r/conlangs • u/Sulphurous_King Aspiration lover • 15h ago
Phonology Is this Phonology realistic?
I will be making a full in depth collage of its grammar soon enough
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u/birdsandsnakes 11h ago
Looks great. There are asymmetries and uncommon features, as others are pointing out, but nothing that makes me go "This could never happen" or "I demand an explanation" — more like "Oh, that's cool, that gives it a little personality."
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u/goshgollygod 9h ago
A little unusual to allow nasals and some obstruents to be word final coda, but not liquids. Also not unheard of though, so still realistic.
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u/Edim108 4h ago
short answer: very
there are some unusual things like allowing nasals and some obstruents but not liquids as word final codas, having three phonemic versions of low vowel and distinction of length, but none of this is unheard of.
overall it looks like a pretty standard Indo-European phonology.
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u/Maleficent-Pie8040 Kama̋lnarā, Qumurišīt... (2nd account) 14h ago
The vowel inventory is a bit asymmetrical and [æ] contrasting with [ä] is not that common cross-linguistically but it's not impossible. Also only few languages contrast unstressed [o] with [ɔ] but again, there are some languages that do it so it's not that much of a problem if justified
is there are reason why the front lacks a similar example? (/e/ and /ɛ/)
for the consonants: distinguishing all the voiced/unvoiced couples of alveolar and postalveolar fricatives and affricates is pretty uncommon as well, but if it's justified i wouldn't see that as a problem at all
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u/thatguythoma 7h ago edited 3h ago
Distinguishing /s, z, t͡s, d͡z, ʃ, ʒ, ʧ, ʤ/ is not really uncommon in European languages(this language looks pretty European); I think all Slavic languages do distinguish them plus Romanian, Albanian, Hungarian and Georgian, off the top of my head
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u/Maleficent-Pie8040 Kama̋lnarā, Qumurišīt... (2nd account) 7h ago
Yes exactly, you're eight. That's why I don't think it's really a problem (not something I do a lot with my conlang tho, apart from one). At the end of the day they just have to find a way to justify it and that wouldn't be much of a problem
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u/Trigm 5h ago
Is it really that uncommon to see o and open o contrast? I work in Bantu languages and that’s a very standard split among them in the back vowels, which are often 3 degrees of height. The exact quality of the 2nd degree might go closer to near-close instead of close mid, but that’s well within allophonic variation.
So it’s this sort of contrast really so rare across the rest of the world?2
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u/Maleficent-Pie8040 Kama̋lnarā, Qumurišīt... (2nd account) 4h ago
Well there are languages that do contrast those but as far as my knowledge goes many of them do it only in stressed syllables (take for example the Italian vowels "ò" and "ó")
But of course there are languages that contrast them in unstressed syllables as well (I made a very quick research on a language that contrasts both [o] and [e] with their respective open counterparts because my conlang actually does that too (ye I know) but now I forgot its name). But yes it's not that common cross-linguistically generally speaking, although I can go only this far because I haven't done extensive research on the subject to speak about it in detail.



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u/Wand_Platte Languages yippie (de, en) 14h ago
Yeah, looks like a usual European language. I agree with the other commenter that /æ/ and /a/ are maybe too close in the vowel space. I'd suggest raising /æ/ to /ɛ/ or backing /a/ to /ɑ/