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A "minimalist" phonology...

From:Danny Wier <dawier@...>
Date:Thursday, April 19, 2001, 22:50
Concerning Unilang:

An idea I myself had for a conlang or auxlang with a small phonology. This is
probably going to end up being used in my Orcish.

Here is the phonology for Japanese, with "voiced", etc. characters included.

Vowels: a i u e o
Consonants: k~g s~z t~d n h~b~p m y r w -n

A "double quote" mark to the upper right of the hiragana/katakana symbol
indicates voicing and the h>b shift, a "ring" is used for h>p. The final nasal
is a syllabic that coalesces with the following consonant (m before p, ng before
k, etc.). I didn't include consonant shifts with high vowels, such as si>shi,
ti>chi, tu>tsu, hu>fu, zi>ji...

For a "small-phonology" language, the consonants could include the voiceless
stops and others found in Japanese, to wit:

k s t n p m y r w n

Notice the lack of l, h, f.

A five vowel system can also be reduced to four or three, either a-e-i-o (or
a-e-i-u), or a-i-u (or a-i-o or a-e-o).


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