Questions tagged [vowels]
The vowels tag has no usage guidance.
8 questions
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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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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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A biphonic language
How could a language evolve such that the vowels are biphonic (like in throat singing)?
Note: Biphonicity is when two notes/tones are sung simultaneously.
There are languages that are whistled or ...
- 487
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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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What symbols should I use for phonemes when I have many vowels?
Most conlang examples I find in tutorials use a small set of vowels, but the one I'm working on has 13 and I'm having trouble finding the simplest transliteration to work with. Here are the IPA ...
- 316
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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 are the reasons behind ROILA's phonology?
ROILA (RObot Interaction LAnguage), a constructed language for communication between robots and between robots and humans, comes with a 5 vowel system. the vowels are written a e i o u but their sound ...
- 11.5k
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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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