Let's create a language with few phonemes!

[BokaBB]

On vulgarlang.com or something like that I have recently created many new languages,some extremely simple and other extremely complicated.
That gave me an idea to make a more complete language here.
The language should have an extremely simple phonology,with the only vowel being /a/ (I may change that if needed) and also very few consonants. However,I want it to have a complex grammar.
This project shall be egalitarian and we shall make everything needed, including phonology (orthography should have a 1-1 correspondence with it),grammar and phonotactics.
Have a good day!

BokaBB

[Moosey]

I'm making a language with only /m/ /i/ /k/ /j/ phonemes for really really simple phonology

[BokaBB]

I'm making a language with only /m/ /i/ /k/ /j/ phonemes for really really simple phonology

Making yourself or proposing to me?
Have a good day!

BokaBB

[fluffykitty]

If your language doesn't have very many phonemes, then it's possible to write entire syllables with single characters (like in Chinese except not a nightmare to learn)

[BokaBB]

If your language doesn't have very many phonemes, then it's possible to write entire syllables with single characters (like in Chinese except not a nightmare to learn)

If Moosey is making a language with only 4 phonemes (Pucking idea stealers!) we will likely have 3 then.
There will likely be many syllables and many of them long and words like mikkmikkmmkmikkimkimkimiimkimkmkm could possibly exist without language being agglutinative.
If he isn't and is suggesting,then it will be better.
Have a good day!

BokaBB

[fluffykitty]

Here's my proposal:
Phonemes: /m/ /k/ /i/
Phonotactics:
Onset can be empty (word-initally), /m/, or /k/
Nucleus can be /m/ or /i/
Coda can be empty, /m/, /k/, or /mk/
If the nucleus is /m/, then /m/ cannot occur in the onset or coda.
Any clusters between syllables produced by the above rules are legal, and the number of possible syllables is 13.

Code: Select all

i
mi
ki
im
mim
kim
ik
mik
kik
imk
mimk
kimk
m
km
mk
kmk

Allophone rules:
Non-geminate /k/ followed by /i/ is pronounced as [ts]
/m/ followed by [k] is pronounced as [ŋ]
/m/ followed by [ts] is pronounced as [n]
Non-geminate /k/ preceded by /m/ is pronounced as [g], except word-finally
For example: /imkkiiki/->[iŋkkiitsi], /imkikimkik/->[intsitsintsik]
Note that the above procedure is completely reversible, since every step produces a not-previously-occuring sound, so no new phonemes are introduced.
Here are the syllables after allophony:

Code: Select all

i
mi
tsi
im
mim
tsim
ik
mik
tsik
iŋg
miŋg
tsiŋg
m
km
ŋg
kŋg

None of the rules alter /i/. Any ideas on how we could do that? Maybe /i/ retracts to [ʊ] or something before /k/.

[Moosey]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Re: cif's phonology
imo the allophones distract from the minimalism.

[BokaBB]

Here's my proposal:
Phonemes: /m/ /k/ /i/
Phonotactics:
Onset can be empty (word-initally), /m/, or /k/
Nucleus can be /m/ or /i/
Coda can be empty, /m/, /k/, or /mk/
If the nucleus is /m/, then /m/ cannot occur in the onset or coda.
Any clusters between syllables produced by the above rules are legal, and the number of possible syllables is 13.

Code: Select all

i
mi
ki
im
mim
kim
ik
mik
kik
imk
mimk
kimk
m
km
mk
kmk

Allophone rules:
Non-geminate /k/ followed by /i/ is pronounced as [ts]
/m/ followed by [k] is pronounced as [ŋ]
/m/ followed by [ts] is pronounced as [n]
Non-geminate /k/ preceded by /m/ is pronounced as [g], except word-finally
For example: /imkkiiki/->[iŋkkiitsi], /imkikimkik/->[intsitsintsik]
Note that the above procedure is completely reversible, since every step produces a not-previously-occuring sound, so no new phonemes are introduced.
Here are the syllables after allophony:

Code: Select all

i
mi
tsi
im
mim
tsim
ik
mik
tsik
iŋg
miŋg
tsiŋg
m
km
ŋg
kŋg

None of the rules alter /i/. Any ideas on how we could do that? Maybe /i/ retracts to [ʊ] or something before /k/.

Nice.Long i (ii) and hard m and k (mm and kk) should definitely exist I think. That would allow syllables like kkiimmkk to exist.
I think that we should remain simple and any phonetic changes should result in already existing sounds I think.
I think our rules should be extremely liberal to prevent us from having almost every word huge.
Have a good day!

BokaBB

[Moosey]

Nice.Long i (ii) and hard m and k (mm and kk) should definitely exist I think. That would allow syllables like kkiimmkk to exist.
I think that we should remain simple and any phonetic changes should result in already existing sounds I think.
I think our rules should be extremely liberal to prevent us from having almost every word huge.
Have a good day!

BokaBB

what are the phonemes for long i and hard m and k? /iː/ for the first, I assume, but what would a "hard m" or "hard k" be?

[BokaBB]

Nice.Long i (ii) and hard m and k (mm and kk) should definitely exist I think. That would allow syllables like kkiimmkk to exist.
I think that we should remain simple and any phonetic changes should result in already existing sounds I think.
I think our rules should be extremely liberal to prevent us from having almost every word huge.
Have a good day!

BokaBB

what are the phonemes for long i and hard m and k? /iː/ for the first, I assume, but what would a "hard m" or "hard k" be?

/m/ and /k/ pronounced twice and having a hard effect.
Long /i/ is still not a new phoneme but two fused.
Have a good day!

BokaBB

[BokaBB]

Should our language be tonal?If it is that could greatly simplify our words but would not correlate with what I initially thought of.
Have a good day!

BokaBB

[fluffykitty]

Nice.Long i (ii) and hard m and k (mm and kk) should definitely exist I think. That would allow syllables like kkiimmkk to exist.

My proposal already allows for doublings.

I think that we should remain simple and any phonetic changes should result in already existing sounds I think.

If allophonic changes result in sounds which already exist (in contexts where they already exist), then they're not allophonic.

I think our rules should be extremely liberal to prevent us from having almost every word huge.

So like allowing /mk/ and /km/ in onsets, and consecutive /m/ nuclei? There's only so much you can do with three phonemes.

/m/ and /k/ pronounced twice and having a hard effect.
Long /i/ is still not a new phoneme but two fused.
Have a good day!

BokaBB

So like /mmʰ/ and /kkʰ/?

Should our language be tonal?If it is that could greatly simplify our words but would not correlate with what I initially thought of.
Have a good day!

BokaBB

If we were adding phonemes, I'd prefer /s/ and a vowel with a different quality, since /s/ can easily attach to the starts or ends of syllables and another vowel would allow better control of allophonic effects like palatalization.

[BokaBB]

Nice.Long i (ii) and hard m and k (mm and kk) should definitely exist I think. That would allow syllables like kkiimmkk to exist.

My proposal already allows for doublings.

I think that we should remain simple and any phonetic changes should result in already existing sounds I think.

If allophonic changes result in sounds which already exist (in contexts where they already exist), then they're not allophonic.

I think our rules should be extremely liberal to prevent us from having almost every word huge.

So like allowing /mk/ and /km/ in onsets, and consecutive /m/ nuclei? There's only so much you can do with three phonemes.

/m/ and /k/ pronounced twice and having a hard effect.
Long /i/ is still not a new phoneme but two fused.
Have a good day!

BokaBB

So like /mmʰ/ and /kkʰ/?

Should our language be tonal?If it is that could greatly simplify our words but would not correlate with what I initially thought of.
Have a good day!

BokaBB

If we were adding phonemes, I'd prefer /s/ and a vowel with a different quality, since /s/ can easily attach to the starts or ends of syllables and another vowel would allow better control of allophonic effects like palatalization.

I saw you allowed doublings but not at the very beginning. I am not sure why I kept that.
We won't add anymore,we may possibly have tones if we wish so,that is what I said.
Are hard /m/ -s and /k/ -s another phoneme then or not?
I wasn't certain what allophony is and still mostly am not (Sounds that can replace already present sound without any difference in meaning?)
Have a good day!

BokaBB

[fluffykitty]

I saw you allowed doublings but not at the very beginning. I am not sure why I kept that.

Initial geminates are difficult to hear AFAIK.

We won't add anymore,we may possibly have tones if we wish so,that is what I said.

I still think /s/ and another vowel would be a good idea.

Are hard /m/ -s and /k/ -s another phoneme then or not?

As long as they're completely predictable, no.

I wasn't certain what allophony is and still mostly am not (Sounds that can replace already present sound without any difference in meaning?)

Yeah pretty much (eg how "truck" has a /tʃ/ sound, not a /t/ sound, or the aspiration difference between the "p"s in "pin" and "spin"). Since there's no difference in meaning, allophones don't count as additional phonemes, and so we can use them to make this language sound more interesting while still having a very small number of phonemes.

[BokaBB]

I saw you allowed doublings but not at the very beginning. I am not sure why I kept that.

Initial geminates are difficult to hear AFAIK.

We won't add anymore,we may possibly have tones if we wish so,that is what I said.

I still think /s/ and another vowel would be a good idea.

Are hard /m/ -s and /k/ -s another phoneme then or not?

As long as they're completely predictable, no.

I wasn't certain what allophony is and still mostly am not (Sounds that can replace already present sound without any difference in meaning?)

Yeah pretty much (eg how "truck" has a /tʃ/ sound, not a /t/ sound, or the aspiration difference between the "p"s in "pin" and "spin"). Since there's no difference in meaning, allophones don't count as additional phonemes, and so we can use them to make this language sound more interesting while still having a very small number of phonemes.

We should be more extereme than Moosey I think.
Have a good day!

BokaBB

[fluffykitty]

Please only quote the parts of posts you're responding to. Also, we should start working on other parts of the language.

[BokaBB]

Please only quote the parts of posts you're responding to. Also, we should start working on other parts of the language.

Will try but that is time - consuming.
Let's create some basic vocabulary!
Have a good day!

BokaBB

[fluffykitty]

How about <ik> "go", <-m> "-er", and <ikm> "person"? Also, another way we can distinguish words and stuff is stress. What do you think of that?

[BokaBB]

How about <ik> "go", <-m> "-er", and <ikm> "person"? Also, another way we can distinguish words and stuff is stress. What do you think of that?

Pitch accent or what?I am not sure.
Have a good day!

BokaBB

[fluffykitty]

A pitch accent would have more possibilities for distinguishing words, but I'm not sure if there's a nice way to write stuff like that without diacritics.
We could use something like <m(-)> for negation, since that's a pretty common thing. Also, we'll need pronouns at some point. I think that we should avoid distinguishing number, since pronouns should be short and we don't have very many short words. Maybe we could use <ikm> as a third-person pronoun. For the other two, maybe <ki> "I/we" and <mki> "you"?

[BokaBB]

A pitch accent would have more possibilities for distinguishing words, but I'm not sure if there's a nice way to write stuff like that without diacritics.
We could use something like <m(-)> for negation, since that's a pretty common thing. Also, we'll need pronouns at some point. I think that we should avoid distinguishing number, since pronouns should be short and we don't have very many short words. Maybe we could use <ikm> as a third-person pronoun. For the other two, maybe <ki> "I/we" and <mki> "you"?

Interesting thoughts.
Maybe we can say 1 (proposal:mi) ki as I and many or multiple(proposal:mkik or kmik) ki as we?
Please tell me more about stress.
Have a good day!

BokaBB

[BokaBB]

A spreadsheet is needed now.
fluffykitty,I invite you to participate in Word Chains and in my brand new game Word Guessing as a sign of our reunion.
Have a good day!

BokaBB

[fluffykitty]

Maybe we can say 1 (proposal:mi) ki as I and many (proposal:mkik or kmik) ki as we?

<mi> "one" and <kmik> "many" sound good.

Please tell me more about stress.

Stress is when you emphasize a particular syllable of a word, like in emphásize or partícular. If we use it in this language, then we can have words which only differ in the location of the stress (like English convíct/cónvict) so we can have shorter words.

A spreadsheet is needed now.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0

We could also have <-i> "-ing" (eg <iki> "going") and <i> "be" (so < ki i iki> "I am going"). We could indicate future tense using <ik> as in <ki ik iki> "I am going to go". Also, where should <m> go in a sentence? English usually puts its negations next to the verb, but we don't have to do it like that.

[BokaBB]

Maybe we can say 1 (proposal:mi) ki as I and many (proposal:mkik or kmik) ki as we?

<mi> "one" and <kmik> "many" sound good.

Please tell me more about stress.

Stress is when you emphasize a particular syllable of a word, like in emphásize or partícular. If we use it in this language, then we can have words which only differ in the location of the stress (like English convíct/cónvict) so we can have shorter words.

A spreadsheet is needed now.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0

We could also have <-i> "-ing" (eg <iki> "going") and <i> "be" (so < ki i iki> "I am going"). We could indicate future tense using <ik> as in <ki ik iki> "I am going to go". Also, where should <m> go in a sentence? English usually puts its negations next to the verb, but we don't have to do it like that.

Okay. We would need some diacritics then, however (Or not?).
Let's make our number system. I want it to be base - 5, minuscule as the phonetics of our language.
M? You think about it as a negative?I guess it should be a preffix or something. However,we should make this language based more on particles than affixes I think.
Our nouns and verbs will likely be simple,but I want an element of complexity somewhere. What do you propose?
There is a website called Fonstruct, you can make a custom script there, altrough it is not a priority now.
Have a good day!

BokaBB

[fluffykitty]

Okay. We would need some diacritics then, however (Or not?).

The language's phonology is simple enough that we could also use alternate characters for stressed nuclei (eg í->e, ḿ->n or something like that), or just use uppercase letters.

Let's make our number system. I want it to be base - 5, minuscule as the phonetics of our language.

I think we should use base 6 since it's nicer in a bunch of ways. Look up "seximal" if you want to know more.

M? You think about it as a negative?I guess it should be a preffix or something. However,we should make this language based more on particles than affixes I think.

If it's a prefix then we might have ambiguity between words beginning with /m/ and other words with an <m-> prefix. And yeah, using mostly particles is probably a good idea.

Our nouns and verbs will likely be simple,but I want an element of complexity somewhere. What do you propose?

Maybe we could use particles and auxiliary verbs to make a detailed verb system.

There is a website called Fonstruct, you can make a custom script there, altrough it is not a priority now.

Since this language has so few syllables, we should probably use a syllabary for it. What do you think the symbols should look like?