Consonant Cluster Puns

Likewise, why is there a disproportionate amount of other clusters that are rarely used in other languages/branches besides Slavic (e.g. /ml, mr, sr, zr, zl, dl, dɲ, ʃk, tʃk/ etc.) ?

I've noticed how easy it is to create faux slavic-sounding words because of these specific phoneme combinations. I could create a fake word like /zdra.ɲa.va.ja/ and most people could recognize it as being of Slavic origin but something like /stra.na.fa.ja/ becomes more ambiguous after devoicing it. Is there any reason for this or is it just coincidental ?

Had a thought about the word “sphere” today, and how I couldn’t think of any other english words with the /sf/ cluster. I know that /θw/ and /dw/ are also very rare. Is there any data about which consonant clusters are the rarest in English? I had a quick google but there weren’t many sources answering this question specifically

edit: I was mostly asking about tautosyllabic clusters, primarily onsets because tons of weird clusters can be created in compound words but theyre across morphemes+across syllables so they’re not as true of a cluster as an onset like /sf/

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Disclaimer: This is my first throw at the conlanging dart board.

I've been trying to just figure out what consonant clusters I should allow in my language (following Artifexian's conlanging series) based on a (C) (C) V (C) (C) syllable system (I was originally going to allow C^(3) codas but my brain just can't anymore) with a general "arch" to sonority but my brain is breaking from edgier cases. Affricate-plosives, fricative-affricates, and plosive-anything-not-liquids/trills are just killing me. Also, I am legitimately tired of breathing because I have to test out each and every sound, sometimes multiple times; it's the edge cases that are the real problems. And I don't even want to think about adding fun plateaus and reversals. Oh, and all my phonemes are voiced (the logic being the it is spoken primarily outdoors by the sea so lots of loud sounds are required to hear other over distance + waves) so my throat hurts too. I think I'll just combine voiced and unvoiced sounds (I'm already combining all open vowels into `a`) to make some clusters easier to pronounce.

Is there some site or chart that has already figured out what consonants commonly go together to help save time? What do you do when figuring out consonant clusters? What logical rules could I add to make clusters easier to figure out?

I'm excited for my next conlang where I am already planning to reduce syllable sizes and phonemes, maybe go for a syllabary.

I know there are tons of written <ps> from Greek loanwords, but are there any such actual pronounced clusters in native words?

If so, are such clusters actually [ps] akin to [ks], or are they [p.s] ([p]+hiatus+[s])?

Bonus: If such [ps] clusters do exist, are they as common as the cluster [ks]?

My language is a mess and I need some ideas on how to handle it.

I have hundreds and hundreds of words, and going through them all one at a time I have counted at least 76 different consonant clusters...

And I have no spelling rules (should have set those in stone years ago), now I can't think of anyway to alter something so fundamental about the language without having to completely re-write it... I stupidly altered 1 spelling rule a while ago (changed e to é) and had to alter the spelling of hundreds of words...Not smart.

My native language is czech which is slavic, schwa is not morpheme in it and we have a lot of consonant clusters so this may perhaps be the reason why I dont hear much difference. For example if I were asked to create english transcription that would be comfortable for me, I would eliminate all written vowels where schwa is pronounced and I would just write remaining consonant clusters instead.

Also if the schwa is placed at the end of the word, would it make any difference from the word just ending with previous consonant?

Also I am a little bit confused with the term consonant, I sort of thought that the term con-sonant implies that it basicaly can not be voiced alone but it needs some vowel attached to it to be pronounced.

I understand that schwa is not nothing, that it is not silence since we can pronounce it without any consonant and still hear something. But since I am not sure if consonant can be pronounced alone without a vowel or at least schwa, I am not sure if writing schwa alongside vowel would not be redundant.

The only two differences between schwa being used and being left out that I could envision is for first kind of length of the word. We have short and long vowels in czech and I could kind of imagine some language having long and short schwa. But on the other hand I think I heard that even consonant can be prolonged so here again I dont see muc difference between using prolonged schwa after consonant and prologed consonant itself. The same thing would go for tones. The seccond possibility would have to do something with stress. In czech we usualy place stress on first syllable. If I imagine schwa being placed between consonant in word that starts with consonant cluster (for example if "tmavý" was changed to "t ə mavý") the stress would kind of shift from consonant of the first sylabel to the schwa (it would feel to me as if stress shifted from "a" in "tmavý" to initial "t" alone.)

Thanks for yor effort explaining all nuances of schwa and relaton between consonant and vowel.

A couple hours ago someone asked the question of what is the rarest consonant cluster in English so I thought I'd may as well ask the opposite. I wonder if this question will be easier or more difficult to answer.

My guess is /tr/ but I'm probably wrong

Pduac phdol kneam chbaol kmneakpdrvbngntblpcnltrianek aoy pnuac niang tiv. Pradouc thaa mien plaoy riang taatmnoek naplanmvtrbcaciikkmneng kongnong kongnong nual praoy aokleang nheam.

Привет всем! I'm a beginner student who's stumbled on some words quite hard to pronounce and I'd like to know if native speakers do pronounce every consonant.

• Вдвоем
• Вдвойне
• Чувствовать
• Путешествовать

While listening a podcast I realized in the case of чувствовать the host pronounced it like 'чуствать'. Well, that's what I think I heard.

If there are such small changes in pronunciation like that which make fast speech easier, do you know others?

Hi there. For example, the word "consonant" (con-so-nant) has a consonant blend in the end ("nt"). But what about if there are two consonants together that are part of another syllable, such as "ns" ("n" in the end of the first syllable; and "s" in the beginning of the second syllable). Is that also considered a consonant cluster? If not, then what is the terminology? Thanks in advance.

Cw/Cy consonant clusters may feel jarring to some people, who may also find them difficult to pronounce, perhaps even when knowing that w and y may be pronounced as vowels. Getting rid of Cw/Cy entirely isn't an option, I don't think, since w and y are used for shifting the stress in some words. Also, words like pia and sui would be problematic, and a word like mwa would not be possible. That would potentially make double vowels necessary in order to shift the stress to the end of the word: muaa.

However, a compromise could be to allow these Cw/Cy clusters only in word-final position (with a final vowel), where they are really needed for shifting stress?

Words such as sukwa, dunya, nongyo, Kenya, Antigwa, Papwa and Zimbabwe would retain their orthography. That would also include mwa since mw is in word-final position (as well as word-initial position). Also, it goes without saying... derived words such as nilwatu (nil-watu) and bimaryen (bimar-yen) would remain intact. Elsewhere, w and y would turn into u and i respectively. Just as w and y can be pronounced as vowels when next to other vowels, u and i could alternatively be pronounced as consonants when next to other vowels.

bwaw --> buaw

myaw --> miaw

xwexi --> xuexi

jyen --> jien

cyan --> cian

jwan --> juan

xugwan --> xuguan

swal --> sual

nasyon --> nasion

aksyon --> aksion

kwanti --> kuanti

gwaba --> guaba

Swahili --> Suahili

Rwanda --> Ruanda

Botswana --> Botsuana

Lwisyana --> Luisiana

Ekwador --> Ekuador

Gwatemala --> Guatemala

sandwici --> sanduici

senyor --> senior

kanyon --> kanion

itryum --> itrium

kalcyum --> kalcium, etc., etc.

This would merely be a cosmetic adjustment to the orthography without technically modifying the language itself, much like a spelling reform in English wouldn't alter the language. The current system is more straight-forward and consistent. That's its strength. But is the price too high? Would the proposed, more familiar system be better in spite of its less consistent use of y/w and i/u?

Thoughts?

If anything, it would be logical if it were the opposite, because 'n' is more voiced (which is what dakuten denotes) than the "hm" consonant cluster, right?

Different voicings (wiktionary confirms this) and a plosive followed by fricative within the same morpheme (apparently -th used to be an affix but is no longer productive).

No particular insights here, just not something that you would expect to encounter.

The Greek letters Psi (Ψ) and Xi (Ξ) represent the clusters /ps/ and /ks/ respectively, with Chi (Χ) representing /ks/ in the Greek dialect that Latin adopted (thus why Latin X is typically /ks/).

So why did the ancient Greeks make up letters for these consonant sequences that aren’t even affricates? Is it possible that the inventor(s) of the Greek alphabet mistook /ps/ and /ks/ as affricates like the true affricate /ts/ (like Italian “z”) or /tʃ/ (like English “ch”)?

Why did ancient Greeks determine that those 2 consonant clusters were deserving of their own letters but not any other cluster like [st], [pr], [kl], [pn], etc? The 4 I just mentioned can also occur word-initially just like [ps] and [ks] do. Did ancient Greeks actually believe that those 2 clusters were single sounds?

Strangely enough, they never invented or utilized a letter for the actual affricate [ts], which is present even in modern Greek.

I've had a vague interest in languages for a while, but only recently I've gone down a real rabbit hole with linguistics and conlanging. I'm still very much a rookie, so apologies if my questions are dumb!

Having watched a fair few videos and read The Language Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder, it seems the best place to start is with making a proto-lang, so that's what I'm trying to do. I've come up with a phonology, and am now a bit stuck trying to work out the phonotactical rules to apply to it.

I wanted my language to contain a lot of nasals, and tricky combinations of nasals with other consonants. (I'm not 100% happy with the romanisation, but unsure how to improve it. Feel free to critique!)

Conlang phonology

Romanisation

I decided that I'd like the syllable structure to be something slightly more complex than just (C)V, and settled on (C)(C)V(C)(C). So I moved on to trying to figure out what consonant clusters should be allowed.

I've seen other people make general rules about which consonants can come after one another in their languages, but whenever I try to come up with these myself I find myself breaking them or needing to add loads of exceptions. I did some research, but couldn't find much more than just suggestions to consider sonority hierarchy.

So I decided to go for a brute-force approach and map out each possible combination of two consonants and decide for each whether or not it was acceptable. This was the result of my first attempt:

Consonant combination matrix

This is only focusing on syllable onsets for the moment, with the first consonant on the vertical axis, and the second on the horizontal. There are some patterns beginning to emerge, but it still seemed quite messy and inconsistent to me.

Option 1 was to try and maintain some of the same character I had in mind, but normalise it.

Simplified 1

I tried to extend this diagonal trend through groups of matching articulation manner, and also clear up some o

Saluton!

I am trying to make certain Esperanto sounds using the Spanish Language Vocaloid MAIKA. This one's voice can create a light-trill or tap for r's, as well as convincing common consonant clusters such as pr in preskaŭ, tr in trovi, or sk as in skatolo, and to a certain extent less common clusters like gv as in lingvo. All vowel combinations are covered too. However, there are some clusters that the voice has trouble enunciating by simply using the phonetics provided.

Those are:

sc- as in scii or konscii : the c sound in Esperanto is ts as in ba dum tss. So sc- is pronounced by holding a hissing s sound sssssss... tapping up the tongue and back down again to create the c sound, creating ssstsss...

Here is a wikimedia file of the word being pronounced: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/ad/Eo-scii.ogg/Eo-scii.ogg.mp3

gl- as in glacio or gloro : g sound is almost completely silent

tr- as in tra or tro, as well as dr- as in drapo : d and t are almost silent

skl- as in sklavo : the k sound is almost silent.

kn- as in knabo : the k sound is silent. This k is usually pronounced with simple exhale.

Here is a wikimedia:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/86/Eo-knabo.ogg/Eo-knabo.ogg.mp3

Those are the main issues I have. I suppose that the main solution to most of these phonetic problems would be to use consonant + very light exhale, however I am unsure if this is possibly using MAIKA.

If anyone knows how to achieve or approximate these sounds I would be forever grateful!

I am using Vocaloid3 MAIKA on Vocaloid5 software.

As it says in the title, I'm looking for female names with three or more consonant clusters, preferably in the beginning. Knowing this is probably a challenging request, I'm open to other possibilities or just the best people can dig up. Uncommon non-english names are also preferred.

Edit: Since an example was asked for, I'll provide a few I've found here.
Myrene or Myrilla, - though, arguably "Y" isn't consider a consonant.
Archil or Avksenti - but these are male names and they begin with a vowel
Shvili - best I've got

I know the question is not about the linkage of two words, but the construction of one word. But I think some general phonological would apply to a single word as well.

It is supposed to be the prefix в- plus the original root beginning with a vowel... but it happened to be во-. What is the reason for this phenomenon? Especially when the phonology of Russian doesn't tolerate diphthongs so well, and there is no length distinction of vowels. And the most important is, there seems to be no reason to add an о.

I used to think it was only for Greek loanwords as a borrowing of the (Western) Greek convention to write the cluster /ks/ as X. But apparently Latin uses X to write its own native k+s sequences.

So did the Romans use it because the Greeks used it as a convention? If so, why did the Romans never adopt Ψ to write their /ps/ consonant cluster sequences like in the Latin word “ipsum” which would have been “iψum”.

Hi everyone!

Is there a rule for when 'm' is pronounced as its own syllable? I've been using this source as one of my references and <mtoto> seems to be pronounced m-to-to, and <mdudu> as m-du-du while <mwalimu> seems to be pronounced mwa-li-mu.

Thanks in advance!

My mother tongue is French but I've also been speaking a dialect of Arabic since I was a kid as a result of my parents coming, well, from an Arab country you guessed it.

So I'm currently working on a conlang derived from the specific variant of the Arabic dialect I speak, and one of the distinguishing characteristics is its many consonant clusters. What phonological changes can you apply to them to make them disappear/"uncluster"? Would adding a filler vowel in between sound natural?

Thank youuu

Some examples from German and Russian.

- Polen > Polnisch

- девочка > девочек

I think they also appear in Latin?

- rex > regis

Or is this literally just epenthesis?

I realize this is a sensitive issue about discrimination, but an important one. I've had a number of students who are coming to English from Spanish, and have difficulty with "consonant clusters" and so they say "estar" for "star" or "eschool" for school, or "eSprite" for "Sprite" (the soda).

The unfortunate reality is that error, in the US, is heavily associated with less-educated Spanish speakers learning English. The blunt truth is that if you continue in that error, people will think less of you. So in the interest of "keeping it real" I'd like to suggest that anyone who might have that habit make a list of words beginning with consonant clusters like "stable", "strange", etc. and sit down with a native English speaker and go down the list, over and over, until you are comfortably able to say them without adding an initial vowel. Eliminating that initial vowel will make a huge difference in how you're perceived. Pardon my bluntness, but I hope this tip is useful for everyone!

I am a Bulgarian and Bulgarian language has also consonant clusters like Tchteslavie, Zdravei, Zgrabchvam, Izpsuvam and more, but you have words like Gvprtskvni and more. Why does that happen?

The "gy" consonant cluster doesn't show up too much in English -- I can think of "argue", "ague" and not much else. However, my last name is Gill and the pronunciation I use, which seems to be the most common, is "Gyill."

I can't really think of any other words where a "y" is inserted like this. I wouldn't pronounce "gild" or "Gilbert" like this, so it really seems to be an anomaly.

• Is there an explanation for this insertion in "Gill"?
• Are there any other examples of y-insertion before a short I vowel?

Thanks! And I apologize if I butchered any terms.

Together, over time, I’m talking about John during the epilogues onward is the dirk body to be believed then technically only Meat is for 2ollux

That is to say, how common of a phenomenon is it in non-Indo-European languages for something like /st/ to be a permitted onset of a syllable, while /ft/ and /xt/ aren't? If this is relatively common cross-linguistically, are there any theories as to why that is the case?

Sorry, poor English.

Japanese are very poor at pronunciation of words including consonant clusters.

If you can't pronounce well, the Japanese will hesitate to speak and will not function as an IAL. It's the same as English.

Is consonant cluster absolutely necessary for IAL?

In my Proto-Lang, I have a sound change that causes unstressed vowels to become reduced and then disappear between both voiced and voiceless fricatives, forming clusters. I'm okay with the majority of the consonant clusters, but a few are a little too cumbersome and I want to figure out a way to reduce the consonant cluster without having too many clusters reduce to the same consonant.

Orange = Geminates, Yellow = Allowed Clusters, Red = Vowel Lengthening

So I tended to stick with /s/ and /f/ having the most clusters, otherwise becoming voiced to /z/ and /v/ next to voiced fricatives. /h/ causes compensatory lengthening in clusters, so either lengthening the vowel or consonant before it.

However, the /θ/ and /ð/ (romanized as <th> and <dh> respectively) clusters are a little trickier. I'm mainly concerned with how to reduce the clusters with /θ/,/ð/,/x/, and /ɣ/ that don't create a lot of the geminates, i.e. having /ðθ/, /θð/, /ðx/, /ðɣ/, /ɣð/, and /ɣθ/ all reduce down to /ðð/

I thought maybe having a vowel change caused by a bordering /x/ and /ɣ/ in a cluster, like lowering, might help create some difference (though this wouldn't stop the explosion of /ðð/ clusters). Another person I asked suggest tone, but I don't really see that for this language in particular. Any advice?

Looking at early Indo-European languages (Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit) as well as some of the reconstructed proto-languages descended from PIE (Proto-Germanic, Proto-Celtic), they all seem to have had a somewhat simpler syllable structure than what is generally given for PIE. I haven't actually come across a source that spells this out, so perhaps my judgement is just flat out wrong here. But it does seem, looking through cognate lists for example, that PIE is full of consonant clusters that just don't show up in the daughter languages. Of course, cluster simplification is a common process that happens all the time, but when I took historical linguistics in undergrad it was drilled into us to avoid reconstructing a feature in a proto-language that doesn't show up in any of the daughters —unless you really, really have to. And I guess I assume that's the answer, that there's just no way to explain the various correspondences otherwise. Still, from the perspective of a layman who has never formally studied IE linguistics, it's always seemed slightly implausible that PIE is so much more consonant-y than the early attested IE languages are. I would love it if someone knowledgeable about IE historical linguistics could give me some insight on this.

It seems like a lot of conlangers (myself included) typically shy away from the extremes of complexity found in some natlangs' ability to cluster consonants. This massive monograph, if you can get through it (I haven't), should give you all the information you could possibly need to make a realistic conlang with crazy complex consonant clusters.

I want to know which languages, if any, present the following consonant clusters: ktk, tkt, lkn, ktg

How would I go about finding this out?, which data base can I use?

What’s the correct way to pronounce words like 여덟 are you suppose to make both sounds or not?