cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/25662741
I’m thinking about conlangs for creatures with different phonetic possibilities than humans, particularly birds with both syrinx and larynx. Does anything like the IPA already exist for these sounds?
Greetings, fellow xenolanger! I don’t think you’re going to find an established phonetic notation system for an alien vocal tract. You’ll likely have to homebrew your own system based on your critters’ phonetic space.
When I make a xenolang, I break up the phones into individual features. Whatever system I come up with denotes the features for each phone/phoneme one by one.
Here’s the system I use for my little monkey foxes:
YPA
Vowels
Timing
1 short
2 long
3 early
4 late
5 overlongTone
1 low
2 high
3 rising
4 falling
5 peaking
6 dippingStrength
1 weak
2 strong
3 strengthening
4 weakening
5 cresting
6 troughingPhonation
1 whine
2 growl
3 grunt
4 plain hiss vowel
5 trilled hiss vowelConsonants
h huff
c chuff
y yip
p plain hiss semivowel
t trilled hiss semivowelSo if I wanted to express a short low weak whine, it would be 1111. If I wanted to express that same syllable nucleus with a yip onset and a chuff coda it would be y1111c.
It’s not compact enough to serve as a Romanization scheme, though.
I have a fairly comprehensive grammar for my main xenolang up on Frathwiki (https://www.frathwiki.com/Commonthroat) which details how I solved the Romanization problem.
I also have a guide on how I came up with the phonology on the CBB forum (https://cbbforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=8203) which you may find useful.
Hope this helps.
This is some fascinating stuff. Thanks for the tips and the read.