I've seen the voiceless retroflex affricate transcribed in these two ways.

[t͡ʂ]

[ʈ͡ʂ]

Are these symbols interchangeable? Is there any difference between them? Or is [t͡ʂ] difficult to pronounce and your tongue is forced to make a [ʈ] sound when saying this affricate?

How exactly do ʂ̠ and ʂ̻ differ from ʂ?

What exactly is the tongue doing for each of these phonemes?

Voiceless Retroflex-Uvular Stop: ɋ

g͡bɣ͡β

Affricates happen to be the type of consonant I'm most confused about in the IPA, so I'm not very sure about what would precedent (I don't know if that's the word I'm looking for, quarantine has made me forget how to think straight; if it's wrong, please correct me and I'll change it to that or "qualify") for an affricates. We have (too lazy to copy paste any more unicodes, sorry) [ch] and [j] which are the most common affricates for languages that do have them and makes some intuitive sense, even while considering the fact my knowledge of language is biased. And then, we have [ts] and [dz]. I have not much to say except "my English-is-my-second-language-but-I'm-better-at-it-than-my-native-tongue-but-it-doesn't-even-any-affricates-besides-what-English-has-so-it-isn't-a-valid-excuse looking arse thinks its a consonant cluster". Because as far as I know, they're made by changing the manner of articulation, usually plosives to fricatives, and is done in one succession but that could still be a consonant cluster. So then, what actually does count as an affricate, and when does it become a cluster? In other words, what makes affricates, affricate?

On the other hand, there are some other affricates besides these that I think could count. With use of either [th] sound and moving the manner of articulation to their /s/ or /z/ voiced/voiceless counterpart, a whistle-esque [th] sound is made. Does this count as an affricate? Have any natlangs been recorded to use this? Do any of your conlangs happen to as well?

Please do tell!

I saw on Wikipedia that the voiced alveolo-palatal stop and the voiceless alveolo-palatal stop can be transcribed several different ways (as shown below).

• [ȶ] = [t̠ʲ] = [c̟]
• [ȡ] = [d̠ʲ] = [ɟ̟]

This made me wonder, does this mean the voiced retroflex plosive and the voiceless retroflex plosive can be transcribed like this?

• [ʈ] = [t̺ʲ] = [c̠]
• [ɖ] = [d̺ʲ] = [ɟ̠]

So, imagine a language with the stops /p t k/ and affricate /t͡s/. At this point, the language doesn't have /ks ps/ clusters in the onset, or in as many places as /t͡s/, leading to an analysis as a separate phoneme. But, what if the language develops /ks ps/ clusters through vowel elision, or some other sound change. Now, after said change, /ps ks/ occur in all the same positions as the affricate /t͡s/. Would this warrant a reanalysis of the he affricate as a cluster, or the other /Cs/ clusters as affricates?

I was looking around at how to pronounce the name of the !Kung people, a Khoisan group, and it seems it’s pronounced like /!χũː˦˥/. i’ve been trying for quite a while and I cant seem to get it down. how the hell do you pronounce click-fricative affricates???

help is much appreciated lol

This post by u/Jyappeul about romanization got me thinking about my own.

Right now, I am just using IPA for my language. This works fine in handwriting, but typing clicks and glottal stops is cumbersome. I'm trying to find an alternative.

Original IPA

This is a lightly corrected version of Nothing Gold Can Stay.

nisːutanʃi nisːumiʔaxanǀi intsaːma ŋkaːŋa
nisːumiʔasiːnʃi ʔamwifːaʔa antsa ma fiʔaw
nisːumputaw nisːumiʔaxaǃaw nsuǂaʘwi
ŋkiːma ma ʔunawʃu ʔatiaxːataw intsaː
ma nisːumantalaw, nisːujufaʔa xaǃaw ma xaǃaw
ma ʔunawʃu nisːujufaʔa Itini ma ntinʃi
ma ʔunawʃu nisːujufaʔa ʔimja ma mjataw
nisːunʃisuːmwama ʔanʃufːaw tanʃi

Sidetrack: 500 years ago...

I started wondering what my language would look like if Spanish colonizers were the first ones to romanize it.

Rules

/x/ = <j>
/k/ = <c> or <qu>
/ŋ/ = <ñ>
/ʔ/ = <h>
/ʃ/ = <x>
/ǂ/ = <k'>
/ǀ/ = <ts'>
/ǃ/ = <t'>
/ʘ/ = <p'>
/j/ = <y>
/w/ = <u>
/s/ = <z> or <c>
Geminate consonants and vowels are written as double (i.e. /aː/ = <aa>)

Everything else according to IPA.

Colonial Spanish Romanization (strict)

Nizzutanxi nizzumihajantz'i intzaama ñcaaña
Nizzumihaziinxi hamuiffaha antza ma fihau
Nizzumputau nizzumihajat'au nzuc'ap'ui
Ñquiima ma hunauxu hatiajjatau intzaa
Ma nizzumantalau, nizzuyufaha jat'au ma jat'au
Ma hunauxu nizzuyufaha Itini ma ntinxi
Ma hunauxu nizzuyufaha himya ma myatau
Nizzunxizuumuama hanxuffau tanxi

Colonial Spanish Romanization (loose)

That's probably a pretty strict version of the romanization, and my guess is a Spanish priest of the time would probably not encode as much information.

• word-initial glottal stops would be ignored
• <i> would probably be used where <y> (/j/) is above
• geminates would probably not be doubled (although some Google searches of old texts show geminate l in nahuatl)

Nizutanxi nizumihajantz'i intzama ñcaña
Nizumihazinxi amuifaha antza ma fihau
Nizumputau nizumihajat'au nzuc'ap'ui
Ñquima ma unauxu atiajatau intza
Ma nizumantalau, nizuiufaha jat'au m

Why is the distinction between between voiced affricates and voiced fricatives (i.e. /z/ and /dz/) much rarer and unstabler than the distinction between voiceless fricatives and voiceless affricates (i.e. /s/ and /ts/).

Examples of what I mean:

English has both /ʒ/ and /dʒ/ but there are basically no minimal pairs.

Japanese lost the distinction between [z] and [dz] very quickly after [dz] developed as an allophone of /d/.

Hungarian phonemically distinguishes /z/ and /dz/ except at the beginning of a word.

Polish distinguishes 3 pairs of these but minimal pairs seem to be not too common.

In Middle Chinese /ʑ/ and /dʑ/ merged in speech.

Does anybody know any languages where such distinctions are highly important? I can produce and hear the differences but the difference seems too small to be consistent to me (maybe because I do not speak any languages that makes such a distinction).

As far as I can see, no sound exists in the IPA for a retroflex trill. However, I am able to do one of these for extended periods of time. Is this just merged with another trill, or does this sound genuinely not exist

I cant pronounce aspirated affricates

what should I do? I need my [ʔ̬ɦʰ]s

Edit. Unfortunately it looks like this change can't be made as a simple mechanical substitution. I'm afraid it would require too many changes done case-by-case. I respect the promise of stability of Pandunia 2.0 and abandon this idea of simplification if it can't be done so that it's straightforward and easy for everybody involved.

There is one improvement idea that I threw in the air but didn't really consider before we finalized Pandunia version 2.0: trimming unnecessary consonants from Pandunia's phoneme inventory.

According to chapter 1 of The World Atlas of Language Structures, the consonant inventories in world's languages are categorized by size as follows:

• small: 6-14 consonants
• moderately small: 15-18
• average: 19-25
• moderately large: 26-33
• large: 34 or more consonants

Pandunia's consonant inventory could be trimmed down to moderately small, to 18 consonants, by merging s with sh and z with j. I modified the word list accordingly on my own computer and, to my surprise, there was a very low number of minimal pairs, i.e. words that differ from each other by only one phoneme, involving the aforementioned sounds.

There is only one minimal pair involving z and j.

zebra 'zebra' – jebra 'algebra'

There are eight minimal pairs involving s and sh, which is also a low number and it wouldn't be difficult solve the conflicts by slightly modifying or changing the other word in the pair.

dus 'bad' – dush 'shower'
sal 'salt' – shal 'scarf, shawl'
sam 'same' – sham 'evening'
se 'oneself' – she 'thing'
si 'be' – shi 'Mr or Ms'
sim 'ism' – shim 'heart'
sir 'secret' – shir 'poem'
siti 'town, city' – shiti 'lose, miss'

If this change is carried out, Pandunia would have moderately small consonant inventory with only three sibilants and affricates: /s/, /tʃ/ and /z~ʒ~dʒ/. It would probably be best to use the letters s, c and z to represent them. (There would be little reason to maintain ch anymore after sh was out.) Then Pandunia's alphabet would be:
A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P R S T U V Y Z

I’m personally a /kx/ enjoyer but I like /ɟʝ/ too

For a natural conlang that allows affricates such as CH in English would that conlang need to have complex phonotactics allowing a double consonant onset or coda? So would my conlang need to have a syllable structure like (C)(C)V(C)(C) to accommodate affricates? Or can affricates count as one consonant and the syllable structure classified as simple such as (C)V(C)? If the affricate is not a foreign imported consonant would a natural conlang need to have had a (C)(C)V(C)(C) structure sometime in its historical development even if at the current stage no other double consonants are permitted in the onset or coda? Would a natural language develop a CH affricate if at no time in the evolution of the language was a stop followed by a fricative allowed?

I know that ɦ isn't really a true "voiced glottal fricative" but is ʔ͜ɦ counts as affricate?

For me I would choose to back to origins choices just felt that my warden was really me in that world.

TL;DR: This is a serious post as ESPN's The Undefeated highlights aspects of Kyrie Irving's stance in relation to (1) social justice and the damages of his anti-intellectualism, (2) cheerleading from dishonest actors such as Fox News and Donald Trump Jr, (3) false analogies to Muhammad Ali and Colin Kapernick, and (4) the fact that this is "a disease that kills more Black and brown people per capita" than anything else.

https://theundefeated.com/features/kyrie-irving-is-abandoning-the-voiceless/

October 15, 2021

Kyrie Irving has become the center of the NBA universe as his refusal to get a COVID-19 vaccine makes him ineligible to play home games or practice with his Brooklyn Nets team. The franchise responded by stating that it won’t allow Irving to participate in team activities until he’s vaccinated, and Irving finally broke his silence after weeks of speculation over his motives.

First, The Athletic wrote a story explaining how Irving believes he’s the “voice of the voiceless” for people forced to take the vaccine to keep their jobs. Then, he took to Instagram Live in a meandering, 20-minute speech: “It’s not about being anti-vax or about being on one side or the other. It’s about being true to what feels good for me.”

Irving’s Live did nothing to dispel the notion that he misunderstands who is actually voiceless and refuses to understand that criticism and fact-checking are vastly different consequences from persecution.

Much of Irving’s career has been defined by his off-the-court ideologies. Sometimes criticism of him has been valid, such as the ridicule he received for his comments questioning whether the Earth is flat, which he later apologized for. Other times, the criticism has been ill-informed, like those who mocked Irving for burning sage in Boston’s TD Garden arena before a Nets game, something he did as part of his Native American heritage.

But the pushback over his refusal to get a COVID-19 vaccination as hundreds of Americans are dying per day is warranted. Yes, Irving has control over his own body, but his decision, when it becomes a public health concern, is open to criticism.

“If I’m going to be demonized about having more questions and taking my time to make a decision with my life,” he said, “then that’s just what it is.” But Irving isn’t being demonized for his belief. He’s facing appropriate ramifications for perpetuating a public health crisis. This isn’t an example of someone punished for being a freethinker.

Muhammad Ali

Why stop at rhotic vowels, put that tongue back every time you can! Stuff that can't be made retroflex is turned into an implosive (when possible) and coarticulated with a retroflex.

#consonants

#Vowels

æ˞ ɑ˞ː ɒ˞ ɔ˞ː ɪ˞ i˞ː i˞ ɛ˞ ɚ ɝ ʌ˞ ʊ˞ u˞ː

#Diphthonɡs

e˞ɪ˞ e˞ɚ ɪ˞ɚ a˞ɪ˞ a˞ʊ˞ ɔ˞ɪ˞ ɚʊ˞

I know that retroflex consonants are a feature of most Indian languages, and so are aspirated consonants. The thing is, early Indo-Aryan ("North Indian") languages had aspiration but not retroflex, whereas Dravidian ("South Indian") had a three-way retroflex/alveolar/dental distinction but not an aspiration distinction. The two language families borrowed these sets of sounds from one another to create what could be called the Indian Sprachbund.

But my question is, what is the rule for how Sanskrit adopted the retroflex consonants from Dravidian? Do they only appear in Dravidian loan words? If not, what Proto-Indo-Aryan sounds did they come to replace in Sanskrit, and were these sounds originally "marked" in some way by other Indo-European languages (eg, PIE had a velar-palatal distinction, so did they replace palatal consonants or something)?

I am more interested in the Sanskrit borrowing of Dravidian sounds than the other way around because I have knowledge of Sanskrit and Bengali but not of any Dravdidian languages. However, if someone can comment on how Dravidian languages borrowed aspirated consonants, I would love to hear it.

What’s the history of the retroflex fricatives and affricates in Polish? How did they emerge in the language?

[ʂ] [ʐ] [t͡ʂ] [d͡ʐ]

Did they develop from palato-alveolar consonants? Did earlier versions of Polish (like Old Polish and/or Middle Polish) feature the palato-alveolar consonants?

[ʃ] [ʒ] [t͡ʃ] [d͡ʒ]