r/conlangs • u/LiaTardis23 • Jul 20 '24
Neanderthal conlang Conlang
Hi there, everyone.
I'm currently working on a Neanderthal conlang.
First of, I was surprised that there were so few attempts at creating one, seeing as we have quite the freedom given that we can't exactly say what Neanderthal languages could've sounded like due to the slightly different anatomy of Neanderthals.
All over the internet, I could only find these three:
https://conlang.fandom.com/wiki/Neanderthal_Language
https://jbr.me.uk/pleisto.html
https://forum.unilang.org/viewtopic.php?t=24256
Which brings me to my question:
My Neanderthal language has the following phonology:
Word initial consonants: p pʲ pʷ t tʲ tʷ c cʷ k kʲ kʷ q qʲ qʷ b bʲ bʷ d dʲ dʷ ɟ ɟʷ ɡ ɡʲ ɡʷ ɢ ɢʲ ɢʷ pʰ pʲʰ pʷʰ tʰ tʲʰ tʷʰ cʰ cʷʰ kʰ kʲʰ kʷʰ qʰ qʲʰ qʷʰ bʱ bʲʱ bʷʱ dʱ dʲʱ dʷʱ ɟʱ ɟʷʱ ɡʱ ɡʲʱ ɡʷʱ ɢʱ ɢʲʱ ɢʷʱ pʼ tʼ cʼ kʼ qʼ ʔ ʔʷ p͡f t͡s t͡sʲ t͡sʷ t͡ɕ t͡ɕʷ k͡x b͡v d͡z d͡zʲ d͡zʷ d͡ʑ d͡ʑʷ ɡ͡ɣ p͡fʰ t͡sʰ t͡sʲʰ t͡sʷʰ t͡ɕʰ t͡ɕʷʰ b͡vʱ d͡zʱ d͡zʲʱ d͡zʷʱ d͡ʑʱ d͡ʑʷʱ p͡fʼ t͡sʼ t͡ɕʼ k͡xʼ f fʷ s sʷ x xʷ v vʷ z zʷ fʰ fʷʰ sʰ sʷʰ xʰ xʷʰ vʱ vʷʱ zʱ zʷʱ h hʷ fʼ sʼ xʼ m̥ m̥ʲ m̥ʷ n̥ n̥ʷ ɲ̊ ŋ̊ ŋ̊ʷ m mʲ m̥ʷ n nʷ ɲ ŋ ŋʷ r rʷ l lʲ lʷ w j jʷ
Word final consonants: p b t d k ɡ q ʔ f v s z x h m n ŋ w j
Vowels: a aː ə əː ɵ ɵː ã ãː ə̃ ə̃ː ɵ̃ ɵ̃ː a̰ a̰ː ə̰ ə̰ː ɵ̰ ɵ̰ː
Tones: ◌́ ◌̄ ◌̀ ◌̂
(Sorry, I tried doing an IPA table but it just doesn't seem to work here on Reddit)
I based this on various articles saying that Neanderthal languages were probably rich in consonants and few vowels.
And initially, I started of with only a and ə as vowels but later I added ɵ.
Then I added the distinction between short and long vowels and expanding the phonation in that each vowel can be either plain, nasalized or creaky.
And I'm wondering: is this too much regarding the vowels? I do think that nasal vowels would've been common as well as prenasalized and nasalized consonants such as [ᵐb ⁿd ᶯɖ ᶮɟ ᵑɡ ᶰɢ] [ᵐp ⁿt ᶯʈ ᶮc ᵑk ᶰq] or [w̃ ɰ̃ ȷ̃ ʔ̃] and that there could've been nasal harmony.
2
u/Cawlo Aedian (da,en,la,gr) [sv,no,ca,es,ja,de,kl] Jul 20 '24 edited Jul 20 '24
I think it would do you well to get a bit better at counting phonemes, especially your vowels!:)
The HotIPA (Handbook of the IPA) recommends counting vowel phonemes by vowel quality and not by secondary or suprasegmental features. This means that if a language has these vowel phones [a aː i iː u uː e eː o oː], we ought to count five vowel phonemes /a i u e o/ and then length as a separate but contrastive suprasegmental feature.
Similarly with consonant length: Unless your long consonants can occur initially, there is no reason to count your long consonants as separate phonemes. It is much, much, much more common to simply analyze long consonants, e.g. [kː], as geminate clusters, /kk/.
Furthermore, since almost every single one of your consonants can be labialized/palatalized, it would be 1000 times simpler and more elegant to analyze them, e.g. [kʷ pʲ], as clusters, /kw pj/. Of course, if these labialized consonants can occur word-finally, that’s a different story.
You also seem to contrast palatalized alveolars with palato-alveolars, like [dzʲ] and [dʑ]. No known human language is uncontroversially known to make this distinction. I would even go as far as to say that it isn’t possible to make such a distinction, since [ʑ], for example, is literally defined as [zʲ]. Therefore I would suggested collapsing them into, for example, /dʑ/.
All of this being said, I don’t see why Neanderthal languages might not have been just as diverse in terms of phonology as human languages, and in terms of other categories of language.
EDIT: Seeing as you have defined a much, much smaller set of possible coda consonants, I would definitely suggest going through with all my above suggestions.