Tvtropes Conlang

A tense for time travel sounds like the awesomest thing ever, by the way. Will we get to do complicated agreement with tense too?

@Fargle: For consonants the only ones that sound significantly different from English are K, Q, W, and X

K and Q are pronounced in ways that aren't even in English, W is a vowel (sounds like a long u), and X sounds like "Ch" as in Chair.

But this is just my system.

edited 19th Sep '10 9:31:00 PM by lockonlockon

Th is pronounced two different ways in English — don't see a reason to replicate that, certainly. We could do th/dh, of course, or have no voiced equivalents (hence the lack of sh)... I'm not sure whether I want to add these sounds, though.

My bad, then "th" from "Thanatos" or "Sith" (as in Dark side of the force).

Also, "c" sounds like K as in "kick".

Okay. I think I'm starting to understand the basics of this. How do I type the various IPA symbols if I wanted to propose a set of sounds? Do I need to install special software or is there some kind of function I can activate?

Copypaste from Wikipedia is what I do.

I do what Matrix does.

Same here when I'm not lazy, as I am now.

I'm on a Mac, and get them from the character palette. Not sure about Windows but maybe Insert -> Symbol?

Or copy from WP, of course.

Okay. I'll test myself and see if I can propose a good set of sounds. If I come up with something stupid, please flame me to hell and back.

So Matrix: You gonna assign characters to all those I can save your list?

Ninja'd so many times on my post earlier. Matrix does make a good point that we shouldn't feel too constricted by the letters we're using to write this.

And his chart is interesting and I wish I knew how to make nice charts like that (and wasn't too lazy to). Should we attempt to combine his chart with Lockon's and my ideas, or choose one, or what?

edited 19th Sep '10 9:40:13 PM by Zizoz

Well, is his chart an addition to mine, or his own thing? if the former, let's figure out what the hell to do with all of those. If the Latter: just put it as the Matrixian Troperese Phonology.

edited 19th Sep '10 9:42:15 PM by lockonlockon

You can't save it as is?

BTW, making charts is easy, just put things like this ||text||text||text||

makes

@Matrix: Well, I want to know when being written in roman characters what's producing what sound.

Oh and my chart is a seperate idea. Brainstorming.

Well, I want to know when being written in roman characters what's producing what sound.

We don't need to bother with that until we actually decide what phonemes we're using.

It's based on the idea of using the sounds in "TV Tropes", extended somewhat.

I suppose a combination could involve reintroducing the postalveolar affricates, [h] and [j] and [w] while leaving out the velar stops (and probably the uvular ones as well, not quite sure). I'd also say get rid of [ɱ] as a separate phoneme on the basis that I can't tell it from [m] :P

Also note that tʃ occurs in TV Tropes for me, kind of: my /tɹ/ is actually [tʃɹ].

Not sure about the vowels. Two systems of six each; both contain a, i, u. We could choose one, use all nine vowels, fuse a couple...

edited 19th Sep '10 9:49:29 PM by Zizoz

Okay.

I've read two different explanations and I still do not understand what a phoneme is, I'm going to go look for a solid answer.

I'd also say get rid of [ɱ] as a separate phoneme on the basis that I can't tell it from [m] :P

That's fine, I was thinking of having the labiodentals be allophones of their labial counterparts anyways.

I should stop editing my posts; this is moving too fast for that.

Yes, quite.

I figured it out, and decided to keep my list, as I like having one solid phoneme for each character. I may change this, but that's what I'm saying now.

OOOH! I think I know how to explain it Lockon! You know how in English L and R are very distinct from each other? But in Japanese, L and R are pretty much identical? That's because in English L and R are separate Phonemes but in Japanese they're both part of the same Phoneme.

I think that's right at any rate.

EDIT: Damnit. Ninja'd.... We totally need to have a really cool word for Ninja'd in this language btw..

edited 19th Sep '10 9:53:12 PM by Capt.Fargle