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?

  • early_riser@lemmy.radio
    2·
    4 days ago

    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 overlong

    Tone

    1 low
    2 high
    3 rising
    4 falling
    5 peaking
    6 dipping

    Strength

    1 weak
    2 strong
    3 strengthening
    4 weakening
    5 cresting
    6 troughing

    Phonation

    1 whine
    2 growl
    3 grunt
    4 plain hiss vowel
    5 trilled hiss vowel

    Consonants

    h huff
    c chuff
    y yip
    p plain hiss semivowel
    t trilled hiss semivowel

    So 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.