> [mailto:CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu] On Behalf Of Henrik
Theiling
> Yesterday I was wondering what interesting stuff could happen
to an
> /y/ phoneme? Same question about the lax variant /Y/.
>
> The only (boring) thing I could come up with was /y/ > /i/
unrounding
> as seen in so many languages (German dialects, Icelandic,
Greek,
> Kreyol Ayisyen, to name only a few).
>
> This question came up when I thought about sound shifts where
> labialisation spreads to vowels, e.g. when German 'schlimm' is
> pronounced [SlYm] (instead of [SlIm]) or 'bischen' like
['bYSn=]
> (instead of [bIsC@n]). So with [I] > [Y], a shift to [I] is
really
> boring, so I was searching for something else for additional
> spiciness.
Maybe it could shift back toward [}] or [1]. I originally
intended Deini to have /y/ but later changed it to /1/. It
gives the phonology more symmetry and also seems to be more
unique than the West-Germanic phonology I started with.