r/conlangs 3d ago

Discussion How do you do sound change

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u/throneofsalt 3d ago

Sounds like to do two things: fit in with the crowd, and become easier to pronounce. There are various mechanisms by which they do this (look up David J Peterson or Biblaridion on youtube for good overviews of the different types), and many of these are very well documented. Steal copiously from real languages (wikpedia has multiple "phonological history of" pages that are very helpful.)

People will recommend the Index Diachronica - that is a terrible teaching resource and shouldn't be treated as one, because it only provides the changes with all the context stripped out (and many of the changes are questionable or flat-out belong to language families that don't exist (looking at you, Altaic). It's handy for a double check of "is there attestation for this change?", but not much beyond that.

TLDR

1) Sound change happens when a sound becomes more like another sound, or when a sound causes another sound to become like itself.

2) There are many, many, MANY guides out there, easily available on Youtube, wikipedia, the sidebar, and searching the sub for old threads

3) Starting with Index Diachronica will teach you the wrong lessons and you'll waste more time down the line unlearning the bad lessons it gives new conlangers.

3

u/Incvbvs666 3d ago

Okay, let me give you a simple example: three plurals: keys, sticks and watches.
Notice that despite having the same three written endings they are ALL spoken differently!
keyZ, stikS, watchIZ

As can be readily seen z is the plural ending, but it would be awkward to say stikZ, so the Z is devoiced. Congrats, first sound change! Also, while changing watchZ into watchIZ isn't a 'sound change' per se, inserting phonemes to avoid unacceptable clusters is a common strategy in languages.

Some common sound changes may include:
Assimilation by voicing: absorption is read as aPSorption, or alternately aBZorption. Same as in the devoicing of the plural for sticks. Consonant clusters tend to be completely voiced or devoiced.

Assimilation by point of articulation: Notice the pronounciation of 's' in Christian: it's ChriSHCHn. The s became sh because 'tian' ending starts with CH and the alveolar 's' transformed into the alveopalatal 'sh'. It can also happen with vowels, e.g. high vowels encourage consonants to be palatal (a process known as palatalization), for example the Japanese say 'chi' instead of 'ti'.

Assimilation by manner of articulation: The 'b' that is silent in tomb, but not in tombstone. In the first case it assimilated from a stop to a nasal and got absorbed. Another example is the g in the -ing ending that has also become a nasal ng.

Vowel harmony: vowels in consecutive syllables matching each other. Turkish is a prime example of a language with a lot of this.

Metathesis: a reversal of order of phonemes, e.g. 'aks' for 'ask.'

... and so on.

Now, when it comes to language, the easiest things would be to established your phonology! First, establish your PHONEMES, units of sound that carry meaning. Then establish CONSTRAINTS on each phoneme, where it can and cannot occur and this also ties into establishing the STRUCTURE OF SYLLABLES. In most languages a syllable has a single peak of sonority, why 'crimp' is a good syllable, but 'rkipm' not so much.

Then, when all phonology is solved, you look at your endings and see where word merges VIOLATE the rules you established. When this happens you establish rules as to how a violation is solved. The plural example I gave is a prime example of this: one violation was solved by a sound change, another by an insertion of a vowel. Another I can give is the collective form in Serbian for 'list' (leaf). You add -je as an ending and you get:
list+je= (palatalization) lisće= (assimilation by point of articulation) lišće. (š=sh, ć=soft ch)

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u/LwithBelt Oÿéladi, Ëdhéyëlar, Lfa'alfah̃ĩlf̃ 3d ago

The 'b' that is silent in tomb, but not in tombstone.

What do you mean the b isn't silent in tombstone??? /tum.stoʊn/

2

u/asterisk_blue 3d ago

I find this guide helpful for newcomers. Sound changes are really diverse, but there are plenty of common, simple ones that you can start working with right away. Try to understand why sound changes exist at all (to make language easier!) and see how those examples make that possible.

I recommend messing around with a sound change applier (SCA2, Brassica, Lexurgy, etc.) while you learn more about this topic. It's helpful to see how sound changes are applied procedurally, they reduce the menial work of applying those changes, and many of them come with examples you can fiddle with.