thinking aloud: conlang darlings
i'd appreciate any input from any seasoned conlangers
so working on my lang i end up with this word:
jakʼaq-rəkʷ ("forest"-LOC)
and for the life of me, i just cannot pronounce it. there's just to many things i have to do with the back of my tongue in such a short time, and what's more, i'm learning that i hold to long on the medial ejectives so they have the rhythm of a consonant cluster when they shouldn't. the ejective may actually be causing most of the problem (though the coda /q/ is not at all easy for me either).
i'd like to be able to pronounce this lang... i don't need to like, speak it fluently, but i'd like to be able to say the words and it not be too difficult.
it looks like my options are:
leave it the way it is
design roots specifically to be easier to pronounce
come up with complicated ruki rule-style sound changes to make words like these easier
get rid of the ejectives
leaving it the way it is sacrifices my ability to pronounce it, and i do care about that (should i?).
manually changing roots might sacrifice naturalism but maybe not?
i definitely don't want to do the sound changes.
but i really don't want to get rid of the ejective. i even simplified things by only including /kʼ/, but apparently even then i struggle with it in medial position
idk
what do
