Re: Conlang Guilt

Someone asked:
> Have any of you felt this need to intentionally steer
> away from the convention in natlangs familiar to you?
I tried to make Boreanesian more exotic in this way. But recently,
after I have done some more "research" into its phonological
history, the language has started to make demands of its own. For
instance, there was initially only one series of oral stops in its
inventory - namely, all voiceless. This being exotic and appealling
to my ears. But it is now clear that there are two series, and the
inventory is now exactly like the English (or Germanic) inventory of
stops - aspirated versus unaspirated. Not too exotic in that
respect. Fortunately, the nasal stops are quite exotic - voiced
versus voiceless. So that compensates a little. But I'm still glad
that the language has begun to make demands of its own, making it in
a way more "alive" more "naturalistic".

-kristian- 8-)