"How can you tell how good bread is without tasting it? Not the smell, not the look, but the sound of the crust. Listen." --Colette, Pixar's Ratatouille.
Conlanging Post #2: Phonology
Inventing a language. What comes first? Before fun stuff like calligraphy, syllabaries, alphabets, idioms, onomatopoetic words comes phonology. Language is, at its basic, sound. "Not the smell, not the look, but the sound..."
When describing the phonology of a language, linguists use a set of symbols called The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which is a mixture of the Roman and Greek alphabet, plus extra. Since sound is so foundational, I spent an afternoon last week poring listening to this Interactive IPA Chart and comparing English, Japanese, French, and Welsh phonology with the full range. Then I filled in my own charts.
By the way, I can't keep referring to my language as "my language" or it will get really tiresome really fast.
I've had a lot of different ideas: Krstovokjn, Davkaiym, Devkpsx, Sberyut. They're exotic-looking because they are the name of the language
in the language itself. But names of languages often have history and meaning, so until I know a little bit more vocabulary, I will use the "common speech" (English) name,
Boronovian.
Lots of work still to do. Getting sleepy, good night!
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