Phonaesthetics Puns

Hey all.

I've had a conworld for years now, and the names of the places across the world are fairly set-in-stone at this point, but I've never fully developed any of the languages, and plan to do so, now. So I want to derive the phonology of the languages of the setting from a single proto-lang, but I also already have some small lexicons for each of the resulting languages (the place names).

So I'm not exactly "reverse evolving", but I am evolving a proto-lang with a pretty clear idea of where I want each branch to go, phonaesthetically. It's kind of like if you had a map of Europe with country and city names on it, but you wanted to create a proto-lang that you could evolve naturally such that the phonaesthetics would match the country and city names.

Importantly, grammar and syntax isn't important here. I just need the place names to fit the flavors and phonologies of the resulting languages.

So my questions are:

1. What are the reasonable boundaries on phonological evolution? If I were trying to evolve languages from a single proto-lang that phonaesthetically 'feel' as dramatically different as, say, French, Polish, and Finnish, would that be crazy? Or can phonological evolution be as dramatic as you want, as long as it's applied consistently and sequentially?

2. What are the defining features of phonaesthetics? Besides merely the phonological inventory, is there anything else that contributes substantially to a language's "feel" that I should keep in mind?

And generally if anyone else has tried to do anything like this before, I would appreciate any advice or references. I'm pretty intimidated by this!

I appreciate you all very much.

There is very little on this subject in linguistics. Meanwhile the whole music theory is based around this .

Could you comment on this issue a bit?

Why is that that music is based on this and euphony and cacophony is a well established thing while in linguistics one can find only minor fragments about it here and there. Nothing major though. There is no theory or well-established field of science like we have with music.

I am interested in this subject a lot but I am surprised there is very little about this topic.

How can I approach this phonaesthetics area of linguistics?

I'm a native English speaker, but I cannot wrap my head around this. I understand Edgar Allan Poe chose Nevermore as it was as close to Cellar Door as he could get. I can completely wrap my head around Nevermore. It is a bit enchanting when hearing it.

cellar door, solar enrollment, overfed vocal cords.

This seems to happen to me often; always feels a little absurd at the time, but for all I know it could be commonplace.

Latest example which was the impetus for this post: Securing a roll of giftwrap paper with a rubber band, and said to myself after it wasn't especially successful - "Looks like once 'round was not quite sufficient."

Now I've been repeating that sentence in my head periodically for about an hour. I don't have any typical OCD symptoms, just kind of a linguaphile.

I'm a relative noob conlanger and have fancied the idea of creating a naturalistic conlang that's evolved from a proto-conlang, just for naturalistic purposes and for better understanding of how phonetics and grammar evolve.

One thing I'm struggling with is phonaesthetics - I have a precise idea of how the ”final” or ”modern” version of the language should sound like and I am having trouble figuring out how do I create the phonetics of the proto-lang such that, through phonetic changes and all that, the target daughter language ends up ”sounding right” according to my initial phonaesthetic vision! (hope that makes sense)

How do you all go about that? Have any of you run into this problem?

The funeral director was asking us what we think Mum should wear in her casket.

Mum always loved to wear sarongs (fabric wraps that go around the torso and drape downward a bit like a long skirt would), so my uncle suggested that she wear a sarong in there.

The funeral director looked a bit confused, as did some of our family members, to which my uncle added:

"What's sarong with that?"

I started laughing like an idiot. He was proud of it too. The funeral director was rather shocked. We assured her, and our more proper relatives, that Mum would've absolutely loved the joke (which is very true).

His delivery was perfect. I'll never forget the risk he took. We sometimes recall the moment as a way help cushion the blows of the grieving process.

--Edit-- I appreciate the condolences. I'm doing well and the worst is behind me and my family. But thanks :)

--Edit-- Massive thanks for all the awards and kind words. And the puns! Love 'em.

Friends,

I'm looking for an adjective that describes words that sound like their meaning. For example: "moist" - your mouth just feels moist saying it. Or, "Phlegm" - just saying it creates more phlegm! What do you call these words? (Yes I've tried searching this online but struggle to define it) For fun, yall are also welcome to share your own words that you feel matches this criteria!

I would have a daughter

Capital of Ireland

It's Dublin everyday

http://m.imgur.com/ImM3RWz

But Bill kept the Windows

True story; it even happened last night. My 5-year-old son walks up behind me and out of the blue says, "hey."

I turn to him and say, "yeah, kiddo? What's up?"

He responds, "it's dead grass."

I'm really confused and trying to figure out what's wrong and what he wants from me. "What? There's dead grass? What's wrong with that?"

.

.

.

He says, totally straight-faced, "hay is dead grass," and runs off.

You officially hit rock bottom

No it doesn't.

And then you will all be sorry.

Now it’s syncing.

He replied, "Well, stop going to those places then!"

I will find you. You have my Word.

She said how do you know he was headed to work?

“thank you for your cervix.”

...sails are going through the roof.

Mods said I'm a cereal reposter...

A taxi

But now I stand corrected.

Wait. Sorry, wrong sub.

Wookie mistake.

Theoretical Fizz-ics

I have recently started a new conlang, with which I want to try using a protolang for the first time. I am, however, unsure as how to make sure that my phonology end up how I want them (I have some pretty clear ideas about how I want the phonaesthetic for the modern language) or really how to make any decisions about the proto-phonology. Does anyone have any clue as to how to select sounds and use sound changes to make sure I end up where I want to be, without being really boring? Thanks for all help. Preempting the question of 'do you really need a protolang?', yes, as naturalism is one of my goals, and I want to include some features that would be pretty hard to justify without one, such as consonant mutation.

Because you can’t ‘C’ in the dark