Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations

Sai Emrys jarhe:

>Q1: What is your *phonemic* inventory? I.e., what are all of the
>discriminated phonemes in your conlang(s). (IPA / CXS / X-SAMPA)
Rhean has these phonemes in its official 'standard' dialect:

a E i O u 2 y
p b t d k g m n r 4 B f v s z S Z x G h ts) tS) dZ j l

Tolborese has these:

a @\ e i o u
p_h t_h k_h p t k dZ l m n N h r s S v w y z

Omurax:

a e i o u
p t k b d g m n r l s z S Z T f v

>Q2: What are the allophones? I.e., for each phoneme, what are the
>"normal" variants that don't change meaning?
Rhean sounds vary from one dialect to another, and there are quite a few
dialects. In the capital, /B/ is almost always realised as [v] nowadays, /r/
and /4/ are merging, and /dZ/ is pronounced [Z] everywhere except
word-initially. /n/ of course becomes [N] before the velar sounds. Outside
the capital, /x/ and /G/ are usually [X] and [R]. Vowels are all over the
place too: [9] is heard for /2/ in Azicstanz and Ferinstanz, and /2/ is
lately becoming [8] or even [@\] in Mavrius.

Tolborese unaspirated stops /p t k/ between vowels or after a nasal are [b d g].

Omurax has the allophones [tS] and [dZ] for /S/ and /Z/ respectively,
usually only heard in a stressed syllable. /d/ and /g/ become [D] and [G]
between vowels except in a stressed syllable (for some reason /b/ is immune
to this).

>Q2b: If you have any, what are the connotations / implications of the
>different allophones? E.g., do you use them for different dialects,
>registers, "accents", etc.?
Proper Rhean speech adheres to prescribed pronunciation: newscasters
preserve not only the /r/, /4/ and /B/, /v/ contrasts but also the
long-short vowel contrast, which has almost vanished from most dialects.

Omurax and Tolborese are 'dead' languages; what is known of them comes from
the written form and related modern languages. There's very little info on
the non-written registers/*lects etc.

>Q3: How do your choices for the above reflect the goals of your
>language? E.g., if it's an auxlang [here!?], it's probably motivated
>by having common, strongly "universal" common-use phonetics to
>maximize learnability. So, for whatever your goals are for the
>conlang, how do they apply to the choices you made for phonetics /
>phonology?
All three are artlangs/fictional-langs for the same alternate Earth. Rhean
came first, and in the early days its sound-flavour was the most important
goal. It's meant to sound sort of Slavic and sort of Turkic without really
being either of those, and that influenced most of the choices I made for
phonemes and phonotactics. Omurax has a very Greek-esque phonology, maybe
too much... might have to rethink some of that. Tolborese is made with a
sound-flavour in mind, too, but it's not as easy to describe.

>Thanks,
> Sai
M