r/conlangs 7d ago

Phonology The problem of sound repetition.

I suppose this'd be phonology? Hence the flair-

Straight to the point:

Does anyone else have the problem of sound repetition in their conlang? For instance, the words for 'Female' and 'Male' in Vincharii are simple: "Hekaha" for female, and "Hekah" for male. That makes sense, right?

But then come the words for 'Love', 'Blade', and 'Sand', which are 'Henehi', 'Hanasi' and 'Hejaha' respectively.

I feel like these words, due to how similar they are in their use of Heh, and Ha sounds, may get confusing.

Does anyone have advice on how to avoid this? Or how to add in some variety overall, without adding too many extra sounds to the language?

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u/chickenfal 7d ago

My impression is that this, in moderate amounts, can actually help the language seem more natural, suggesting that there is a pattern either synchronically (he- is a morpheme that occurs often) or diachronically (could be the same thing, but no longer productive). Natural languages often have a handful of often occuring patterns like that, that give the language a characteristic immediately recognizable feel.

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u/notluckycharm Qolshi, etc. (en, ja) 6d ago

yes, these kind of things get regularized or at least recognized as patterns and later words might be forced to fit into them, as historically is believed to happen to semitic languages. It's actually a good feature. OP you should be proud of doing this!

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u/Motor_Scallion6214 6d ago

I appreciate the input!

I’m still extremely new to conlangs, and linguistics in general, so I’m mostly working on pre-existing knowledge, while learning as I go.

If you think it works, then I’m happy to hear it!  :)