start. A good conlang, like a good joke, is one that subverts your expectations while at the same time making a good deal of logical sense.

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♀♥Ø

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Latin ē makes the /ei/ sound while e is /e/, so what's wrong with the macron denoting a diphthong? I do however agree with the o accents being excessive. I never liked "ó" anyways. I'd like to keep the macron letters that denote diphthong sounds, partly because it gives the spelling more variety. I'd also like to keep "ō" for the /ox/ sound. And bear in mind, this is all supposed to be in my conscript, so getting the Latin orthography perfect isn't necessary. I just want to get it a little neater.

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Magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri. -Multomixtor

In Latin normalizations, ē is /eː/

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