What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

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Koko
Re: What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

Postby Koko » 2015-01-06, 4:27

I heard a lot of the s's as /T/ :oops: . I'm glad to say that I caught 60% of the words, which is more than what I can for Isyan. I'd have written down what I thought I heard if I had remembered, but now it's too late: I forgot to when I listened to the recording. Anyways, Halvian sounds just as I imagined: slightly better than Isyan :evil: . I need to work on my Isyan's phonology better so it's the most greatnessest.

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Re: What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

Postby Mentilliath » 2015-01-06, 4:48

Levike wrote:@Mentilliath: Just for fun I listened to your recording and tried to write down what I heard.
The result is pretty funny and maybe says something about my listening skills.

What I heard: Omniam haste mora ke felas lagrona sotnivotes sonielasosom

What I should have heard: Ommiam hastemōda gelthēlas lagronas sot nivotesom welāsosom


That's actually pretty cool. I can enunciate when I really try, but I wanted to speak a little more quickly to make it sound more natural even though this lofty sentence from the 18th century isn't really casual conversation :P

Koko wrote:I heard a lot of the s's as /T/ :oops: . I'm glad to say that I caught 60% of the words, which is more than what I can for Isyan. I'd have written down what I thought I heard if I had remembered, but now it's too late: I forgot to when I listened to the recording. Anyways, Halvian sounds just as I imagined: slightly better than Isyan :evil: . I need to work on my Isyan's phonology better so it's the most greatnessest.


Well thank you :)

I’m always working on the phonology, really. I’ve changed words when I didn’t think they sounded “Halvian” enough, if that makes any sense. I’ve been working on this language long enough that it’s starting to have a recognizable sound. To me, at least.
Primary Conlang: Halvian
Additional conlangs: Hesternese (Aikedenejo), Galsaic (sister language of Halvian), and Ogygian (unrelated to the others.

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Re: What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

Postby Levike » 2015-01-06, 4:54

Mentilliath wrote:That's actually pretty cool.
Thanks.

I really find it funny that I mistook m for n, k for g and f for th.
Last edited by Levike on 2015-01-06, 5:02, edited 1 time in total.

Koko

Re: What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

Postby Koko » 2015-01-06, 4:55

How long have you worked on Halvian? I started Isyan last March but only recently started to keep whatever I make and adjust what needs adjusting.

Levike, f for th is actually a pretty common complication. When I was learning welsh, I mistook ddim for fim, even ffim :lol: . Given that you are native in two languages that have unaspirated /k/, i'm surprised you mistook it for g as well. Maybe you, Mentilliath, actually were pronouncing it an unvoiced g?

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Re: What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

Postby Mentilliath » 2015-01-06, 5:04

I’ve been working on Halvian for about 3-4 years. Started it in college. I had the idea to make a conlang as early as age 13, but didn’t do much with it until I came up with Halvian.

Well, Halvian makes no distinction between aspirated and unaspirated consonants, so it's hard to tell which one I'm saying. I'm sure I was saying an unaspirated, just maybe not easy to hear (I often have trouble hearing the difference between aspirated/unaspirated). Interestingly enough, in Galsaic, a language very closely related to Halvian, all instances of “th” and final -s have become “f”. The name “Mentilliath”’s Galsaic equivalent is “Mântillaf” (‘mɨntil:af) :)
Primary Conlang: Halvian
Additional conlangs: Hesternese (Aikedenejo), Galsaic (sister language of Halvian), and Ogygian (unrelated to the others.

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Re: What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

Postby Iparxi_Zoi » 2015-01-06, 8:43

I tend to favor languages with few consonant clusters & words that tend to end in vowels. My favorite sounding language is Spanish (except for the Caribbean varieties). After that I have Modern Greek, European Portuguese, Italian, Hawaiian, Mixtec, Icelandic.

I love languages that have soft sounds like /θ/, /ð/, and /ɣ/ and I'm a big fan of voiced fricatives.

I've developed my Indo-European conlang, ancient Zacian, similar to Ancient Greek so that in the the modern version of the language (which I hope to create sometime in the future God willing) has around the same phonology as Modern Greek and Spanish.
In my a posteriori conlang, Proto-Meganesian, I have a series of ejective plosives which I plan to develop into voiced plosives and then to lenite to fricatives.
Native/Mis lenguas maternas: [flag=español mexicano (Mexican Spanish)]es-MX[/flag] [flag=español (Spanish)]es[/flag] American English (en-US) English (en)
Advanced (I hope)/Espero que no se me olvide: [flag=français (French)]fr[/flag]
In love with/Me encantan: [flag=ελληνικά (Greek)]el[/flag] [flag=português (Portuguese)]pt[/flag]
Also intested in/También me interesarían: [flag=العربية (Arabic)]ar[/flag] [flag=italiano (Italian)]it[/flag] [flag=Türkçe (Turkish)]tr[/flag]

Koko

Re: What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

Postby Koko » 2015-01-06, 9:20

You and I are completely different people Iparxi: I prefer languages that don't have /ɣ/, /θ/ or /ð/ (though Greek and Icelandic are exceptions <3 Bellissime lingue sono loro). The only voiced fricatives I absolutely love are /v/, /ʒ/, /ʝ/, and /ɦ/. I detest /z/, /ɣ/, /ð/, /ʁ/, and /ʕ/. Other voiced fricatives are "meh…" Now, when it comes to voiceless fricatives, all but uvular, epiglottal, and /T/ are just wonderful :D . My favourite phonemes are stops, /k/ and /t/ in particular. I love /b/ but it never works where I want it to so it ends up being a phoneme with little frequency :( .

I also have no problem with consonant clusters at all (except when it comes to NAILs where you see words like /kxʷʔθhjkʷmpɬntŋwsʲcrxtptʟfpa/ :shock: , no thanks). Czech I adore for words like naschledanou or dívky, and those aren't even the tricky clusters ^^ .


Hmm, it appears my link isn't working and the file wasn't able to be attached :( I guess I'll have to find some new way for you guys to hear Isyan. At least now I have more time to get a better recording.

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Re: What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

Postby Iparxi_Zoi » 2015-01-06, 10:11

Koko wrote:The only voiced fricatives I absolutely love are /v/, /ʒ/, /ʝ/, and /ɦ/. I detest /z/, /ɣ/, /ð/, /ʁ/, and /ʕ/


I love /ʒ/ too! And as far as consonants go, anything after velar doesn't really appeal to me, which is one of the reasons I don't like Caribbean Spanish (too many /h/'s, not enough /x/'s and /s/'s).

I really dislike Slavic languages, except for maybe Slovak. They all sound too jumbled up with too many consonant clusters and too much palatalization. :mrgreen:

I also have a liking for languages with at least some form of voiceless/voiced distinction. Languages lacking this distinction to me sound "primitive" with the exception of Finnish and Nahuatl.

How do record yourself? :hmm: I don't even have a mic...
Native/Mis lenguas maternas: [flag=español mexicano (Mexican Spanish)]es-MX[/flag] [flag=español (Spanish)]es[/flag] American English (en-US) English (en)
Advanced (I hope)/Espero que no se me olvide: [flag=français (French)]fr[/flag]
In love with/Me encantan: [flag=ελληνικά (Greek)]el[/flag] [flag=português (Portuguese)]pt[/flag]
Also intested in/También me interesarían: [flag=العربية (Arabic)]ar[/flag] [flag=italiano (Italian)]it[/flag] [flag=Türkçe (Turkish)]tr[/flag]

Koko

Re: What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

Postby Koko » 2015-01-06, 10:25

Iparxi_Zoi wrote:I love /ʒ/ too!

In my newest conlang Ferodian, I have so many words with it. I fear that I've gone overboard :roll: . It's too soft and pretty that it is probably my all time favourite consonant.

And as far as consonants go, anything after velar doesn't really appeal to me, which is one of the reasons I don't like Caribbean Spanish (too many /h/'s, not enough /x/'s and /s/'s).

Do you therefore not like /ħ/ :( ?

I really dislike Slavic languages, except for maybe Slovak. They all sound too jumbled up with too many consonant clusters and too much palatalization. :mrgreen:

Who said Czech had palatalization :evil: ? Jk. Though, I find it odd you like Slovak but not Czech which is almost the same save minor differences.

I also have a liking for languages with at least some form of voiceless/voiced distinction. Languages lacking this distinction to me sound "primitive" with the exception of Finnish and Nahuatl.

*gasp* Another thing we agree on :D . I think aspirated-unaspirated distinction is fine as long as the language isn't Asian. For some reason this is an aspect that is shared amongst Chinese and Korean languages I just can't get over like tone. Japanese is different.

As i've said, Icelandic is a pleasant language, and it only has aspirated/unaspirated distinction. Is that what you meant by "some form?"

How do record yourself? :hmm: I don't even have a mic...

I was trying with my phone, but that was a fail :( . If it had worked, I was going to see if maybe a sample of Ferodian would be wanted.

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Re: What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

Postby Iparxi_Zoi » 2015-01-06, 11:25

Koko wrote:In my newest conlang Ferodian, I have so many words with it. I fear that I've gone overboard :roll: . It's too soft and pretty that it is probably my all time favourite consonant.

In modern Zacian I have it as the palatal allophone of /γ/ (sorry, my iPod doesn't let me type IPA, so I used the Greek gamma instead)

Koko wrote:Do you therefore not like /ħ/ :( ?

It fascinates me, especially in Arabic, but I don't find it beautiful. :oops:

Koko wrote:Who said Czech had palatalization :evil: ? Jk. Though, I find it odd you like Slovak but not Czech which is almost the same save minor differences.

maybe Slovak :lol: I've only heard it sung & some languages can sound deceitfully beautiful in song.

Koko wrote:*gasp* Another thing we agree on :D . I think aspirated-unaspirated distinction is fine as long as the language isn't Asian. For some reason this is an aspect that is shared amongst Chinese and Korean languages I just can't get over like tone. Japanese is different.

As i've said, Icelandic is a pleasant language, and it only has aspirated/unaspirated distinction. Is that what you meant by "some form?"

I hate contrastive tone in languages. Period. :D
And Icelandic does distinguish between voiceless & voiced fricatives, nasals, and rhotics. I love any form of voiceless/voiced distinction. Spanish, Swedish & other European languages don't have phonemic voiced sibilants, and they don't sound primitive to me.
P.S. I love when you find voiceless/voiced pairs outside Europe (i.e. Japanese, Navajo) :mrgreen:
Native/Mis lenguas maternas: [flag=español mexicano (Mexican Spanish)]es-MX[/flag] [flag=español (Spanish)]es[/flag] American English (en-US) English (en)
Advanced (I hope)/Espero que no se me olvide: [flag=français (French)]fr[/flag]
In love with/Me encantan: [flag=ελληνικά (Greek)]el[/flag] [flag=português (Portuguese)]pt[/flag]
Also intested in/También me interesarían: [flag=العربية (Arabic)]ar[/flag] [flag=italiano (Italian)]it[/flag] [flag=Türkçe (Turkish)]tr[/flag]

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Re: What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

Postby Ahzoh » 2015-01-06, 11:38

I like the sound of Hebrew and Arabic, though I think the former sounds kinda like French... Probably because the <r>...

@Koko: you might like my conlang Vrkhazhian, it has /ç ʝ/, oh but it has /z/, /ɣ/, though /z/ is rather rare.
"Qaẕd" [qaʝd] means "onyx" in Vrkhazhian...
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Re: What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2015-01-06, 14:19

I really dislike Slavic languages, except for maybe Slovak. They all sound too jumbled up with too many consonant clusters and too much palatalization
What about Bosnicroatiserbimontenegran? Palatalization is more or less vestigial in it, having yielded a set of true palatals and otherwise disappeared.
Koko wrote:it bares resemblance to my beloved Czech.
bears resemblance
There are no palatals save /j/ and /ʎ/ (italian inspired) and /ɲ/ (also /ʝ/).
That's rather a lot of them, seeing how English has only /j/ (and so do many other languages). The contrast between /j/ and /ʝ/ is vanishingly rare, too.
Last edited by mōdgethanc on 2015-01-07, 6:36, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

Postby Mentilliath » 2015-01-06, 18:02

Iparxi_Zoi wrote:I love languages that have soft sounds like /θ/, /ð/, and /ɣ/ and I'm a big fan of voiced fricatives.


I'm also a huge fan of /θ/. It's underused, in my opinion. Modern Greek, English, Albanian (unless I'm mistaken?), Welsh, Castillian Spanish, etc. I like all those languages for using it, even if /θ/ is relatively uncommon in the world's languages. It's used with much frequency in Halvian, being one of the most common fricative sounds, next to /s/.

Halvian contains no palatals except /j/ and it only appears at the beginning of words or between vowels.
Primary Conlang: Halvian
Additional conlangs: Hesternese (Aikedenejo), Galsaic (sister language of Halvian), and Ogygian (unrelated to the others.

Koko

Re: What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

Postby Koko » 2015-01-06, 20:03

mōdgethanc wrote:
Koko wrote:it bares resemblance to my beloved Czech.
bears resemblance

How could I not catch that :lol: ?

]That's rather a lot of them, seeing how English has only /j/ (and so do many other languages). The contrast between /j/ and /ʝ/ is vanishingly rare, too.

Yeah, I actually thought I didn't have so many until I wrote them all down. I guess I didn't care enough to change what I said. The contrast between /j/ and /ʝ/ is not so strong. In fact, the biggest differences are that the former can't appear beside /i/, and when before a voiceless consonant the latter has the high potential to become [C].

Ahzoh wrote:@Koko: you might like my conlang Vrkhazhian, it has /ç ʝ/, oh but it has /z/, /ɣ/, though /z/ is rather rare.
"Qaẕd" [qaʝd] means "onyx" in Vrkhazhian...

Ooh, the only sound I don't like is the uvular voiceless stop. It does sound nice, though :) And your script for it is perfect.

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Re: What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

Postby Ahzoh » 2015-01-06, 21:25

I love all my uvular and palatal consonants.
What you think of the consonant inventory overall?
http://www.frathwiki.com/%C5%A0arad_Yat ... Consonants
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Re: What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2015-01-07, 7:16

Ahzoh wrote:What you think of the consonant inventory overall?
http://www.frathwiki.com/%C5%A0arad_Yat ... Consonants
To be blunt, it's a little wacky. My feedback:

a) what is the rationale for having pre-aspirated consonants
b) why pre-aspirated sonorants and not just voiceless sonorants
c) why a uvular nasal phoneme (rare) but no velar nasal (common)
d) why random uvularized sounds
e) why /ts/ but no /dz/
f) why palatal affricates and fricatives (rare) but no postalveolars (common)
g) why four rhotics with one random labialized consonant and a uvular trill (rare)
h) why a palatal lateral fricative (rare) but no alveolar lateral fricative (common)
i) why a contrast between mid and open-mid vowels (rare) but not close-mid and open-mid (common)
j) why /ae/ and /ao/ but not /ai/ and /au/, or /ei/, /ou/, /eu/, /oi/ etc.
k) why do /t, d/ get lenited after front vowels (no conditioning factor)
l) are ejectives and implosives phonemes or allophones
m) why bilabial fricatives (rare) and not labiodental (common)
n) why clusters of stops that differ in voicing (unlikely)

I mean, strictly speaking, none of this stuff is impossible. It's just very unlikely that there would be this many violations of near-universal rules in a single language. I've highlighted the ones I think are the most dubious. (Especially that lateral fricative - what the hell?)
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Koko

Re: What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

Postby Koko » 2015-01-07, 7:54

b) in the chart they are listed as either pre-aspirated or voiceless, I think he just chooses to write them as pre-aspiration in the broad transcription to follow the pattern
d) why random velarised sounds in languages with those? There's no apparent reason other than "just because"
e) no rule states one needs /dz/ if there exists /ts/: Japanese for example phonemically only has /ts/
j) High Valyrian only has /ae/ and /ao/ for reasons unexplained as yet
l) considering they're explained under the allophony section, they can only be allophones
m) To be different
I know it's not my language and I could totally be wrong, but I like to guess a lot and I think these are fair answers. Bilabial fricatives may be rare, but why should that stop one from using them? They are common allophones among romance languages, Japonic and Polynesian languages. That's three family groups right there. Albeit most Polynesian languages have them as phonemes just as Japonese phonemically has /ɸ/.

Cross-linguistically, /T/ /D/ and /G/ are rare yet they seem to be praised among conlangers :hmm: . Why so phonemist?

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Re: What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

Postby Lietmotiv » 2015-01-07, 9:39

Levike wrote:At least it's not so grumpy as Lietmotiv's cat.



If that was my cat, I would be a billionaire today. Grumpy cat brings its owners a lot of $$$ :lol:

On topic - I love the sound of Finnish (for me this is the Elves' language).
Also, I like the sound of German, Latvian and Russian(here being a bit subjective).

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Re: What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

Postby Ahzoh » 2015-01-07, 13:15

mōdgethanc wrote:
Ahzoh wrote:What you think of the consonant inventory overall?
http://www.frathwiki.com/%C5%A0arad_Yat ... Consonants
To be blunt, it's a little wacky. My feedback:

a) what is the rationale for having pre-aspirated consonants
b) why pre-aspirated sonorants and not just voiceless sonorants
c) why a uvular nasal phoneme (rare) but no velar nasal (common)
d) why random uvularized sounds
e) why /ts/ but no /dz/
f) why palatal affricates and fricatives (rare) but no postalveolars (common)
g) why four rhotics with one random labialized consonant and a uvular trill (rare)
h) why a palatal lateral fricative (rare) but no alveolar lateral fricative (common)
i) why a contrast between mid and open-mid vowels (rare) but not close-mid and open-mid (common)
j) why /ae/ and /ao/ but not /ai/ and /au/, or /ei/, /ou/, /eu/, /oi/ etc.
k) why do /t, d/ get lenited after front vowels (no conditioning factor)
l) are ejectives and implosives phonemes or allophones
m) why bilabial fricatives (rare) and not labiodental (common)
n) why clusters of stops that differ in voicing (unlikely)

I mean, strictly speaking, none of this stuff is impossible. It's just very unlikely that there would be this many violations of near-universal rules in a single language. I've highlighted the ones I think are the most dubious. (Especially that lateral fricative - what the hell?)

I have a proto-language from which I could easily derive my inventory.
Are you asking me why or HOW?
If it is "why", then the answer is why do I need to have a reason? I think why is a pointless question.

a) Probably V:C -> VəC -> VɦC -> VhC -> VʰC (This is far more likely if the C is unvoiced). In any case, go ask Icelandic and Faroese, considering they are some of the only natlangs to have them.
b) Same reason as above. Also the tilde (~) symbolizes free variation. The pre-aspirated sonorants are in free variation with the voiceless counterpart.
c) The uvular nasal could come out of a change in the lines of nasalized vowel + plosive -> vowel + nasal (Ṽq → Vɴ). Japanese has it, along with alveolar nasal and bilabial nasal...
d) Why not? I mean it's not like Semitic languages don't have at face value randomly pharyngealized consonants.
e) Many languages only have /ts/, like Hebrew...
f) Why not?
g) Why not? Though the uvular trill belonged once upon a time to the uvularized consonants group. The labialized trill is only analyzed as such phonetically, phonemically it is ordinary /r/. I recall English <r> being pharyngealized and labialized...
h) Why not?
i) Why not? There are a few/many languages with such an inventory...
j) Why not?
k) Why not? The conditioning factor IS that they happen after front vowels, word-finally...
l) Well considering it is under the "Allophony" section, I would say yes...
m) Why not?
n) You don't need to have a rationale behind your consonant clusters. I even asked this question to other conlangers...

I was told by several experienced conlangers that my phonology is beautiful and perfectly plausible...
Also, rare does not mean unusable.
I'm hardly breaking these so called "near-universals"
Last edited by Ahzoh on 2015-01-07, 20:43, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: What is your favorite sounding language (read more)?

Postby TeneReef » 2015-01-07, 19:33

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