How to Make a Language - Part 6: Phonological Evolution

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Title	:	How to Make a Language - Part 6: Phonological Evolution
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So in my conlang, I got rid of the /h/ entirely, and my word for three is now just "o" It used to be "hoh" I'm keeping it
Comment from : Eternal Spectre

8:24 ive been saying "recogise" to myself for the past 2 minutes and i cant tell if ive dropped the g or not
Comment from : Frances Atty

"Ihāku amata kuhāni apahu petsiakutō" could also evolve into "hööch aanth chöön oof fösjöchtöö" /ɦøːx ɑ̃ːθ xø̃ː oːf fœɕœxtøː/ in another descendant language
Comment from : David Kirby

Can we decide how phonetic changes occur as o - onbrIf yes how?
Comment from : Anita Rani

wouldn't the velar nasal be phonemic after the loss of coda stops?
Comment from : Insert

I noticed there is very little mentions on vowel changes or any possible avenues, could you expand on that?
Comment from : Haldurengen

How many sound changes? Is there a minimum or a maximum number of changes given a certain period of time? like in two thousand years time are 40 changes enough? Too much?
Comment from : Marco Ponzio

You say that the sounds in the language need to change without exception, but what about regional dialects and differences?
Comment from : Melody Gardenia

0:59 I'd like to add a little clarification here Even when what you said is essentially true, there's still a "phonetic change" that can be limited by grammar: analogy It's not exactly a phonetic change, right, but sometimes its effects can be really similar to onebrbrI'll give an example using my own native language: in Spanish, the first person singular perfective past form for the verb 'andar' is 'anduve' (I walked) However, the real evolution of this word since the original Latin term would be 'andove', as you can find in some medieval texts This tense used U in many other verbs, like 'supe' (I knew) or 'pude' (I could), so people found weird that O in 'andove' and tended to change it to U This O > U change just affected to this specific verb tense, it doesn't occur in nouns or adjectives, so here the change is limited by the grammar context: just for being the first singular person of the perfective past tensebrbrI think the power of analogy is usually underestimated in conlangs, probably due to its extremely arbitrary nature If well managed, it can give a lot of flavor to any conlang
Comment from : Reansel

my brain is melting out of my ears 👍 great video perhaps making a conlang for a grade is a bad idea
Comment from : pittpattlitt

Well, in french the final e is pronounced sometimes like an ə It hapens mostly when someone's screaming Like 'ferme la port!' Becoming: /feRmə la poRtə/
Comment from : jan antulen

My conlang underwent some truly natural changes; it changed on its own as the phonology and orthography, which predate the grammar and vocab by several years, changed in my mind It started out almost identical to English, as I was pretty young when I made the phonology/grammar (the writing system still resembles English, and I never changed it Never will), but over time changed somewhat
Comment from : CryoPlureodon2

Instead of going through all this mess, I’m gonna leave all the stuff to my grandkids and tell them to pass this on to their kids and tell them to pass it on to their kids and so on And thus, I made my own family language
Comment from : dabi Art

Just a note, but ki wouldn't change to chi for palatalization but something closer to kyi (don't have the IPA on me) Ch is an affricate, and not a palatal one
Comment from : Lucius Sakura

My name is Hans
Comment from : Hans the Explorer - The Original

This is basically "how does language work' and it's very informative
Comment from : DinoMaster

For change #4, can you pick and choose which voiceless obstruents are voiced between vowels?
Comment from : animefan25

What about o plus a
Comment from : Joseph Boutte

Do I have to change my phonology
Comment from : Joseph Boutte

What about voicing fricatives or affricates?
Comment from : Tepe Studios

One thing I like to do, which isn't as fancy, for sure, is just saying words out loud, and feeling the vibes Like, could this be said with less sounds? Is this too hard to say? This is a very biased approach of course, since I only know how to speak two languages, but I think it helps
Comment from : Lyxthen

IM ALMOST THEREbrbrbrbrI CAN TASTE THE (ʃʌz)
Comment from : Not_Estains

4:34 Actually, what technically happens is t and d become ɾ between stressed and unstressed syllables
Comment from : Michael Mam

Gonna have to watch this a few times
Comment from : exoticartist

0:12 the modern icelandic example is phrased in an archaic way
Comment from : LongDogMan

8:46 hmm yes the voiced alveolar stop: b
Comment from : Finn Planetballs

2:50 the same happens with Urdu, the word ['nəhĩ] (which means "no") in informal speech becomes ['nə͜ĩ]
Comment from : Fish bin Laden

7:30 I mean to be fair no one says "penknife" either
Comment from : TheUnableDerk

6:39 yeah I’ve never pronounced it “chrisTmas”… please stop calling me out like this
Comment from : Pharry

If it's a mouthful, it's also an earful I'd recommend pausing more to allow the listener time to process the information
Comment from : JK Scout

Hello If I were making a polysynthetic conlang, (because I am) similar to something like Greenlandic, should I apply these sound changes to the individual morphemes and still link them together in the same way, or should I apply these sound changes to the fully constructed words? Thanks in advance to anyone who responds
Comment from : Black Jacket

I feel attacked at 1:45 brbrI pronounce all as they are spelled except for every brbr(And I'm not British) brbr😂
Comment from : Lizz Alkula

12:50 can it go the reverse way? For example /i/ becomes /ɯ/ after /k/
Comment from : Rosenberry

In 8:26 the IPA transcription is wrong: in "recognize" there isn't the semi-vowel /j/ It isn't /ˈɹɛkənajz/, but /ˈɹɛkənaɪz/
Comment from : Phothuirbe

Phonological history of HinanesebrOld Japonicbra i u k p t m n w l s y f hbrHinanesebra i/e u/o k/g p/b d/t m n/ng w r s/sh/z y f h
Comment from : Kiril Velinov

um acktshyuallybrrussian also has [lʲ] as a palatal consonant, and the plain version is [ɫ] not [l]brgreat video though
Comment from : RONG PIRSON

I don't know if anyone asked this, but just in casebrbrIf [i] and [u] were to become [j] and [w] when bordering another vowel, wouldn't that also make the language (C)(C)V(C)?
Comment from : Conlang Showcasing

This video is great and super inspiring, always worth a rewatch The only thing it might serve to clarify a little more is when exactly we're talking about sound changes at a single point in time to comply with a language's phonotactics (as in the dothraki and japanese assimilation examples), and when a sound change actually occured during the evolution of a language, explicitly defining two points in time at which the pronounciation of the two words/phrases was different)
Comment from : Luigi with an L

i got an ideabrbrapitabr ↓brabidabr ↓bravidabr↓bravidbr↓bravið
Comment from : Commenter

looks that all languages evolues to turn the speech more flowing or no?
Comment from : Commenter

you have got to be the most superficial commentator on con-langues since the idiotic B Gilson
Comment from : ThatFamiIiarNight

For me personally, a problem with developing a conlang from a protolanguage is that I become too attached to the protolanguage as a 'classical' form and just don't want to let it go I think you can be naturalistic without this, too - analogy can produce relatively consistent rules I suppose a protolang can be devised 'retroactively', if needed
Comment from : dumu pad3-da

The transition of stops to fricatives before other stops can also be due to a kind of weakening (lenition) in codas It can also happen between vowels And this kind of lenition is not that uncommon (script > short shrift, noctis > Nacht, shabbat > shabbos, the way Icelandic pronounces as word like sekt, etc)
Comment from : dumu pad3-da

3:33brNations of the world brought to you by Yāku Warner!
Comment from : The Observer

ayo why is the voiced version of /t/ listed as /b/ in 8:49
Comment from : I don’t have Videos

the greatest dissimilation for me is spanish words like hombre, hambre, nombre etc: homō - homine > homne > hombre
Comment from : Nikíta Švorin

Untrue that changes don't care about grammar, kinda Look at Ukrainian, l changed to v in past verb forms, but not everywhere
Comment from : Terrus Ciekawostki

Кто от Хамибина?
Comment from : Iron Pin

I pronounce "recognise" as /ˈɹɛʔˠˌnɐjz/ (To clarify, when I say /ʔˠ/, I mean I close my glottis, but my tongue moves to the area of the velum)
Comment from : I_Teleported_Bread

If anyone knows of any alternate naturalistic changes could you please let me know?br(eg, any other way vowels could interact, but I am fine with anything)
Comment from : Maa Pauu

When you say 'no exceptions' (with the 'a' before nasals example), would it be unnaturalistic for some non-native words not to adhere to these rules? Like in many Turkic languages native words do not start with [l], but there are exceptions in loanwords like the Dungan-derived 'Lagman'
Comment from : Elakya

Post-alveolar and palatal aren't completely the same thing So /ch/ can't be [c]'s corresponding affricate
Comment from : Kaden Vanciel

14:05brbrAs a Russian-speaker, I can confirm that this phonem inventory is horribly inaccurate
Comment from : The Dark Lord of Belarus

I've been so lost trying to understand your conlang case study videos but after watching this series, it's starting to make more sense
Comment from : BurntToastGhost

Is it reasonable for, instead of /h/ being lost, that it becomes more pronounced between stressed vowels? As in, /h/ goes to /x/ betweem vowels in stressed syllables? I really like /x/ and i feel like this is a natural way for it to evolve
Comment from : SCP Time

Just gonna mention something in my own language evolution It took two sound changes for happy and sad to have the same word Originally happy was bihe and sad was hibe (the consonants just swapped) The 'i' was omitted from the language and the the 'h's turned the 'b's into 'p's, making 'pe' be the word for happy and sad
Comment from : UKishNZer

4:53 That could be how a proto-language develops into two very different modern languages
Comment from : UKishNZer

uhhhhh what is going on
Comment from : Willy-htown

what the fuck
Comment from : Filip Banek

surely the velar nasal is not an allophonr of /n/ because of the words:brbrsing /siŋ/brsin /sɪn/
Comment from : Warrior Mentality

what about Afrikaans's double negative system where you place two negatives in a sentence instead of one, negatives being words like "no" or "not" in English you would say " I don't like cucumbers" in Afrikaans you would say " Ek hou nie van komkommers nie" nie being the negative
Comment from : THE-BIG-MACKEREL

əj], [oj], and [uj] shifted into vowels [ɛ], [e], [ø], and [y] respectively, all of which did not exist in the phonetic system of the language beforehand And nowadays [ø] and [y] is in the process of becoming [we] and [ɥi]
Comment from : Apoptosis

I will literally watch this video a million times while I’m working on conlangs I have a proto language and am working on phonological and grammatical evolution And wow Complicated, hard to do, and incredibly fun brbrLove your videos pretty much all the time
Comment from : Kit DuBhran

I have been intuitively using most of the things presented here (especially various things that happen to H) in my most developed conlang, Orinov, from a very young age (my conlanging journey began in primary school) It is interesting to see that they are natural and have specific names etc
Comment from : bakavasa

me and my friend always loved creating our own script/alphabet as well as learning other scripts we find online i decided maybe it was time we upgraded to our own language as well i'm very confused but slowly trying to learn i even got a notebook for me to take notes and also write down my language making process so one day i can look back and see how it came to be
Comment from : mekobop

Все языки: "м" и "д" почти никогда не находятся рядомbrРусский: мда
Comment from : Мистер Твистер

You're just Europeanised your language
Comment from : Mehr Zein

This is the 600th vid I ever watched in this accountbrOn the 2nd time I guessbrBye
Comment from : Darien Tran

There are 4 ways to assimilate a cluster, depending on whether you want to change the first or second consonant, and whether to change its placement or manner of articulationbrbrFor example, 'amda' could becomebrbr- anda - Placement of 1st consonantbrbr- amba - Placement of 2nd consonantbrbr- abda - Manner of 1st consonantbrbr- amna - Manner of 2nd consonantbrbrEnglish tends to change the placement of the 1st consonant, while Korean changes the manner So 'hapnida' becomes 'hamnida'
Comment from : Duc Dang

I'm pretty sure that sound changes can actually occur only in certain grammatical conditions IIRC, some Dutch dialects can lose word-final /n/ when it occurs as a verbal suffix (eg itekenen/i /ˈteːkənə/), but not when it occurs as part of a root (eg iik teken/i /ək ˈteːkən/)
Comment from : Traktor Tarik

I've found that repeating a sound/series of sounds to yourself several times in quick succession is a good way to check if your sound changes workbrIt's probably not a 1-1 thing but I HAVE found that most real-life sound changes can be simulated in this way (though on this note - I can get akto->a'to this way, but iliptu turns into iliftu rather than ili'tu)brIt also has the benefit of making you seem very strange to anyone watching
Comment from : Vigilant Sycamore

13:55 Although Mandarin does have palatalization, the example given isn't a good one The "zi" is an alveolar affricate with a consonantal nucleus --> [tsɹ̩] The word for Beijing is a better example, as the "ji" was originally "ki" [ki] that had turned into [t͡ɕi] It's kinda why there's the alternative spelling of "Peking"
Comment from : thegreen

another way of finding out realistic sound changes is compare difficulty of saying words with one sound to with a highly related sound (same or similar place and/or manner of articulation and/or voicing)
Comment from : Viola_bruh

So roughly speaking, what's the time to changes exchange rate?
Comment from : Digaddog

0:45 All environmentsbrbrThere are some exceptions to this principle "[a] before nasal becomes [e], but *only in nouns*" is unnatural, but there are some ways that morphology and grammar can affect sound changesbrbrThe boundary between morphemes in a compound word is often significant brbrMany English dialects preserve the /h/ in the middle of "threshold" Japanese voices obstruents in compound words - "shime" (tie up) after "ike" (be kept alive, such as fish, fire, flowers) equals "ikejime" (euthanizing fish)brbrGrammatical auxiliaries and redundancy are more likely to be simplified and might be treated differently in sound changes brbrInland American English may split the "trap" vowel into two phonemes, so that "tin can" is no longer a homophone with "can do" That's in addition to the typical rule that the vowel in "can" may be elidedbrbrClassical Latin poetry usually dropped word-final short consonants before a word-initial consonant - that vowel was usually a case marker, but it's just redundancy and less important than poetic meter This was in all likelihood a feature of conversational language as wellbrbrSome Japanese dialects reduce the "-wa" clitics (contrasting topic, statement that insists on the speaker's perspective) to "ya" after "i" or "e" This can be further reduced to palatalizing the previous consonant "sore wa" (in that case) to "sorya" or "soryā" and "nai wa!" (not at all / you gotta be shitting me) to "nai ya!" brbrThis shift isn't applied to "wa" used to mark performative femininity - that register is precisely enunciatedbrbrFurther irregularities in phonotactics can easily be introduced if words are borrowed at different points in the history of a language English "Sri Lanka" ignores a very early change in I-E languages from /sr/ to /str/ (Why /str/ is such a common cluster in European words)brbr(Sinhalese is also an I-E language, but IIUC the Indo-Aryan languages lost the /t/ from clusters like that)brbrJapanese "guguru," a very young verb meaning "to Google" breaks two rules: beginning a morpheme with a voiced obstruent and having voiced obstruents in two consecutive syllables Those rules only apply to vocabulary from Old Japanese, but verbs almost always come from Old Japanese (Later borrowings use the verb "su(ru)" as an auxiliary to carry inflections)brbrSo forms like "gugutta" (+PAST) sound cheekily modern, which is the point
Comment from : Jordan Rodrigues

I really like long /u/ in diphthongs, so I have a change where /au/ -> /aw/, but /ua/ -> /ua̯/
Comment from : Asloii_

My brain hurts, but I think I got it But before that I need to create some words
Comment from : Tanoshi of M

14:04 Russian doesn't have a Tsʲ sound, only Ts Tsi doesn't become Tsʲi, but Tsɨ like цирк /tsirk/ [Tsɨɾk] ʑ is also not a phoneme, but an allophone of ʐ in old-moscow dialect
Comment from : WagonRestorant

We in arabic saybrMdrybrOr madrybrIt means I don't knowbrIt is in Iraq and Kuwait only I think
Comment from : Jana strs

How come these old languages had these “difficult” combinations?
Comment from : Hm wat

I like your funny words, magic man
Comment from : Sidra Ifthikar

At 08:48 he adds voiced stops and accidentally wrote /b/ instead of /d/ for the voiced alveolar stop
Comment from : Cube Meister

I've been getting stuck here (I think it's my goal-oriented approach without yet having an intuitive grasp of phonemes)brbrBut here's what I'm trying to do: simulate millennia of linguistic evolution specifically starting from Australian English as a starting point With perhaps two factors I expect to guide linguistic evolution:br1) Stress changes "THE Moon" is more often said than "the Moon" And that can be contrasted to "the Wreck" (So yeah, I'm trying to generate the names of this world's two moons, derived from them initially being called THE Moon and The Wreck)br2) Cultural chauvinism possibly guiding phoneme evolution (This is a sci-fi setting, and I need an alien language too I'm imagining a cultural aspect driving the languages to diverge due to poor relations between this insectoid race and humans)
Comment from : Michael Drzyzga

In Dutch the combination md is not that rare It often occurs in the past tense of verbs which stam ends on m
Comment from : Fjodor Pattyn

wait, butt wat if i hev a ui difthong or iu difthong
Comment from : Joy Fackler

2:50 I used "h" as a marker to prevent vowel clustering since my script is an abugida So vowels can't just go alone Although i no longer include the h when writing with the latin romanization, I still have that "letter" that has no sound; it's simply used as a host for vowels
Comment from : Okai

You fused post alveolar and palatal
Comment from : layi ladoja

I understand thisin a kind of way where I don't understand it
Comment from : Jackie Cozzie

I'm gonna have to revisit this and break it down now that I have a goal in mind Sad that you chose an isolated culture to evolve a language for, because my purpose is going to look at loanwords and cultural cross pollinationbrbrShort version:brMy most immediate question is "what word might evolve from The Mothership" to refer to a "second moon" in a post-post apocalyptic setting I suppose 1 question is what does the alien language sound like, and 2, consider the changes already in place for an Australian accent, since I'm pondering a future with some unique evolution amid the Great Barrier Reef generates additional setting-unique details
Comment from : Michael Drzyzga

I keep coming back to these videos It would be nice for you to put together one big long one with all of the parts together! Maybe it can be a Patreon perk? I dunno
Comment from : Megan

Also, for me, /sh/, /zh/, /tsh/, and /dzh/, like in /shaim/, /mezhor/, /tshrukful/, and /dzhonsan/, but also /ngy/, as in /faringyel/
Comment from : Isaac T the Scratcher

I am learning so much about English I never knew
Comment from : Rean411

My favorite change is the /t̺/ to [r] change some Dravidian languages or how the palatalised stopes changed in Sanskrit [kʲ] [gʲ] [gʲʱ] to [ɕ] [dʑ] [ɦ]
Comment from : Ida Francis

This is a possible evolution: [kiha] - [kia] - [kja] - [ca] - [cça] - [tɕa] - [ɕa] - [sa] - [θa] - [t̪a] - [t̻a] - [d̺a] - [ra] - [ɹa] - [ɻa] - [ɭa] - [la] - [ɬa]brbrok i'll stop
Comment from : Ida Francis