Re: Phonemes

CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU writes:
>I'm new at this...all apologies if this has been hashed to death.
>
>The advice I have suggests trying to make up new sounds to create a
>language.  This way, it says, you can avoid making too "Englishy".
>
>I've tried using the charts of nasals, fricatives, dentals, etc and making
>new sounds but they all end up sounding like L's or F's.  How did you guys
>start the ball rolling?
>
>Thank you for your help and a very entertaining listserv.
>
>Dave
Well, for Saalangal, i knew I wanted an Austronesian sounding language
(specifically those of the western Malayo-Polynesian family, like
Indonesian, Tagalog, etc.) , so I constructed an inventory of sounds
similar to that of Tagalog (the only language of that group I know any
decent amount of information on, and I also hear it a lot, so I know how
it sounds). I also construct the words to sound like they fit (although
the results i've noticed arent quite like I expected, but close enough).
For my personal language I did something original.

IMHO, your best bet if you don't want something too Englishy is to keep
your vowels simple, like in Spanish, Japanese, Hawaiian, etc. Cut out some
sounds that are prominent in English like f, or the two sounds that <th>
can make (i believe they are /D/ and /T/, in IPA). You can also keep the
number of consonants small, or make the syllable pattern extremely simple
(like in japanese).

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