(Everything is subject to change!)

Rough Ideas / Goals

• A few emphatic consonants.
• Syllable structure:
  • CVC or C(G)VC; where G is glide
• Voicedness or voiceless distinction for certain consonants
• Voiceless plosives may be aspirated
• Symmetrical voice, i.e. Austronesian alignment
• Two or three grammatical numbers: Singular, (Dual), Plural
• No grammatical gender
• Affixes galore. Maybe also infixes too

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Lateral	Velar	Pharyngeal	Glottal
Nasal	m	n	ɲ		ŋ
Plosive	b, p, (pʼ)	d, t, tʼ			ɡ, k, kʼ		ʔ
Fricative		z, s, sʼ		(ɮ), ɬ, ɬʼ	ɣ, x	ʕ, ħ	h
Approximants			j	l	w

This conlang takes inspiration from Middle Chinese and Proto-Semitic for its three-way distinction of certain consonants into tenuis, voiced, emphatic (i.e., ejective) consonants.

There is a lot of ejective consonants here, since I have plans for at least one daughter language to have pharyngealized consonants like in Arabic.

Vowels

		Short			Long
	Front	Central	Back	Front	Central	Back
Close				iː		uː
Mid	e	(ə)	o
Open	a			aː	(ɐː)
Stressed vowels are long vowels.

Schwas often show up as a result of epenthesis, especially between two consonants within a word boundary. Outside of epenthesis, the schwa seldom occurs.

Front and back vowels in this conlang will also have higher vowel height. This is somewhat inspired by modern English spelling, e.g. a single ⟨e⟩ is usually a plain /e/ but a pair of ⟨ee⟩ often represents /iː/.

However, a lengthened central vowel instead falls in vowel height from /ə/ to /ɐː/.

Potential tonogenesis in daughter languages:

• Rising tones from lengthened mid-close and close vowels
• Falling tones from lengthened central vowels.

(There might be traces of vowel anti-harmony in conjugation and declension. Unconfirmed.)

Potential loss or gain of vowels in daughter languages.

Syllable Structure

The syllable structure for the conlang is C(W)VC; where C is consonant, W is medial glide (approximant), and V is vowel

Guide to Derivation

In planning this conlang, I took great liberty in appropriating sound changes across different language families.

• Proto-Austronesian ⟨S⟩ > Conlang /ɬ/
  • Remarks: /ʂ/ Shibata (2025); /s/ Blust (2013)
  • Huh: Arabic ⟨ش⟩ /ʃ/ comes from Proto-Semitic ⟨ś⟩ /ɬ/.
  • Huh: Proto-Semitic ⟨š⟩ /ʃ/ and ⟨s⟩ /s/ are merged in Arabic.
• Proto-Austronesian ⟨h⟩ > Conlang /ħ/
  • Huh: Because Arabic is lovely and heavenly, and the sound /ħ/ is a well-known exotic sound from Arabic.
  • Huh: Shibata, Kye. (2025). A reconstruction of Proto-Austronesian coronal consonants: Phonetic evidence from Formosan languages. Dissertation submitted to the Institute of Linguistics, National Tsing Hua University, January 2025.
• Old Chinese /hʷ/ and Proto-Indo-European ⟨h₃⟩ > Conlang /ʕ/
  • Huh: When I tried to play around with similar sounds to /hʷ/, I feel my pharynx sinking downwards and my tongue going backwards.
  • Huh: Proto-Indo-European ⟨h₃⟩ was quite likely rounded and voiced. Also see above.
• Proto-Austronesian ⟨R⟩ or ⟨ɣ⟩ > Conlang /ɣ/
  • Remarks: /r/ Shibata (2025); /r/ or /ʀ/ Blust (2013); /ʁ/ Wolff (2010)
  • Huh: /r/ becomes /ʁ/ in Perak Malay, which is close enough. In the Roman script, the spelling for /ɣ/ is also used for /ʁ/.
• Old Chinese /r/ > Conlang /l/, /ɣ/, /ə/, /a/ or /ː/
  • Huh: There is no /r/ in Cantonese.
  • Huh: Also in this conlang there's /ɣ/ anyway that sounds close enough. (Refer to Malay varieties in northern Malaya)
  • Huh: I love the Johor-Riau and Received Pronounciation accents, and I especially enjoy how they treat final /r/.
• Proto-Semitic /r/ > Conlang /ɲ/
  • Huh: Mandarin /r/ is related to Middle Chinese 日 initial which would sound more like /ɲ/
• Proto-Austronesian ⟨N⟩ corresponding to Malay /l/ > Conlang /ɬʼ/
  • Huh: Crap, I ran out of alien space bats… Hey, don't you think the Bopomofo symbols ㄌ and ㄉ look very similar?
  • Huh: Also folks are saying Arabic ⟨ﺽ⟩ /dˤ/ came out of the sound /ɮˤ/, ultimately from Proto-Semitic /ɬʼ/.
  • Huh: In some Hokkien varieties, /d/ and /l/ are somewhat allophones.
  • Huh: Oh, and in modern Cantonese, people are replacing initial /n/ with /l/ — the lazy sound phenomenon.
• Proto-Austronesian ⟨C⟩ > Conlang /tʼ/ or maybe /sʼ/
  • Remarks: /ʈ/ Shibata (2025), /t͡s/ Blust (2013)
  • Huh: ⟨C⟩ is usually a letter for /t͡ʃ/ in Malay.
  • Huh: It is speculated that Arabic ⟨ﺽ⟩ /sˤ/ was once pronounced /t͡sʼ/.
  • Huh: Also Hebrew ⟨צ⟩ with the sound /t͡s/, and the earlier letter used to stand for some emphatic consonant. The Hebrew letter is cognate to Arabic ⟨ﺽ⟩ /sˤ/ by the way.
  • Huh: /tʼ/ and /sʼ/ both are alveolar sounds.
• Proto-Indo-European ⟨h₂⟩ > Conlang /x/ or maybe /ħ/
  • Huh: It is speculated that ⟨h₂⟩ is somewhere between /x/ and /ħ/, most likely being /ħ/.
  • Huh: But /ħ/ is already assigned to Proto-Austronesian ⟨h⟩ for conlang derivation.

Grammar

Nouns

• Two to three grammatical numbers
  • Singular
  • (Dual)
  • Plural
• No grammatical gender
• Nouns come before adjectives
• Three cases
  • Direct
  • Indirect
  • Oblique

Pronouns

	Base	Enclitic(1)	Indirect(n-)	Oblique(k-)
1SG	akū	-kū	nakū
2SG	naɬū	-ɬū
3SG	sia	-ia	nia	kania
1PL.EX	aŋi	-ŋi
1PL.IN	qiħtā	-tā
2PL	naɬin	-ɬin
3PL	siɲa	-ɲa	niɲa	kaniɲa

akū // -kū

• First-person singular
• Velar consonant prominently featured
• Ends with a rounded vowel
• Inspirations:
  • Standard Malay aku اکو, -ku ـکو
  • Proto-Semitic *ʼanākū̆, *-kū̆
  • Cantonese ngo5 我

naɬū // -ɬū

• Second-person singular
• One prominent consonant likely lateral and fricative
• Ends with a high vowel
• Inspirations:
  • Hokkien lí 汝, lú 汝
  • Indonesian Slang lu
  • Proto-Austronesian *[i-]Su, *[i-]ka-Su, *=Su (Ross, 2002; cited in Blust, 2013, pp. 454)
  • Cantonese nei5 你‎
  • Standard Malay -mu ـمو
  • Proto-Semitic *-tī̆

sia // -ia

• High front vowel followed by a low vowel
• Inspirations:
  • Proto-Semitic *šiʼa
  • Proto-Austronesian *s(i)-ia, *=ia (Ross, 2002; cited in Blust, 2013, pp. 454)
  • Standard Malay ia اي‎‎

aŋi // -ŋi

• First-person exclusive plural ("me and them but not you")
• Nasal consonant prominently featured
• Ends in a high front vowel.
• Inspirations:
  • Old Chinese *ŋajʔ 我
  • Hakka ngai2 𠊎
  • Standard Malay kami کامي‎
  • Proto-Semitic *niḥnū̆, *-nū̆, *-nī̆, *-nā̆
  • Standard Arabic naḥnu نَحْنُ‎, -nā ـنَا‎‎
  • Proto-Austronesian *i-ami, *[i-]k-ami, *-mi (Ross, 2002; cited in Blust, 2013, pp. 454)

qiħtā // -tā

• First-person inclusive plural
• Inspirations:
  • Proto-Austronesian *([i])ita, *[i-]k-ita, *=ta (Ross, 2002; cited in Blust, 2013, pp. 454)
  • Standard Malay kita کيت‎‎
  • Proto-Semitic *-niḥnū̆, *-nū̆, *-nī̆, *-nā̆
  • Standard Arabic naḥnu نَحْنُ‎‎, -nā ـنَا‎‎
  • Informal Malay kiter

naɬin // -ɬin

• Second-person plural
• One prominent consonant likely lateral and fricative
• Inspirations:
  • Hokkien lín 恁
  • Proto-Semitic *-tin

siɲa // -ɲa

• Third-person plural
• Inspirations:
  • Proto-Austronesian *si-da, *n(i)-ia (Ross, 2002; cited in Blust, 2013, pp. 454)
  • Proto-Semitic *-šinnā
  • Malay -nya ـڽ‎‎
  • Cebuano silá

Enclitic pronouns may depend on the attached verb or noun for its case.

In the oblique case, enclitic pronouns may appear:

• after verbs in the dative voice, instrumental voice, or after prepositions, where they will mean the destination, beneficiary, goal, or instrument of the prepositions. (e.g., "to me", "with you", "to him");
• after nouns in the construct state, where they will become possessive determiners. (e.g., "my", "your", "her").

In the indirect case, they may appear:

• as suffixes to verbs in the active voice, where they assume the role of direct objects. (e.g., "me, you, her").

Cases

	Personal(Singular)	Personal(Plural)	Common	Construct
Direct	sī	sāng	su	sa, s'
Indirect	nī	nāng	nu	na, n'
Oblique	kī	kāng	ku	ka, k'

Nouns assume grammatical cases according to their role in a clause or a sentence. A preceding article ~~(or the lack thereof)~~ marks the case of the noun.

There are four cases in this conlang, namely: direct, indirect, oblique, and construct.

Here, the noun's semantic nuances is tightly dependent on the verb. The same noun under the same case may reflect different semantic roles when the voice (or trigger) of the verb differs.

• Direct:
  • The direct case marks the main focus of the clause.
  • For the actor voice, the noun in the direct case assumes the role of an actor, agent, or performer of the verb's action.
  • For the patient voice, the direct noun is the patient or target of the action.
  • For the instrumental voice, the direct noun is the instrument involved in the action.
  • For the dative voice, the direct noun is the location. the recipient, or the goal.
• Indirect:
  • Outside of the actor voice, the indirect noun is usually the actor, agent, or performer of the verb's action.
• Oblique:
  • The oblique case covers nouns which are neither the focus of the clause, nor assuming the role of the actor, agent, or performer.
  • For example, a noun in the oblique case may be an instrument of an action, an origin of departure, a target destination, and an object.

Shoutouts:

• Blust, Robert. (2015). The Case-Markers of Proto-Austronesian. Oceanic Linguistics 54(2): 436-491, December 2015.****

So, I've been toying with this idea of applying the anarchist concept of means ends unity to art (to be honest, mainly as a theoretical justification for doing what I wanted to do anyway). So, if you want to do art, and especially anarchist art, shouldn't your tools also be artistic and preferably anarchist?

I'll give an example. Poetry is art. Tools of poetry include things like language and font. Constructed languages can be seen as art projects, and they can implement and emphasize the values of anarchism. Fonts are also art projects and they can for example be inspired by anarchism and be freely distributed etc.

Other examples could include making specific image manipulation programs and algorithms and creating new image formats for visual arts, making esoteric programming languages for programs etc.

So, my idea is starting an avantgarde group/movement where we make art with artistic DIY tools and document the process in the art itself so that it doesn't hide its structure but shows how it was made.

Attached is the first poem I made specifically with this project in mind. But of course, not everything we produce as a group needs to resemble these little examples I came up with. The main thing is to try to break the expectations of art (if such a thing is possible anymore) and also to be an anarchist.

If any of this inspires you, hit me up. Perhaps we can start the group together.

Þere's a bit of Sapir-Whorf assumption here, but: is anyone aware of papers which explore suffix vs prefix use in natural or constructed languages, and what effects þese have? Effects on culture for natural languages would be þe S-W part.

I was þinking about esperanto, and how it strongly favors suffixes, and how it's might be a consequence of þe western bias þat runs þrough þe language; and wheþer þere are languages which use prefixes more heavily. For example, "loĝ-" (dwell), "loĝi" (to lodge), "loĝas" (lodges), "loĝadas" (to keep lodging), "loĝe" (lodging-ly?), "loĝado" (habitation). There are, of course, prefixes, "maloĝadi" (disinhabit? Displacement?), but þey're far fewer; suffixes do most of þe heavy lifting in Esperanto. English borrows from French þe habit of just picking entirely new words for verb tenses, but German tends to use suffixes more þan prefixes.

Surely, someone has studied þis. Anyone happen to have a bookmark to a paper studying þe topic?

https://conworkshop.com/view_language.php?l=DOIKA

Someone did an IKEA logo on the canvas. In a nod to toki pona, I´d like to move the A to the right, so it says IKE A instead. That would mean "How ugly!" in toki pona. I hope this doesn´t go against community rules. If so, please remove the post.

Anyway, the logo is here: https://canvas.fediverse.events/#x=218&y=457&zoom=25

Translation:

[image of a svobenian google search result saying earth's age is 4.543 billion years]

A: how is it

A: (that) the earth is 4543 [sic] billion years old but the year is (only) 2025

B: idiot 🤦

Also a bit of a context, Svobenian is my Germanic conlang with strong Slavic influence (basically a descendant of Proto-Germanic with Slavic sound changes and many proto-slavic borrowings). I made this joke to demonstrate the difference between “vėtar” (year, cognate to English winter, used only as a time unit, e.g. 4.543 mlrd vėtř, meaning 4.543 billion years) and “jero” (cognate to English year, used in other contexts, e.g. jero 2025 “year 2025”)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/47864397

I'm doing some conlanging for a book and I'm having trouble finding the word for how we can take a verb, add -er at the end, and get a word for a person who does that thing. For example, a driver is someone who drives, a commander is someone who commands, a lawyer is someone who laws, and a finger is someone who fings. I am having trouble finding out how other languages noun their verbs in this way since I don't know what this thing is called. Pls halp.

Abstract:

“Can a language exist without verbs? What would such a language look like?” These are perennial questions in many conlanging communities. They do not, however, have a single unique answer. Whether a language can exist without verbs, or what that question even means, fundamentally depends on how one chooses to define “a verb”—something which is not universal between language or between linguistic theories. Under any given definition of “a verb”, however, a number of different strategies have been investigated by different conlangers over the years for eliminating the category from their languages. In this article, Logan Kearsley surveys some of the strategies that have been tried, with an analysis of which definitions of verblessness they do or do not meet, and provides reference materials and recommendations for other conlangers who may wish to tackle this kind of project themselves.

The main idea behind this language is to become evolutionary food for other languages of my conworld. As such I'll probably never flesh it out completely, only the necessary to make its descendants feel a bit more natural.

Constructive criticism is welcome.

Context and basic info

The conworld I'm building has three classical languages, spoken 2~3 millenniums before the conworld present: Old Sirtki, Classical Tarune, and Mäkşna. And scholars in the conworld present are reconstructing their common ancestor, that they call "Proto-Sitama".

What I'm sharing here, however is none of their fancy reconstructions. It's the phonology of the language as it was spoken 7 millenniums before the conworld present. Its native name was /kʲær.mi.'zɑst/, or roughly "what we speak"; the language itself had no written version but it'll be romanised here as ⟨Cjermizást⟩.

Its native speakers were a semi-nomadic people, who lived mostly of livestock herding. They'd stay in a region with their herds, collect local fruits and vegetables, and then migrate for more suitable pasture as their animals required.

It was quite a departure from the lifestyle of their star travelling ancestors, who were born in a highly industrialised society in another planet.

Grammar tidbits

Grammar-wise, Cjermizást was heavily agglutinative, with an absolutive-ergative alignment and Suffixaufnahme. So typically you'd see few long polymorphemic words per sentence. Those morphemes don't always "stack" nicely together, so you often see phonemes being elided, mutated, or added to the word.

Consonants

Manner \ Set	Hard	Soft
Nasals	/m n/	/mʲ ɲ/
Voiceless stop	/p t k/	/pʲ tʲ kʲ/
Voiced stop	/b d g/	/bʲ dʲ gʲ/
Voiceless fric.	/ɸ s x/	/fʲ ʃ ç/
Voiced fric.	/w z ɣ/	/vʲ ʒ j/
Liquids	/l r/	/ʎ rʲ/

Cjermizást features a contrast between "soft" and "hard" consonants. "Soft" consonants are palatalised, palatal, or post-alveolar; "hard" consonants cannot have any of those features. Both sets are phonemic, and all those consonants can surface outside clusters.

Palatalised consonants spawn a really short [j], that can be distinguished from true /j/ by length.

Although /j/ and /w/ are phonetically approximants, the language's phonology handles them as fricatives, being paired with /ɣ/ and /vʲ/ respectively.

/r rʲ/ surface as trills or taps, in free variation. The trills are more typical in simple onsets, while the taps in complex onsets and coda.

The contrast between /m n/ is neutralised when preceding another consonant in the same word, since both can surface as [m n ŋ]; ditto for /mʲ nʲ/ surfacing as [mʲ ɱʲ ɲ].

Coda /g/ can also surface as [ŋ], but only in word final position; as such, it doesn't merge with the above.

Liquids clustered with voiceless fricatives and/or stops have voiceless allophones.

Vowels

Proto-Sitama's vowel system is a simple square: /æ i ɒ u/. They have a wide range of allophones, with three situations being noteworthy:

• /ɒ u/ are typically fronted to [Œ ʉ] after a soft consonant
• /æ i/ are backed to [ɐ ɪ] after a hard velar
• unstressed vowels are slightly centralised

Accent

Accent surfaces as stress, and it's dictated by the following rules:

1. Some suffixes have an intrinsic stress. If the word has 1+ of those, then assign the primary stress to the last one. Else, assign it to the last syllable of the root.
2. If the primary stress fell on the 5th/7th/9th/etc.-to-last syllable, move it to the 3rd-to-last
3. If the primary stress fell on the 4th/6th/8th/etc.-to-last syllable, move it to the 2nd-to-last.
4. Every two syllables, counting from the one with the primary stress, add a secondary stress.

Phonotactics

Max syllable is CCVCC, with the following restrictions:

• complex onset: [stop] + [liquid]; e.g. /pl/ is a valid onset, */pw/ isn't
• complex coda: [liquid or nasal] + [stop or fricative]; e.g. /nz/ is a valid coda, */dz/ isn't

If morphology would create a syllable violating such structure, an epenthetic /i/ dissolves the cluster.

Consonant clusters cannot mix hard and soft consonants. When such a mix would be required by the morphology, the last consonant dictates if the whole cluster should be soft or hard, and other consonants are mutated into their counterparts from the other set. For example, */lpʲ/ and */ʃp/ would be mutated to /ʎpʲ/ and /sp/.

Stops and fricatives clustered together cannot mix voice. Similar to the above, the last consonant of the cluster dictates the voicing of the rest; e.g. */dk/ and */pz/ would be converted into /tk/ and /bz/ respectively.

Gemination is not allowed, and two identical consonants next to each other are simplified into a singleton. Nasal consonants are also forbidden from appearing next to each other, although a cluster like /nt.m/ would be still valid.

Word-internal hiatuses are dissolved with an epenthetic /z/. Between words most speakers use a non-phonemic [ʔ], but some use [z] even in word boundaries.

Romanisation

As mentioned at the start, the people who spoke Cjermizást didn't write their own language. As such the romanisation here is solely a convenience.

• /m n p t b d g s x w z l r/ are romanised as in IPA
• /k ɸ ɣ/ are romanised ⟨c f y⟩
• "soft" consonants are romanised as their "hard" counterparts, plus ⟨j⟩
• ⟨j⟩ is omitted inside clusters; e.g. /pʲʎ/ is romanised as ⟨plj⟩, not as *⟨pjlj⟩
• /æ i ɒ u/ are ⟨e i a u⟩

One big advantage of phonemic scripts (alphabet, abjad, syllabary, abugida) over semantic ones (logography, idiography) is that they're simpler, smaller, and easier to learn. Languages have fewer sounds than concepts they can express with those sounds. But at what point would a language have so many different sounds that having a semantic script would be simpler than a phonemic one? Is this at all realistic?

This is more hypothetical than a lot of stuff to do with conlangs. It seems to me that this would only be the case in a language with thousands of distinct phonemes. Wikipedia's list of languages by number of phonemes doesn't mention anything close to 200. Even with lots of digraphs any phonemic system for a remotely naturalistic language should be simpler than a logography.

I'm not fluent in linguistics jargon, so I'm copying and pasting my explanation from an article on Conworkshop. Also, the formatting isn't always exactly right because I'm not tech-minded enough to use all the features properly, but I gave it my best effort. Here's the explanation from the article:

The word Koiwak ['kɔɪ.ʃʌk] is derived from "koi" meaning "good", and "wak" meaning "language". So Koiwak is the "good language". It is the main language of Wakpondo.

This language is not meant to be used as a complete language. Certain things are almost impossible to talk about in Koiwak, such as (but not limited to) politics, religion, engineering, law matters, music theory etc. It is a supplementary language for speaking about natural, real things in a way that a lot of languages cannot allow for.

---

Root words are 3 (or sometimes 4, rarely 5) letter blocks to be built on. These are almost always (CVC).

-o can be added to a root word to show it's a noun, but it's not necessary if context already makes that clear.

vok - bird (root word, general) voko - bird (definitely a noun)

---

Plural is -r. So,

voko - bird vokor - birds

---

On the end of a verb: (lon = go/move/travel)

-ja - present (lonja = going/in motion/travelling)

-u - past (lonu = went/moved/travelled)

-i - future (lonja = will go/will move/will travel)

---

Certain things/phenomena are made more specific with affixes.

ban - something pertaining to mountains or similar things.

zhabano - big mountain lhubano - mountain/large hill phзbano - small hill/mound/pile zoibano - any tiny thing that resembles a tiny mountain

---

An interesting thing about zoiban...

-ew- is the collective noun affix, so:

zoibanwo - goosebumps

banwo - mountain range, so zoibanwo (dropping the /e/ for ease) is "tiny itty bitty mountain range".

mi zoibanew - I have goosebumps.

Incidentally, -em- means a piece/drop of something.

flεko - fire (generally) flεkemo - flame flεkewo - blaze, inferno

---

yam- is used to turn a word with a literal meaning, into a metaphorical version.

qoko - hiccup qokyamo - problem (proverbial hiccup)

---

Universal form of address is -pun. It can mean sir, madam, miss, dude etc, regardless of rank, gender, age, level of familiarity etc. -el- can serve as a diminutive to show affection.

Johnelo - Johnny vokelo - birdie

---

Nouns are altered by various suffixes

Beautiful(ly) - klase Beauty - klasau Beautiful person/creature - klaseno More beautiful - puklase Most beautiful - zuklase Less beautiful - klasεime Without beauty - nhiklase

---

Nhε is used to mean isn't it?/don't I?/aren't you?/wasn't she? and so on.

Kyi mhчdja, nhε? - you're tired, aren't you? Mi mhчdu, nhε? - I was tired, wasn't I? Koiwakja zhakoi, nhε? - Koishak is awesome, isn't it?

---

Moi can mean myself/yourself/ourselves/themselves/himself/herself/itself.

Mi kεvja moi - I flatter myself Kyi kεvja moi - you flatter yourself Жi kεvja moi - we flatter ourselves

---

For me, yes, an example I could use is transforming a generic language using an alphabet, formed using Turkish as the base, and evolving it based on Chinese influences and attempting to adopt logographic styles

This made me theorise on how Chinese works and the absolute role of context, where I could apply it and what not

But what about you?

Yesterday, I submitted a post asking for your help in creating a global auxiliary conlang. With not much interest being shown in the first day of posting, I decided to go ahead and embark on this project alone.

Phonology & Orthography

My "north star" when designing the phonemic inventory for the language was striking a balance between usability and accessibility. In my humble opinion, minimalist languages such as Toki Pona excel in the latter but utterly fail in the former. More complicated languages such as Esperanto and Ido tend to do the opposite (they can be quite eurocentric). I believe I have found a happy medium between the two.

Consonants

The language's consonants (and their graphs) are as follows:

• Stops: /p^h^/ (p), /b/, /t^h^/ (t), /d/, /k^h^/ (k), /g/
• Fricatives: /f/, /s/, h /x~h/ (h)
• Nasals: /m/, /n/
• Approximants: /w/, /l/, /j/
• Rhotic: /r~ʀ~ɾ~ɺ~ɹ~ɻ~ʁ~.../ (r)

I have chosen to aspirate the unvoiced stops to allow speakers from more languages to distinguish them. Those who's native tongue distinguises stops on aspiration can use [p^h^] and [p] for /p^h^/ and /b/, respectively, and those who's native tongue does so on voice can use [p] and [b].

Rhotics vary wildly cross-linguistically, making including one in a lingua franca very difficult. However, with how I plan to derive the language's vocabulary, doing so seemed necessary. As such, I have coined the "whatever the heck rhotic." So long as the sound produced is a rhotic, it is the "correct" phoneme for . However, speakers who are able to produce multiple rhotics should use some discretion when deciding which one they use as some can be harder to distinguish than others.

My decision to include the remaining consonants simply came down to their presence cross-linguistically. I initially planned to create a heat map of the IPA with each phoneme's "temperature" being a weighted sum of its occurrences in the languages on Ethnologue's list of the most spoken languages, but the work required for that seemed to outweigh the benefit. As such, I did what every self-respecting linguist would do and eyeballed it!

Vowels

The language's vowels are as follows:

• High: /i/, /u/
• Mid: /e/, /o/
• Low: /a/

Ah, the ol' five-vowel system, tried and true. I mean, there's not much to say here. Moving on!

Phonotactics

The language's phonotactic rules are largely inspired by those of Toki Pona. They are as follows:

1. All syllables follow a (C)V(S) structure, where "S" denotes a sonorant that is not /w/ or /j/.
2. Null onsets are word-initial only.
3. No adjacent sonorants; codas always assimilate to following onsets.
4. Words may be no longer than three syllables.
5. To reduce sliding, /j/ is only permitted before /a, o, u/, and /w/ is only so before /a, e, i/.
6. The penultimate vowel is always stressed.

Final Thoughts

This may not be much, but I am trying to refrain from hyperfixating and making everything too quickly as I want your thoughts on every step I take. What do you like so far? What could be improved?

Collaborators are always welcome!

Edit: Typos (of course)

Never made an international auxlang, nor have I ever collaborated on a conlang project as none of my friends are into linguistics. Thought I’d kill three birds with one stone. Who’s in? I’ll probably use Google Docs, LibreOffice, or one of the many collaborative Markdown editors out there.

MIT research finds the brain’s language-processing network also responds to artificial languages such as Esperanto and languages made for TV, such as Klingon on “Star Trek” and High Valyrian and Dothraki on “Game of Thrones.”

Just wandering around Lemmy looking for conlanging communities. Saw this one linked in the sidebar of !worldbuilding@lemmy.world .

I happen to be partial to xenolangs, and the above is a sample of Commonthroat, a language inspired by the sounds my dog makes when he's dreaming. The "Romanization", if you can call it that, is rCFqKqmqn, pronounced /chuff, long rising strong whine, huff, long high strong growl, huff, short low strong grunt, huff, short high weak grunt/, and means egg eater.

The script is read from right to left, and as the phrase reverse abjad implies, the letters are vowels (whines, growls, or grunts) and the diacritics are consonants (huffs, chuffs, or yips). Both tone and volume are significant in vowels.

name of language: uá

name meaning: speech, language, talk

writing system: latin, cyrillic (recently added)

there are 9 sounds in total

“a” - like father

“e” like bed

“i” like in “see”

“o” like in “store”

“u” like in “moon”

n “New”

s “Save”

kh, like in “Hat”

“m” - “Money”

Accent means the syllable is drawn out slightly/more emphasis

á - not, no

ae - everything

oé - animal

aí - reptile

uá - speech, talk

óa - good

íe - bad

khéen - using

khái - disgusting

ian - person

iasía - mirror, reflection

iéo - yellow, green

o - to hold, have

kháa - fish

khána - noise

khóm - come

khási - plant

khén - can, possible

akhú - raccoon

khíi - fruit, vegetable

khín - also

khísi - piece, cut

khíen - rock

khó - goop, paste, powder

khon - air, spirit

khúe - color

khúu - group

khué - ear, to hear

áan - to steal

ákhe - to sleep or rest

áso - blue, green

auá - head, leader

ékho - block/square

én - clothing, cloth

ée - cold, ice

séi - fire, hot

úi - big

íi - small

ókhu - mouth, to eat

ina - line

íu - paper

óie - red

ón - is, at, exist

úkha - hand

úkhin - see, eye

úna - hole

na - land

nana - parent

néi - woman

níe - man

nókhi - dead

ónsi - back

nún - moon

nusi - silly, play

núe - many

nákha - number

nasa - strange

nasin - way

nena - bump, mountain

ni - me

khí - this

nimi - name

nókha - foot

óin - love

ona - it

óen - open

ákha - break

nái - do

aía - stick

án - food

ána - give

si - of

síin - feel

síeia - black

síi - end

sisi - bug

okha - near

ókhi - container

sána - same

séo - skin

séne - what

séui - high

siéo - body

síkhe - circle

sin - new

khía - you

khísi - face

síkheén - picture

sona - know

súno - sun

súa - table

súi - sweet

san - from

sáso - but

saua - to

séo - water

sénkho - time

óno - house

sú - two

únkha - sex

úsa - mouth

úsaa - fight

uáo - white

uán - one

uasó - bird

uaua - strong

uékha - away

uíne - want

I lovee the way "dragon" turned out it's so cutee