Re: backwards conlanging

A tip RE sound changes.

Try to think in terms of whole sound systems rather than individual sounds.

For example, consider simplification of some relatively complex vowel
system (say, 8 vowels opposed only in quality, or 5 long + 5 short
undergoing the loss of quantitative opposition).

Imagine that you wish to preserve or even stress some contrasts present
in the original system. Try to see how emphasizing the difference between
some two sounds will press their neighbors to move across the 'vowel
triangle' and cause a domino effect turning the whole system over. Consider
which changes look intuitively more probable than others.

(For example, in my experience with *short* vowels, [i] is very difficult
to press out of its left bottom corner, while [u], on the contrary, can
very quickly become a very different sound; the most open vowels easily
get more closed when fronted or rounded; non-front, non-labialized are
more prone to get open than the reverse, etc.).

Don't forget that with complex systems symmetry is always important. It's
kinda synonymous with simplicity: same contrasts work in different parts
of the system. So, for example, there will be also a tendency to have
the same number of apertures (degrees of openness) for front and back
vowels, same features (like front/back, etc) working within every aperture
except the most open, similar general shape of the subsystems for short
and long. That's another force that will press some sounds out from their
places.

Consonants, prosodemes, clusters etc can be treated basically the same way.

This way you'll have less variants to choose from. Just think which
contrasts are more important for your language (for its morphology,
preserving the desired syllable structure, etc.) and see how they
affect the whole system if they are emphasized or survive a major
simplification.


Basilius