The CBB

Does anyone know if there are examples of this type of cluster in native vocabulary? There's tarttua ("to grab") that's been reconstructed as *tarttudak in Proto-Finnic, and possibly goes back to Proto-Uralic since Hungarian has tart ("to keep"). Also varttua ("to mature&qu...

Japanese devoicing/dropping probably varies a lot, I think? No idea what the rules are for when there can be full dropping and when there can't, but it seems like it happens more with verbs than nouns? Maybe? I'm pretty sure I've heard eg. 分かりました (wakarimashita, "understood") with full dro...

Just mentioning that I've also noticed that more immigrants tend to speak Finnish than English, at least here in Roihuvuori. Although I'm not at all active in the community, even I can tell that between immigrants and non-immigrants, the language used by default isn't English but Finnish. Personally...

I'm sorry, but you're not describing an issue with languages, you're describing a mental issue. I'm not saying that as an insult, but just so that we're clear that the only way to address the 'problem' you're having is with some form of reflection, self-help or therapy. There is no actual 'solution...

That's not good evidence! Not everything has to be about evidence, at least I'm still (mostly) talking about this because of conlanging reasons. I don't care whether Borean is real (but like I already said, I don't think it is; I think at least most of the languages are probably related to each oth...

Is there a list of that symbolism or tendencies? Can you provide it? Not that I know of, but the reason things like Nostratic and even Borean can be reconstructed is that correspondences exist. Searching through the database of reconstructions of Nostratic or even Borean on Starostin's site just sh...

Kind of an "abstract" question, but... The more I look into Nostratic and Borean and whatnot, the more I realise that regardless of whether or not the proposed macrofamilies were ever actually real or not, at least in Eurasia there seem to be some vague and elusive-to-the-point-of-probably...

Just some kind of random phonology that I guess is maybe kinda like if Basque and Haida had a baby or whatever? /m n̪ n̺ ŋ/ <m n ṇ ñ> /p b t̪ t̺ k q ʡ ʔ/ <p b t ṭ k q ʿ ʾ> /t̪͡s̪ t̺͡s̺/ <z ẓ> /s̪ s̺/ <s ṣ> /j w x ɣ ħ ʕ h/ <y w x g ḥ c h> /r ʀ/ <r ṛ> /l̪ ɬ̪ l̺ ɬ̺/ <l d ḷ ḍ> /a e i o u/ <a e i o u>

Just to clarify, are you saying the simplified hypothetical system of [æ, ɔ, ɪ̟, ʊ̠, ə] is neither naturalistic nor impossible, whereas the current system of [æ, ɑ, ɔ, œ, i, ɯ̠, ʊ̠, ʏ̟, ə] is both more naturalistic and more probable? Well, I think the latter is more naturalistic, since that's basic...

@Vlürch: That is exactly what I was looking for. The examples and your explanation of its usage make me much confident that I am not just mixing up everything including topic and focus. No problem, kinda funny because I thought it'd probably be completely pointless and unhelpful rambling haha. Teac...

Another possibility is to pronounce <c g sc> as /t͡ʃ d͡ʒ ʃ/ in the syllable coda (or some similar condition, depending on the details). To get coda /k g sk/, you'd write <ch gh sch>. So /ibd͡ʒarʃt/ would be <ibgiarsct>; meanwhile, /ibd͡ʒarskt/ would be <ibgiarscht>. That does conflict with <c> /t͡s...

Does the language have diphthongs that end in /i/? It kind of does, but I feel like it makes more sense to think of it as coda /j/ since there are no diphthongs ending in /a e o u/ (at least yet, but it's possible I'll add them later). If not, you could got down a sort of Irish sort of Basque route...

Not sure if this counts as a "quick question" since it's pretty long, but... I have a question about the plausibility of a language having this phonology and orthography when it's set in what's IRL Sardinia and Corscia in an alternative world where things are probably mostly similar to the...

Sanskrit आर्य (ārya) /ˈɑːɾ.jɐ/ “noble, noble one” v.s. Proto-Finnic orja /ˈorjɑ/ "slave" At least commonly the Finnish term (also found in other Uralic languages) is considered a loanword from Proto-Indo-Iranian, because speakers of Proto-Uralic enslaved speakers of Proto-Indo-Iranian. So...

Could a house be considered an inalienable possession, if in traditional society, people didn't change houses? Probably? I don't know anything about natlangs with alienable and inalienable possession, but it'd make sense that it can be very language-dependent. If the culture has strong family struc...

I would call it "the distal case". I considered that, but the feeling I had was that it would refer to something being far from the speaker and googling it, it's apparently a thing in at least Tsez and does refer to distance from the speaker. So it seems the easiest solution really would ...

Distantive? (← *distō “I stand apart, afar”) That'd work! Thanks. Abessive is still valid as an analogy to adessive. But hmm... in that case, I guess maybe I really should just call it abessive and put a note like "im not like the other abessives!!!" and call the case that means "wit...

I thought I'd asked this before, but seems like I haven't: what would a grammatical case with the meaning "far from" be called? Like, for example, "far from the house". I'm pretty sure if it was formed analogously to other case names, it'd be called abessive, but that name is alr...

I tried to do death grunts while singing in my conlang, and I am satisfied with what I hear. Never thought I'd actually achieve this. Congrats! [:D] Be careful not to overdo it if you're just starting out with growls and such, especially if you're getting that "harshness" using your throa...

https://i.ibb.co/xmBxzgd/protophon.png That's a fun phonology, just a bit weird with that /ø/. Usually if a language has one front rounded vowel, it'll be /y/, and if a language has /ø/, it'll also have /y/. Not sure if that's an actual universal, though, and there's no reason why you couldn't hand...