Yeah, I fit pretty perfectly into the scrapper archetype ... I really thought I'd broken out of the cycle, but apparently notKhemehekis wrote: ↑01 May 2024 01:20 Just wow.
I'm going to repeat what I, as an anthropologist of scrappers and other conlanging types, said in March: It's in the nature of the scrapper to find that one fatal flaw with each of his/her languages, be it a logistical, proof-of-concept, or strictly aesthetic flaw.
Maybe Ruykkarraber can be reincarnated as Ruykkarrasber.
I'll also quote from the KCT's official description of scrappers: "Like the lady who dates twenty different guys before making one lucky man her husband, scrappers want to settle down one day with one or more great conlangs, and become loyalists or fillers or maybe even circumnavigators. But for now, it's just trial-and-error."
Xúuuatxia (previously Hóubenk)
A new language, now that I've killed off most of the others.
/b~m t~tʃ~k̚~ʔ d~n~l ɲ~ni̯~i̯ k~k̚~ʔ ŋ~∅/
/s~ʃ~ɸ~x ʃ~ʂ h~ʃ~ɸ~x/
/i y~u ɨ~ɯ~i/
/e~ei ə̃ ə~ʌ~a o~ou ɔ̃/
I aimed in this phonology for a small number of phonemes but a large number of allophones, which I daresay I achieved.
Allophony details:
- /b/ becomes [m] word-initially (especially phrase-initially) and after a nasal vowel.
- /t/ becomes [tʃ] before [.i] and becomes [ʔ] or [k̚] in the coda, except before /s/.
- /d/ becomes [n] word-initially and after a nasal vowel and [l] when clustered with another consonant.
- /k/ becomes [ʔ] or [k̚] in the coda.
- /ɲ/ becomes [i̯] in all circumstances other than word-initially and after a nasal vowel.
- /ŋ/ is lost in all circumstances other than word-initially and after a nasal vowel.
- /s/ becomes [ʃ] before front vowels and [j]; and word-initially, it lenites to /h/, then undergoing the same allophonic processes as /h/ does (see below).
- /ʃ/ becomes [ʂ] before back vowels.
- /h/ becomes [ʃ] before front vowels and [j], [ɸ] before rounded vowels, and [x] before unrounded non-front vowels. In the coda, it becomes [ʃ] after front vowels, [ɸ] after rounded vowels, and [x] after unrounded non-front vowels. (Therefore, it never appears as [h]).
- /ɨ/ becomes [ɯ] adjacent to velar consonants, back vowels, and any allophone of /h/. After palatal consonants, it becomes [.i].
- /y/ becomes [.u] adjacent to velar consonants, back vowels, and any allophone of /h/.
- /e/ becomes [ei] when it is not in a diphthong and the next syllable contains a high vowel.
- /ə/ becomes [ʌ] adjacent to velar consonants, back vowels, and any allophone of /h/. In addition, /əə/ becomes [aa], which takes precedence over the previous rule.
- /o/ becomes [ou] when it is not in a diphthong the next syllable contains a high vowel.
- All vowels nasalize when in contact with a nasalized vowel. Nasalized [õ] and [ã] become [ɔ̃] and [ə̃].
- All high vowels become glides in certain circumstances (see below).
- Each syllable nucleus may take high tone /˥/, mid tone /˧/, low tone /˩/, or be atonal. All syllables of lexical items have tone; some grammatical items are atonal.
- An atonal syllable may form a diphthong that has tone. (For example, an atonal prefix [ə-] plus a root [i˥ʔ] becomes [əi̯˥˩ʔ]; see below.)
- If a diphthong receives high tone, it is realized as falling tone [˥˩]. Similarly, if a diphthong receives low tone, it is realized as rising tone [˩˥].
- If two vowels come into hiatus and the first one is not atonal, the second one becomes atonal.
- An atonal segment becomes low tone after a high tone syllable and mid tone [˧] after a low or mid tone syllable or falling diphthong, or when there's no vowel before it.
This has been a phonological roller coaster, and while I like it a lot, it's not gonna be fun to romanize.
After a lot of consideration, I came up with the following romanization ([k̚] and [ʔ] being romanized the same, as they're not contextual variations, and no romanization being given for [h], since it never occurs):
/b~m t~tʃ~k̚~ʔ d~n~l ɲ~ni̯~i̯ k~k̚~ʔ ŋ~∅/ <b~m t~tx~k d~n~l ny~ny~i k ng~∅>
/s~ʃ~ɸ~x ʃ~ʂ h~ʃ~ɸ~x/ <s~x~f~h x ∅~x~f~h>
/i y~u ɨ~ɯ~i/ <i u y~y~i>
/e~ei ə̃ ə~ʌ~a o~ou ɔ̃/ <e~ei an a o~ou on>
/˩ ˧ ˥ ˥˩ ˩˥/ <à a á áa aá>
Gliding is not written in the romanization.
When a sequence of vowels is nasalized, they are all followed by <n>.
I'd post some example words, but this post is long enough already and I want to get it up before I do anything else.