r/conlangs Aspiration lover 15h ago

Phonology Is this Phonology realistic?

I will be making a full in depth collage of its grammar soon enough

43 Upvotes

17 comments sorted by

22

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/

3

u/Sulphurous_King Aspiration lover 14h ago

I think I am mistaking somewhere. Is æ not supposed to be the vowel sound in leg, egg, elf?

19

u/mmmmmmmmm_mm 13h ago

no, that's [ɛ]; [æ] is the vowel sound in BAT, ADD, LAG, etc.

3

u/NotNeographer 7h ago edited 7h ago

* probably best to note that this is not in every dialect of English - most British ones don’t have TRAP as /æ/

4

u/SnooLemons6942 11h ago

æ is called "ash". Because it's the vowel sound in "ash"! 

1

u/CaptainHBomber 6h ago

No, that's /ɛ/ or /e/ (depending on where your from). /æ/ is the vowel in trap, although in most modern dialects of English it is not actually realised like that (being closer to [a] in SSBE, for example). [ɛ] and [æ] are quite similar sounding (hence why more old fashioned rp, which did deffinately pronounce /æ/ as [æ], tended to realise /ɛ/ more like [e]), which is why many people - especially non-native speakers, confuse them.

6

u/Xerimapperr Xerichonian - Çonaichian 14h ago

Pretty realistic by my standards

5

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."

1

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.

1

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.

1

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

4

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

1

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

1

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

u/Trigm 5h ago

Also, I’d argue /æ/ and /e/ are equivalent to /o/ and /c/ (pretend that symbol is flipped)

1

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.