Questions tagged [phonetics]
For questions about phonetics, or the study of the production and perception of speech sounds.
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How can I model/simulate/test non-human vocal arrangements?
In various world-building projects, I find myself running into the aggravating situation of having to create languages for non-humans using the human phonetic inventory. I would love nothing more than ...
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How should a consonant (IPA) chart look for lip-less, teeth-less, non-humans?
I've made this account just now to ask a question about our world-building project. Axobit - the most dominant species on my planet - are axolotl-like bipedal organisms. They have blowholes on their ...
AxobitMelodies
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Executive phoneme list for human?
I want to make my own language, but for begin this works, we need to know all phonemes existing, for decide which keep and which give up.
Do you know a site with list of phonem with playable sound (it'...
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Is it possible to prevent vowel shift?
The English Great Vowel Shift made a huge discrepancy between English pronunciation and English orthography. In perspective of conlang creators, that's something that should be prevented.
It seems ...
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Phonetics and Phonotactics critique?
Could you help me with a conlang idea I had? I want to make a language that has a solid amount of phonemes so I don't have to make words too long (I want the language to he agglutinative, so there's ...
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Is a language in which a person will not have rhotacism, neither lambdacism when speaking it realistic?
I imagined a language created by humans, not common humans (Homo sapiens), I mean a fictional species named tusked humans, commonly named orcs (their scientific name is Homo desertum) (which means ...
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Could [j] and [ʎ] coexist in the same language as distinct phonemes?
As the title asks, could [j] and [ʎ] coexist in the same language as distinct phonemes? I imagine one would merge with the other or some other mechanism forms to make each more distinct. If the ...
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Two different symbols representinɡ a phoneme
How would I represent multiple transliterations for one phoneme in a chart?
I was thinking something like this:
⟨k~q⟩ /k/
It might work, though it doesn't make the most sense, and I would prefer to ...
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What sounds would snake-people be able to pronouce?
The snake-people are humanoid creatures with snake-like traits:
Their mouth and nose are longer than in humans. The tongue can work as in humans, but sits only in the front half of the jaw and is ...
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Why would a language created by humans lack both the /k/ and the /g/ consonants?
In my story, there is a species of aquatic humans often called merfolk (Homo maritimus, so they are still humans, just not Homo sapiens). They do not look the typical descriptions of merfolk (I want ...
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Why would a language created by humans lack the /j/ semivowel, and even the /i/ vowel?
What I mean is the sound /j/ (as in English yellow and French hyène 'hyena') is the most common semivowel around the world. This phoneme is highly conserved in Indo-European languages (this language ...
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Is lowering the tongue at word-ending a voiceless vowel?
In my conlang, some consonants can cluster with l at the end. For example, 'story' is 'coánl'; following dictionary.com's IPA for 'metal' as / ˈmɛt l / I had set out pronouncing this like /koˈa:n l/. ...
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In compound words/suffixed words, does the stress change?
I'm creating a language where the stress is on the third to last syllable and I have a sound change where an unstressed short vowel at the beginning of a word is deleted. (so in 'a.ta.ra. the word vs ...
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Is is okay that most consonant assimilations result in a phone whose dedicated letter doesn't exist?
Whilst worldbuilding, I decided to make a conlang. A lot of consonant assimilations happen in this language. This language is supposed to be spoken by angels.
My native language is Korean, btw. Korean ...
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Four vowels, with no /i/ sound. Is it possible?
My vowel phonemic inventory would be just /a/, /e/, /o/ and /u/ with no /i/ sound. Is this possible or not?
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How many unique sounds does the average conlang have?
At the moment I have 90 unique vowel/diphthong sounds that use tonal and length distinction in my conlang. In addition I've chosen 14 consonants, making my total of unique sounds 104.
I don't ...
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How would one describe different tones on paper?
In my new language, I use tones, such as those in Mandarin and Cantonese, to diversify my words. When I try to make a dictionary, I do not know how to describe these tones. I have tried using parts ...
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What's the purpose of vowels and consonants?
Other than making words easier to pronounce, is there any purpose to having the letters divided like this? Should they or a similar concept be added to a constructed language?
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What language uses the most amount of phonemes?
I'm constructing an auxlang/artlang (temporarily named Syn).
The Syn is (being) designed to interface with any known human language, with a wildly uniform set of simplistic, unambiguous symbols.
I ...
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What reasons would there be for not having a human conlang with only vowels?
All natlangs have both consonants and vowels, but it's not immediately obvious why a human language couldn't be made from only vowels.
Has anyone theorised about why natlangs always have consonants?
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Which IPA phones can be made and understood underwater?
I have a human culture that gradually develops an underwater civilisation. They still require mouth and nose breathing and will be living in air bubbles, retaining traditional phones. They do spend a ...
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Are there nasalized nasal consonants?
As in, [ñ] or [ñ̃]. It seems to me you can make a nasal sound more nasal, maybe by stressing your nose muscles or something in that sense. Does this exist?
EDIT:
Apologies, I was thinking about ...
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Can Pokemon language encode enough information to be a language?
I know that like Star Wars' droid, Pikachu's language is just nonsense with emotionally appropriate intonation, that said...
Can suprasegmental features (accent, tone, etc) encode a single three ...
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Are there conlangs using constructed sounds?
Usually, constructed languages of all kind (naturalistic or not) draw their sounds from existing natural languages.
Are there conlangs with constructed sounds, i.e., sounds that do not occur in ...
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