Good Morning, Interweb. Let's Worldbuild.
When creating a language the first, and most important, step is to write down all the sounds
the language uses. Without this, you'll end up with a mess of sounds that are implausible,
contradictory and incomprehensible to both you and anyone wishing to speak your language.
This is not a good thing­. Avoid this by setting yourself some rules. Here's mine:
­ 1) The sounds my language uses should, for
the most, come from English. Rare, non-english sounds are totally permitted but only if they
are relatively easy to produce - no point creating a language that neither you nor I
can speak.
And
2) The fewer sounds the better. I'm a minimalist, I want my language to reflect my personality.
Those sound like some good parameters, Xidnaf?
I never agreed to this.
Hey, if I hadn’t helped you with your video you would have missed ALL the interesting
stuff. You owe me one, now help me with my video.
…yeah, ok, fine. So, you want to mostly use English sounds and you want to use very
few sounds. So… we’re basically just gonna hack at this until it fits in a shoebox?
Couldn't have said it any better, Xidnaf. That way it’ll feel exotic yet, familiar!
Eh, could work.
OK, let's start with vowels. From a minimalist standpoint, English has WAY too many vowels.
How about we knock it down to a 3 vowel system? Something like /a/ /i/ and /o/?
Wait, /a/, /i/ and /o/??? Usually when languages only have three vowels, they have /a/ /i/
and /u/. Classical Arabic, Southern Quechua, Aleut, Greenlandic, all of them have those
three vowels. So, you should probably change that /o/ to an /u/.
Aw...but I like the sound of /o/. Also, Pirahã features a 3 vowel system with /o/ instead
of /u/.
Huh. Alright, well, if a known language does it I guess I’m fine with it. Still seems
kinda weird, but … also kind of cool and exotic? Now that I think about it it’s kinda
growing on me.
I like it too. I mean, we're using the entire vowel space and we're sticking to the vocalic
universals – which basically state that all human languages distinguish vowel height
and have a least one back, one front, and one rounded vowel.
Alright, /a/ /i/ and /o/ it is then! With such a small vowel inventory we might want
to add at least something else. We could introduce tones, or phonemic length, or-
Diphthongs!
…or we could just be boring, throw in some diphthongs and call it a day.
See, I'm thinking we need to go all in with the diphthongs! Let's allow every possible
combination of vowel pairs: /ai/, /ao/, /io/, /ia/, /oi/ and /oa/.
You know, you’re allowed to have diphthongs that aren’t just combinations of monophthongs
you already have. Like, my dialect of English has an /oʊ/ diphthong, but no pure /o/ monophthong.
Yeah, but this makes it simpler and easier to understand, and it has a symmetry to it
I really like.
Yeah, that’s reasonable. So, three monophthongs and six diphthongs for a total of nine vowel
sounds. That it?
Actually, now that I think about it we should probably add in the schwa. The schwa is that
kinda 'uh' sound we English speakers produce during unstressed syllables - think telephone,
support, about, present and condition. It is by far the most common sound in English
and chances are that, when I begin speaking my language, I'll begin 'schwa-ing' any unstressed
syllables. Might be prudent to include this sound if for no other reason than to cover
my ass.
So, ye, 4 pure vowels, and 6 diphthongs! Happy?
Quite. Can we move on to consonants now?
Yeah, so, I'm thinking some of these plosives need to go!
Dude, we only have six to begin with. That’s like, the bare minimum.
Either we get rid of all voiced plosives /bdg/ or all unvoiced plosives /ptk/
…you want to only have one voicing for the plosives?
Yep!
I mean, I guess it’s plausible. When dealing with sounds, it's good to think in terms of
features. Adding or removing entire places of articulation, manners of articulation or
voicings is more natural than picking and choosing sounds randomly. But, if you don’t
mind me asking: Wwhhhhyyyyyyy???????
Conlang fan service. See, most famous conlangs have a habit omitting entire areas of sound:
Na'vi features only voiceless plosives, Klingon features no velar plosives and Dothraki features
no bilabial plosives. I like Na'vis system the best, so I'm thinking we should have only
voiceless plosives, /ptk/
That’s probably the nerdiest thing I’ve ever heard, but /ptk/ sounds like a good idea
to me! Although, maybe we should also add in the glottal stop. Like, we already kind
of have it in English, but we do it in weird, random, phonotactically convenient places.
Making it a proper sound could simplify things. We could use it to differentiate between words
like /pai/ and /paʔi/. As long as we use it strictly in between vowels I think it will
be easy for most people to pronounce and it’ll also make your language sound cooler.
Funny you mention the glottal stop. There's a Klingon opera...
a wut?
A Klingon opera!? Ah, man, it's magnificent...
Never mind. THAT was the nerdiest thing I've ever heard...
Anyways, that opera's called “u”. Only it's not called “u”, it's called glottal
stop – u – glottal stop. Just thinking of pronouncing this breaks my brain so I think
you're right, inter-vowel glottal stops are the way to go. Bit like in the Na'vi words
“a'aw” and “a'a'aw”! Alright, plosives done!
Now, as we continue, we should probably keep in mind that languages tend to be symmetrical
in their places and manners of articulation. So, like, if you have a bunch of sounds of
a particular place of articulation, and a bunch of sounds of a particular manner of
articulation, then you’re much more likely to have a sound with both that place of articulation
and manner of articulation. So in this case, we’re probably going to want to have nasals
with the same places of articulation as our plosives, so /mnŋ/. Which is exactly what
we already have. Unless you want to do something very strange here, let’s just keep the nasals
as they are.
As much as it pains not me to cut things, I think you're right. /mnŋ/ it is.
Speaking of keeping things the same as in English, I think we should keep all the approximants
/ɹ /, /j/ and /l/. However, I'd like to devoice the labio-velar approximant, that is, /w/
should be become /ʍ/. I am quite fond of approximants, they always remind me of the
majestic beauty of the Elvish languages.
Sounds good. Let's move on to fricatives. Again, for the sake of symmetry, we should
probably add the at least one velar fricative.
How about the voiceless velar fricative, /x/? It seems like the natural choice given that
my dialect has it in words like 'loch' and it's a sound common to many fantasy languages.
Cool! /x/ is in.
Aaaand the dental fricatives are out!
Wait, why?
My dialect of English doesn't have 'em. For me, these are not 'teeth' rather 'teat'. I'd
like to comfortably to able to speak my own language
so /θ/ and /ð/ have to go. And while we're hacking away at things, do we really need
/∫/ and /ʒ/? I mean, I could live with just /f/, /v/, /s/, /z/, /x/ and /h/.
Ye, so could I. It's minimal, but it works and it also makes it more symmetrical. Tap
or flaps?
Nope!
Agreed. Aaand no thrills…so we're done! FINALLY!
Actually, here's an idea…
What now???
How about we make this language a trill heavy language. Trills sound amazing, such rich
sounds. I love them.
Alright...em...let's move the alveolar approximant /ɹ/ to an alveolar trill /r/. Simple. A word
like /ɹas/ would become /ras/. I really like this. Let's do it.
Okay, but the only problem is that I can't roll my Rs
What!? C'mon, sure you can? Try saying /ras/
I'm telling you Xidnaf, I can't.
TRY IT!
Rrrrr Rrr …
Wow, considering you love trills so much, that's kind of tragic. Well, we can’t put
a sound in your language that you can’t pronounce yourself, so maybe we should just
give up on trills.
Not necessarily, let's put in a bilabial trill /B/. It really easy to pronounce and it plays
up to this idea of consonant symmetry.
I dunno. It's a seriously rare sound.
All the more reason to drop it in. It will give the language a very distinctive sound.
Okay, but why not go the whole way and add in the uvular trill too /R/...I mean you did
just say you want a trill heavy language and including it will make things even more symmetrical.
Granted a velar trill would be better, but I’m not entirely sure velar trills are actually
possible. Our uvular trill then acts like a velar trill substitute in a way, and our
alveolar approximant acts like an alveolar trill substitute.
Sold! This is a great idea. Right, that's consonants done. On to affricates!
Do we have too???
I'm thinking we should have /ts/ /pf/ and /tʃ/. Thoughts?
/pf/!? Does that even exist in human languages?
Ye, German has it. The German for horse is 'pferd'.
…oh. Wow, I really should have known that. Ok, but it's a seriously difficult sound to
produce. I know you're half german and all but most of us aren’t, and on all of our
behalf, I’m begging you: drop the /pf/. Actually, /ts/ isn't much better. It's a little
easier but think of how many English speakers actually pronounce tsumani the original japanese
way - with a /ts/. Not many.
Ye, good point. I suppose if we're cutting /ts/ and /pf/, we may as well cut /tʃ/ and
just have no affricates.
Yeah, that’s probably for the best. So….NOW are we done?
I think we are, Xidnaf. I think we are. Looks like we've created a trill heavy reduction
of English. Not the most adventurous phonological inventory ever devised but it'll make for
a very useful demo conlang. Thanks for coming on board the good ship Artifexian, Xidnaf.
T'was an absolute honor having ya.
Ok, ok, great. Can I go now? Not that I don't like hanging out and creating languages and
stuff but ever since I got here I’ve felt all weird and … bloated. Can I get back
to my own channel now?
(sigh) Ok, you may leave.
Woohooooooo!!!!!!!