Conlang Year: Week 5
We've made it to week 5, meaning we've passed the first month of the year! It was the longest January I can remember. Once again, the prompts I'm using for Conlang Year are coming from here.
Day 29 - Explore sound changes for vowels
I like the idea of high vowels lowering before nasal codas, so we'll be lowering y to ø and u to o when they occur before m, n, or ŋ. I started with a pretty sparse selection of vowels so I don't think that this will overcomplicate things.
Day 30 - Explore stress-sensitive sound changes
An idea that I like is deleting unstressed vowels, so that will happen in some instances. I also think that there are going to be some rules about which consonants are allowed in what order in consonant clusters depending on which side of a vowel they occur on, which might result in some consonants swapping positions if they end up clustered together. For example, sɸ would occur before a vowel in a syllable, but ɸs would occur following a vowel in a syllabe.
Day 31 - Organize notes and select sound changes
I've selected voicing assimilation, fortifying termal consonants, lowering vowels before nasal codas, and deleting unstressed vowels, and swapping consonant positions. I think that's plenty for a first timer! Here's the order I plan to apply them in:
deleting unstressed vowels
voicing assimilation
lowering vowels before m, n, ŋ
fortifying terminal consonants
switching consonant positions
Day 32 - Test your sound changes as a package
I've modified all 48 roots I've come up with so far and I like the way they sound after these changes. Here's the list of what I've made so far:
ɛɪ.ʌ noun eye
yɾ.taɪ noun nose
sma noun mouth
sɛɪ.boŋʃ noun head
θymɸ noun arm
ʃaɪ noun hand
ɢyx.qɪ noun torso/body
θmup noun leg
Ʒðaɪ noun foot
qaɪ.a noun hill
βyð.ɪ noun stream
θaθt noun pond
y.xyx noun wetland
ɛɪ.tʌ noun rapids
zmɛɣ.ʌ noun fog
aɪ.ɛɪ noun dry heat
aθ.sa noun wet heat
pɛp noun rain
ðɪd.xɛ noun thunder
ɸaɸ noun lightning
nɪɸθ noun wind
uz.tu noun horsetail
tsɛɪ noun reed
quŋ.ɾɪ noun conifer
θaɪ.a noun fruit tree
ʒɪt.mpat noun cycad
ʒɛɪ.qɪp noun algae
ʌʃ.ɛɪp noun mushroom
uɢ.ɾuq noun fish
ŋxa noun worm
ʒʌθ noun flying arthropod
aɪsʃ noun crawling arthropod
ʃɸoŋ noun goat/sheep
ɢʌɸ noun cattle
βax noun bird
sɸɪt transitive verb to cook
ŋyʃ transitive verb to build
aɸ.ʎaq transitive verb to fight
an.ɪ transitive verb to plant
aɪt.βɾat transitive verb to harvest
ɪx.qyʃ transitive verb to flood
βɛɪ intransitive verb to walk
syɸ intransitive verb to sleep
saɪ.ʃaɪ intransitive verb to rain
xax intransitive verb to laugh
sɸɪt intransitive verb to stand
ɸɪθ intransitive verb to sit
pɾɛɪ intransitive verb to lie down
Day 33 - Create five more animate nouns to test sound changes
We're going to try to come up with some things that interact with my sound changes, so here goes.
Before sound change: ɢuʎuʒɸ antelope βðym cat θsɛ.ɪn lizard ŋɢaɪ.dʌ monkey xʃu dog ɸðɾaŋ elephant
After sound change: ɢuʎɸʃ βðøm θsɛn ŋɢaɪ.dʌ ʃxu ɸθɾaŋ
Day 34 - Try compounding forms and test again
I'm going to grab some roots at random and jam them together, and because I am a gamer I am going to randomize it!
nɪð.uβ + θaðd βɛɪ + xax βðym + βax
After the deleting unstressed vowels, they sound like this:
nɪð.βθaðd βɛɪx βðymβx
After voicing assimilation, I'm left with this:
nɪð.βðaðd βɛɪx βðymβɣ
The third change is lowering vowels before m, n, and ŋ, which don't appear at the end of any of my test compounds. We move on to fortifying terminal consonants:
nɪð.βðaθt βɛɪx βðymɸx
Finally, we swap consonants around, but none of these need that.
These ended up being some real monsters - I think I need to be careful with how aggressively I delete unstressed vowels because the resulting consonant clusters can be real monsters to pronounce.
Day 35 - Solidify your list of ordered sound changes
Overall, I'm happy with what I've come up with this week. It's all written down in the previous entries, but I will look into using Lexurgy as the details on today's prompt recommend.