Re: Vowels in Finlaesk

I don't know if this is helpful, but what if you consider the vowel
simplification process as a series of mergers rather than deletions?
Even if it turns out that those vowels, in your AU history, never
developed in the first place, in the real-world evolution of your
conlang they did.  So pick two vowels to merge, replace all instances
of either in the core lexicon with the merged values, and then see how
many homophones you've introduced and determine what to do about them
on that basis...

On 9/3/07, Paul Bennett <paul.w.bennett@...> wrote:
> I'm having a small crisis over the vowels in Finlaesk.
>
> The two-penny tour: It's what happened to the Old Icelandic spoken by the
> settlers of Vinland (North America) in its AU.
>
> The current vowel set is as follows:
>
>    i i: i~ y y: y~         u u: u~
>    e e: e~ 2 2: 2~ @ @: @~ o o: o~
>    E E: E~ 9 9: 9~         O O: O~
>     a a: a~              A A: A~
>
> Unfortunately, it seems to have travelled the exact opposite direction
>  from Old Norse that is *should* have done for a language surrounded by the
> indigenous languages of southern and western Greenland, eastern Canada,
> and the wortheastern USA.
>
> The predominant language families all have much simpler vowel (and
> decidedly less Europeanly regular) layouts, such as
>
>    i
>     I
>    e e: @ o o:
>        a a:
>
> ... or ...
>
>    i:
>     e @ o o:
>      E
>       a a: a~
>
> ... or ...
>
>    i      u~
>     e @~ o
>       a
>
> ... or ...
>
>    i   u
>      e
>     E
>    a   A
>
> ... or ...
>
>    i i:    u u:
>        a a:
>
> It is, in short, the kind of environment in which I suspect my
> nicely-laid-out Germanic vowel grid just would not stay stable. Worlds are
> colliding, and things are going to collapse. The only problem is: which
> things?
>
> It seems that the front-rounded vowels would need to go, and one or more
> of the back rounded ones, too. Where from there, though? Pages and pages
> of core morphology would be flushed down the same tube.
>
> Ironically, /@/ and phonemic nasalization both entered the vowel inventory
> thanks to the native languages, but then the inventory kind of took off
> running with a force all its own, and now I'm staring down a particularly
> worrying gun barrel, wondering where exactly I went wrong in my life.
>
> All thoughts and suggestions solicited.
>
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
>
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
>
>
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--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>