1 of 14

Creativity & Constraint

Conlanging Beyond the IPA

Logan R. Kearsley

2 of 14

The “Blank Page Effect”

Paradox of choice – when you can choose anything, it’s easiest to choose nothing.
Easier to work with something that’s already “on the page” than to generate content de novo.
Constraints allow us to make choices by solving problems.

3 of 14

Variety in Non-Human Languages

Syntax, memory limit effects, discourse structure

All neat topics, but for another time

Only looking at phonology

I work with romanization–you may lack that constraint!
“Phonology” includes non-audio modalities!

4 of 14

Alternate Human Modalities

Oral/Aural Language
Visual Sign Language
Tactile Sign Language
Writing
Whistling

More like writing than like sign, but easier to invent!
Whistle registers have regular properties related to their “normal” counterparts (Conlangery #152)
What if a whistle language existed independently?

5 of 14

Tjugem - A Whistled Language

Timbre – sound quality – is out.
We have two dimensions to work with: amplitude, and pitch
Let’s select a maximally-distinctive subset of the amplitude & pitch patterns that natural whistle registers use.

“Vowels” – steady tones, smooth changes, amplitude peaks.

Based on three relative frequency bands–high tone, mid tone, and low tone

“Consonants” – patterns of alterations to vowels, amplitude troughs.

Frequency: below adjacent vowel, above adjacent vowel, or stay the same?
Amplitude: change fast, change slow, have a silent gap

6 of 14

Tjugem - A Whistled Language

Consonants:

I C D�A t d n�M k g q�G p b m

Vowels:

HH = i

LL = u

HM = ja

LM = wa

Phonotactics

High-target consonants can’t be adjacent to low-target consonants, because that requires a “long” silence to reconfigure the vocal tract / instrument, or passage through the vowel space, which is another vowel.

HLM = ju

LHM = wi

Schwa = e (H/L/M)

7 of 14

A Canine Phonology

Lots of shared mammalian vocal physiology–lips, teeth, tongue, nasal cavity, etc. But…
Dogs have a small, but horizontally-arranged, vowel space

Not the triangle/trapezoid humans have
Entirely outside the human space, so romanization will be purely arbitrary

Dogs may not be able to distinguish minimal pairs

Phonology based on syllable-level features

8 of 14

A Canine Phonology

CV(C) syllables, so every syllable has at least two segments
Every feature must alter at least two segments

By construction, there will be no segmental minimal pairs!

Vowels are front <e> and back <o>
Features:

+/-back, +/-round, +/-open, +/-stop, +/nasal

9 of 14

A Canine Phonology: Features to Phones

-back: front vowel, alveolar/labial consonants
+back: back vowel, velar consonants
-round: plain onset and plain vowel
+round: labialized onset and rounded vowel
-open: short vowel and fricative coda consonant
+open: long vowel and no coda
-stop -nasal: fricative onset and modal voice vowel
+stop -nasal: plosive onset and breathy vowel
+stop +nasal: nasal onset and nasalized vowel

Syllable count comparable to some human language phonemic inventories. Not a huge number, but we can always add more distinctive features!

Onsets:

f x

t k

n ng

tw kw

Codas:

f x

Vowels recoverable from the consonant string & syllable boundaries!

10 of 14

Fysh A - A Language in Electric Fields

Spoken by alien electric “fish”, using electrocyte organs.
Based on signalling abilities and limitations seen in real-world electric fish.
Three sets of electric organs, of two types with different wave patterns

3 channels, two of which are indistinguishable from each other (so frequency order doesn’t matter) but distinguishable from the third.

Amplitude and signal frequency are related–it takes time to build a larger peak charge–so (unlike whistling) each channel only has one dimension.
Electrocytes can’t instantaneously transition between discrete frequencies
Controlling the start time of a wave train is easier than precisely controlling the stop time.

11 of 14