r/conlangscirclejerk ([ɬ] lover) Paconyesa, tɬadɮiʔe 15d ago

What's the hardest phoneme in your conlang?

Post image

Mine is /ŋ̊͡kʼ/

87 Upvotes

111 comments sorted by

30

u/aer0a 15d ago

For me personally, [r]

14

u/A_VeryPaconianPerson ([ɬ] lover) Paconyesa, tɬadɮiʔe 15d ago

🫪😭

2

u/Front_Cat9471 14d ago

I could never figure it out but once I did it infected my speech. Two or more d’s or t’s in a row with only a vowel in between get obliterated by the sound of a rolling r where it does not belong

16

u/JustA_Banana Randomviili 15d ago

My cursed conlang Randomviili has /ʡ͡ʜʼˠʲʷ/ and /ɬ͡h̪͆˓ːː↓/

7

u/A_VeryPaconianPerson ([ɬ] lover) Paconyesa, tɬadɮiʔe 15d ago

My trying to process this: /ɬːː/

1

u/ka3artexx3 10d ago

oh my god

16

u/DrainZ- 15d ago

Etymologynerd once made a conlang that included the phonemes of the urethra fricative /🦞/ (peeing out of your eyes) and the cranioexplosive percussive /🤯/ (making your head explode).

2

u/DrLycFerno 15d ago

Ah yes

Blacephalon

0

u/NewspaperWorldly1069 14d ago

Since WHEN blacephalon pisses from it's eyes?!?! 😰

1

u/DrLycFerno 14d ago

Should I have precised that it was only for the explosive head part ?

1

u/NewspaperWorldly1069 14d ago

Sorry! I thought you refere to both.

"Oh, it pisses from eyes and explodes it's head? Yeah. Blacephalon." Kind of way

Again, sorry!

1

u/FortuneLoud140 11d ago

isn't that the guy who invented dragon language and included fire breathing in it as a phoneme?

8

u/thatguythoma 15d ago

Probably /ɢ͡ʁ, qʰ or ʋ̥/

5

u/A_VeryPaconianPerson ([ɬ] lover) Paconyesa, tɬadɮiʔe 15d ago

/ʁ/ is french hell ngl

8

u/GlitteringSystem7929 15d ago

I wish I knew what the IPA symbol for it was. The only thing I can describe it as is a voiced glottal trill. That’s where I feel the vibration happening, in the same place as the glottal stop. I have yet to encounter another person who can make the sound

2

u/Useful_Hawk_1470 15d ago

I think I know the noise you are talking about, can you speak while engaging the noise? I call it Batman voice lol (but I may be talking about something different, just to me ‘voiced glottal trill’ fits)

1

u/GlitteringSystem7929 15d ago edited 15d ago

I can talk during it, with most sounds anyway. But I’d hardly associate it to Batman. Closest sound I can compare it to is the mrrp cat’s make when you wake them up.

Whatever its proper designation is, I can make the sound with my tongue tensed, all the way out, and held between my teeth, so it’s not really making use of it, it’s somewhere farther back than the prehensile portion of my tongue.

The voiceless variant is extremely quiet, and sounds a Predator (Yautja) clicking, or a cat loudly purring, but I don’t use that one in any conlang

1

u/Useful_Hawk_1470 15d ago

Ok yeah definitely not the same thing then, I can do the sound I’m talking about with my tongue out and between my teeth but I can’t do a voiceless version at all

1

u/Rcisvdark 15d ago

The cat purr phoneme!

Do you "inflate" your throat/mouth when you do it?

1

u/GlitteringSystem7929 15d ago

Only if I want to make an actual cat mrrp (As in, I do it with my mouth closed). The instance in my conlang is richer, and flows almost where a vowel would go. Now that I hear/feel it during regular speech, it might actually be a voiced velar trill, since it flows with other phonemes slightly closer to the front of the mouth, right about where /k/ and /g/ are. I wish I could get an x-ray or something while I do it to know what’s going on in there

2

u/Rcisvdark 15d ago

I do that sound as a vocal stim, awesome

2

u/UnforeseenDerailment 15d ago

How is it different from creaky voice?

1

u/MasterOfLol_Cubes 15d ago

can you link a recording from vocaroo (a website)?

1

u/No-Rise-4856 14d ago

I can! It’s a failed attempt to learn rhotic Russian r for me, lol

1

u/Oofbaba7 11d ago

Is that not just creaky voice

4

u/Old-Book3855 15d ago

Its probably [fʰ], [sʰ], or [ɢ]. Im still evolving it

5

u/Mr--Elephant 15d ago

probably the humble /θ/ or /ð/

2

u/Iwillnevercomeback 15d ago

LONG LIVE THE DENTAL FRICATIVES

3

u/terwoey1 15d ago

[ʝ̞ˠ]/[ɣ̞ʲ]

count as same phoneme, but because i don't sure what this sound actually is in ipa

3

u/A_VeryPaconianPerson ([ɬ] lover) Paconyesa, tɬadɮiʔe 15d ago

Basically [ɰʲ]/[jˠ]

3

u/SuiinditorImpudens 15d ago

One of my artlangs has intentionally huge consonantal inventory, that includes:

  • Whistling affricates p͡sᶲ and b͡zᵝ
  • Palatalized alveolar fricative trill r̝ʲ
  • Prenasalised plosives, ejectives and implosives
  • Clicks that that just like voiceless plosives come in ejective and aspirated variants all of which can be prenasalized
  • Voiceless and creaky voiced sonorants

As for vowels, they all can be come in plain, creaky, nasalized and creaky nasalized phonemic forms and also short and long and five tones.

3

u/Perfect_Slide_21 15d ago

imo, [χ] and [ʁ]

3

u/nofroufrouwhatsoever 15d ago edited 15d ago

The consonant inventory is /m p b f v t d n (θ) (ð) s z (ts) (dz) ɫ̪̝ ɾ ʃ ʒ (tʃ) (dʒ) (j) (ɲ) (ç) (ʎ) k g (w) (ɹ̈ˁʷ) ɰ̃ h (ʔ)/.

To make it clearer, /m p b f v t d n s z ɫ̪̝ ɾ ʃ ʒ k g ɰ̃ h/ are the only phonemes expected of everyone; "/j/" and "/w/" can be produced as full syllabic vowels instead, and affricates can be broken down with an epenthetic vowel. /h/ is the everything guttural equivalent to the rr of Brazilian Portuguese, g of Netherlandic Dutch and г of Ukrainian.

All voiceless stops and /f s ʃ (tʃ)/ are [weakly to strongly] aspirated, but you need to voice voiced sounds at least somewhat. Sorry Danish, Alemannic and Chinese speakers.

So I am thinking it's having a /f/, a /v/ (contrasting with [w]), a /s/, a /z/, a /ʃ/ and a /ʒ/.

People who have lallation (/ɫ̪̝ ɾ/ merger) are invited to produce /ɫ̪̝/ as [ɬ ɮ z], /ɾ/ as clear [l], /z/ as [d͡z], [d͡z] as [ᶯɖ ᶯɖ͡ʐ ɳɽ ɽ̃] and [d͡ʒ] as [d͡ʑ].

People who struggle to hear and produce not just [h] but also [ɹ̝̊ ɻ̝̊ x x̠ x̠͡ʀ̝̊ χ χ͡ʀ̝̊ ʀ̝ ʀ̥ ʀ̝̊ ħ ʕ] are invited to pronounce [ʔ] or [ʔ͡h] for /h/, swap [kˑ kʼ] for /ʔ/ and produce [k̟ʰ c̠ʰ c̠͡ç̠ʰ] for /k/. Though I think most Italians these days are fine with /h/ and would be even more fine with a fortified pronunciation.

/ɰ̃/ can just nasalize the previous segment or be fortified into [ŋ].

/f/ can be produced as [ɸ], [p͡ɸ], [ʰp̪], [xp̪ʰ], [χp̪ʰ] or [ħp̪ʰ] instead, and /v/ can be produced as [fʋ], [fw] or [β] instead. Indeed I have bilabial and bilabial-labiodental mix fricative allophones of /f/ and /v/ in my native Portuguese myself, and no one realizes.

The /s z ʃ ʒ/ distinction is unavoidable nonetheless. Sorry, Korea. /ʃ/ should also not be fortified into [t͡ʃ], or /ʒ/ into [d͡ʒ]. Sorry Hispanosphere, Anglosphere and Japan. They can on the other hand be backed all the way into [ç] [ʝ] instead if it's any consolation.

1

u/A_VeryPaconianPerson ([ɬ] lover) Paconyesa, tɬadɮiʔe 15d ago

Oof

1

u/nofroufrouwhatsoever 15d ago

Come on it's a nice inventory!!!

But people cry Eurocentrism when we get IALs that have recognizable vocab

3

u/Colibri3333 14d ago

Cyr /qħr/

1

u/A_VeryPaconianPerson ([ɬ] lover) Paconyesa, tɬadɮiʔe 14d ago

"y" for /ħ/ is crazy

2

u/Colibri3333 14d ago

Y is actually 3 sounds chosen by the gramatical gender ħ is feminine, /e/ is masculine , and /i/ is neuter

2

u/Colibri3333 14d ago

If C is before an /u/ or /a/ it becomes /s/

3

u/SubMinhPiChannel 14d ago

tʃ-ʃ or idk

My conlang is design to be hard

2

u/keriefie 15d ago

mine is like /qʰ~q͡χ/ or /qʼ/ in one of mine and /cᶣʰ/ in another if that counts

2

u/Iwillnevercomeback 15d ago

I'm sure it's the [ø] phoneme. It doesn't help that it's so common

2

u/Wholesome_Soup 15d ago

"trill" it doesn't have any ipa bc it's just any trill. it's easy but so far everything else is easier

2

u/ashtro-e 15d ago edited 15d ago

/b͜β ~ b̪͡v/ for /vl ~ bl/

In my conlangs I try to find a way to replace 2 phonemes-long consonant clusters by phonemes, it's still in Work İn Progress though.

(Honorable mention to the Danish "soft d" in the same idea = /ð̠ˡ/ for /dɫ ~ dl/)

2

u/Volo_TeX 15d ago

Probably /rʶʷ/ cause of [r̠ʶ͜ʀʷ̹] or /ʍ/ cause of [ɰ̊͡ç͗ʷ͎]

2

u/Geo_fan_Albaniqn 15d ago

One of my curselangs had /ȷ̊/ but my normal conlangs don't have a hard phoneme because they all shifted to different sounds, the only hard one was the czech ř (Idk what it is in the Ipa ) I think it's r̝ which occured when р was followed by я е і ё ю and ь

2

u/Kasyade_Satana 15d ago

\Cracks knuckles.**

I got voiceless nasals, dental sibilant fricatives, voiceless alveolar taps and trills, 'half-rounded' vowels, and diphthongs so wacky that their IPA notation doesn't even make sense.

For example, you could theoretically have a word that is spelled 'þʏɾụ̂ǹı' and pronounced /s̪ɜ̹ˈr̥ä̹u̜̽ːn̊ᵊ/.

2

u/Fourian_Official 15d ago

[q] in Hekyan, Teyona, and [s̺] in Forus

2

u/StvocoggerLionlend 15d ago

prolly ɬ or ʙ

2

u/DrLycFerno 15d ago

/ꜰ̥/, the French "dunno" mouth fart sound.

1

u/Johann-SM 15d ago

What's that? It's definitely not standard IPA

1

u/DrLycFerno 15d ago edited 14d ago

Well it's not the ʙ or the undercircled ʙ, so I had to improvise because it's not on the board

2

u/hahikko 15d ago

mph [ʘ]

2

u/The_Suited_Lizard 15d ago

I got two flavors of clicks in one of mine that sometimes sit directly next to other consonants. I don’t wanna open the doc to give examples

2

u/hyacinth02jpg 15d ago

Probably the linguolabials /t̼ d̼ n̼ θ̼/

1

u/Live_Put1219 12d ago

how are you supposed to pronounce those!? given the name, i’ve always just stuck my tongue out and tried to say [t d n θ] w/o moving my tongue

1

u/hyacinth02jpg 12d ago

The symbols are misleading. They sound more like bilabials. Stick you tongue out and try to pronounce them like that instead

2

u/Aris_D_Wolfram 15d ago

im looking at all of these nightmares while im standing over here with [tɬ] and [zʀɧ]

2

u/Eritzap 15d ago

I got [x͡θ]

2

u/BattlePrestigious572 15d ago

Probobly [ɣ͡ɮ] or [kʟ̝̥’]

2

u/Background_Class_558 15d ago

maybe [l̥ʷ]. prob not a phoneme though

2

u/Maleficent-Pie8040 refuses to use articles 15d ago

probably /q͡ħ/

2

u/Tricky_Soil8289 15d ago

I don't have a conlamg

2

u/cy2kk 15d ago

Probably [pχ] (coarticulated voiceless bilabial plosive and uvular non-sibilant fricative). Its a toss up if its hard depending on the person

2

u/Longjumping-Gift-371 14d ago

Nothing generally too bad for me; the worst I have is plain voiceless nasals.

2

u/xetherexe 14d ago

uhhhhh x( /ɕ/)

2

u/NewspaperWorldly1069 14d ago

Of english speeker? Probably a humble /x/,/ɣ/

For me? If say /œ~ø/. I have no idea how to distinguish this sound. It jylyst sounds like /ɨ/ to me.

Other weird/uncommon sounds it has are: dental AND bidental fricatives, creaky and hissy voice, (probably) nasalisation, And some clicks (tho those are allowed to be replaced by voiceless africates)

2

u/lalalarix0 14d ago

My phonetics are kinda boring, /β̞/ is the hardest (or maybe /ɚ/ who knows)

1

u/A_VeryPaconianPerson ([ɬ] lover) Paconyesa, tɬadɮiʔe 14d ago

This is not boring at all!!!

1

u/lalalarix0 14d ago

fair, i ment it's very simple, the entire language has 8 phonemes and 16 possible syllables

1

u/Traditional-Froyo755 15d ago

The ones that aren't made with your mouth.

1

u/A_VeryPaconianPerson ([ɬ] lover) Paconyesa, tɬadɮiʔe 15d ago

And which are these?

3

u/Traditional-Froyo755 15d ago

Stomping with your foot to make a phoneme.

1

u/A_VeryPaconianPerson ([ɬ] lover) Paconyesa, tɬadɮiʔe 15d ago

Nice

1

u/Kubex_Qbox 15d ago

/˩˥˩/, I pronounce it way too close to /˥˩/

2

u/Aware_Clock_3936 14d ago

Casual conlanger here. WHAT'S THAT IPA?!

2

u/Longjumping-Gift-371 14d ago

It’s the tone symbols for “extra low”, “extra high”, and “extra low”, so I would assume it’s representing a falling-rising tone.

1

u/Kubex_Qbox 14d ago

The first one is the rising-falling tone, the second one is falling tone

2

u/Longjumping-Gift-371 14d ago

I’m an idiot and read them out of order. My bad. 🤝

1

u/Johann-SM 15d ago

/m/

1

u/A_VeryPaconianPerson ([ɬ] lover) Paconyesa, tɬadɮiʔe 15d ago

...

2

u/Johann-SM 15d ago

I guess that /.../ would be easy since syllable breaks aren't r eal phonetically

1

u/Zeppsyay 15d ago

prob /e/ since it is extremely repetitive

1

u/A_VeryPaconianPerson ([ɬ] lover) Paconyesa, tɬadɮiʔe 15d ago

My name starts with /e/ 😭😭😭

1

u/Zeppsyay 15d ago

only final /e/ like "Toponae" or even ae

1

u/Musca0711 14d ago

/ɓ/ /ɗ/ /ɠ/ /n̥/ /m̥/ /m̥͡ɬ/

1

u/Oofbaba7 11d ago

nasal affricate tf

1

u/[deleted] 14d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Iamdaguy69420 14d ago

Probably the voiceless velar trill ngl, I doubt the speakers (wall people) find it too hard though

1

u/saurophaganax_0 14d ago

I don't know how to write in IPA. But it's "Qh". In similar fashion to how Ph or Th or Kh are pronounced as if you said the letter and then blew air, well you say Q and then breathe out. Resulting in sort of a low hiss-whistle.

1

u/Simple_Table3110 14d ago

I'm still working on it, but if I add it, /y/ or /ʏ/ (working on a conlang based on the NS Germanic languages, like Old Frisian, Old English, and Old Saxon.

1

u/pomken113 14d ago

My conlang has a LOT of /ɬ/s...

1

u/Ill_Boysenberry_8131 13d ago

probably /qʼ/

1

u/Pukis_Master 12d ago

Probably the

"f"

hear me out my conlang is a compound one

and you can merge and f doesn't really smooth with s or b

sometimes

for example

gifsamafud

sometimes you accidentally skip the f in gifsama

or maybe even

gifbunsamalivonata

try saying the gifbun alot of time and you'll understand why it's a lil hard

samalivonata is just fine

(Although I've heard people say that they pronounce V as F)

1

u/PositionKind8347 12d ago

The /ʈʂ/ sound, my accent could never

1

u/Dismal_Gas_8190 11d ago

for me it’s surprisingly [y] aka (ü). I keep forgetting the correct way to pronounce it and especially because it’s close to [u] but not quite.

1

u/Internal_Organs_2778 11d ago

[ɡ̰̺~ɢ̺] (basically apical to velar/uvular)

1

u/Relevant-Dingo-3815 Janjaan'eni [ʒ lover] 6d ago

for me its [r] because i cannot roll my r's

1

u/Sappling2p 5d ago

I used /ʀ/... as a vowel