They’ve been rebuilding the Tower of Babel, but this time they have a team of linguists on site. Every time God smites the builders and invents a dozen new languages, the linguists have a dozen decently sized translations in about a month and work can start up again.
The linguists have been really into it. They say the new phonemes are fascinating. As for God, I assume that at this point he’s just curious to see how far this goes.
To keep us on out toes, God gives the next group of builders an extra place of articulation called the flongus between the pharynx and the glottis, creating an entire new column of the IPA chart with sounds between sounds that are literally physiologically impossible for non-flongled people to replicate.
Improved symbols for the flongal plosives ("gacks"), flongal trill ("hacks"), flongal fricatives ("groans"), and and the flongal lateral approximant ("moans")
Update: The builders have now simply switched to communicating entirely through a universal sign language like they should've done to start with. No sounds need be spoken, flongal or otherwise. The Tower steadily rises. Be seeing you soon, God, you little bitch.
update: the builders are all speaking different sign languages now
#update: some builders have developed new tendons which allow them to produce handshapes that other people cant
Hey, linguist here & truly not to put a damper on this delightful tomfoolery, but those grey cells in the IPA actually mean something: they reflect physiological impossibility, not merely coincidence about what happens to be unattested! There are no pharyngeal stops or trills because the back of the tongue can’t create total occlusion of the airway against the pharynx. The only reason glottal stops are possible is because the glottis itself can close entirely, creating the complete occlusion of the airway necessary for the acoustic qualities of a stop. Based on where the flongus is located in the vocal tracts of those affected, their tongues would not be able operate as articulators, meaning trills, stops, & lateral approximants will not be possible. Fricatives & regular approximants are possible if speakers can tighten their throats bringing the flongus closer to the front of the vocal tract causing partial occlusion of the air way, which is the necessary acoustic condition for these kinds of sounds.
