¡Tequantzélo! This post is so that I can share & document my progress on Paolia, one of my active conlangs & part of my alternate history worldbuilding project. I wanna point out that this conlang is most likely not naturalistic, as I lack proper knowledge for such a task, but I've tried to design it as naturalistic as I can with the rudimentary knowledge I have about linguistics. I've taken inspiration from some natural languages such as Nahuatl, though only in appearance as I know very little about it. Last thing to note is that the version of the conlang I'll be presenting here is the modern day way the language sounds, as it doesn't vary that much from its prehispanic version.
Presentation & History
Paolia is a language spoken in a fictional group of islands off the western coast of Mexico; at roughly the same altitude as the state of Jalisco. It is the only known group of the ecaian language family & it has no derivations as the people do not live in different spots, so the language has remained relatively unified. It was relatively isolated during the majority of its existence since roughly the start of the mesoamerican Classical Period ~200-300 a.C. During the Postclassical Period they had a small comercial relationship with the mexicans (aztecs), using the word 'nahoa' referring to anyone from the mainland.
At around the latter part of the XV century (or the beginning of the XVI century depending on who you ask) the ladewans discovered the ecaian Camutan archipelago. In this timeline, the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula ended about one century earlier thanks to the ladewans, the New Sinusian Empire (ladewans) became almost as rich as Spain & Portugal were & also took part in the discovery of the New World, having a good relationship with their mainland neighbours, they settled the city of Nõu Raliji in what are now the mexican states of Jalisco & Nayarit (Al Raliji later gave up on Nõu Raliji & it now belongs to Mexico, serving as a sudonation for modern day ethnic ecaians & ladewans), some years later in around 1488 the island of Camutan was discovered.
Early notes in the Ladĩ language about the discovery of the Camutan archipelago.
Phonology
Paolia's phonology has a small consonant inventory & a 4 vowel system.
https://preview.redd.it/p1911n71ea4d1.png?width=1082&format=png&auto=webp&s=23a2ec69d6184628adb8010261eff78bce3ea03a
* ʔ is represented by a grave accent above the vowels, sometimes it can be pronounced both before & after the vowel but it's mostly after the vowel. (I.e <èca> is pronounced /ʔeʔ.'ka/ & <sonàa> is pronounced /so.'na.ʔa/.)
https://preview.redd.it/c22ufx6bea4d1.png?width=390&format=png&auto=webp&s=034b93610e99bbd5b8b2b69d14a77ec7d4b4ebf5
Diphthongs:

• oʊː(oo)
• ɛɪː(ee)
• aʊ(au)

* <u> only appears in writing in <qu> sequences as /kʷ/ & is only pronounced when the sequence is separated by morphological rules, or in standalone words that either didn't evolve out of the use of like <tuma> & <camuta> or loanwords.
** /ə/ only appears at <e> when it's the last vowel of the word like in <poque> which is pronounced /'po.kʷə/, this can be negated by writing <é> like in <pé> /pe/ or in <eng> sequences /əŋ/.
*** /ɔ̃/ only appears in <ong> sequences /ɔ̃ŋ/.
Orthography
Paolia's orthography is pretty much fully phonetic, there are just some rules I wanna clear out.
<h> is silent expect when it is the coda like in the pluralizer <nih-> /nih/. It's also used alongside to represent /w/
The grave accent <à è ì ò> marks /ʔ/
The acute accent <á é í ó> marks syllable stress & prevents nucleus <i> & <o> from becoming /j/ & /w/ when a vowel is the coda like in <lianóa> /ɭʲa.'no.a/ or <tecotzía> /te.ko.'t͡si.a/
Double vowel sequences <oo> & <ee> make /oʊː/ & /ɛɪː/
Alphabet
A
C 'Cé'
Ch 'Ché'
E
H 'Aché'
I
L 'Elé'
M 'Emé'
N 'Ené'
Ny 'Enyé'
O
P 'Pé'
Qu
S 'Esé'
T 'Té'
Tz 'Tzé'
U
Syntax
Paolia is an OVS language but it can sometimes be OSV due to its grammatical cases.
The object can never be dropped.
Adjectives go prefixed to the nouns.
Grammar
There are two main noun types, raised & simple nouns:
Raised nouns end in <a> & simple nouns end in any other vowel. They never end in a consonant.
They can receive affixes like codas, pluralization, case markings & can also be prefixed to form compound words.
Raised nouns drop final <a> when prefixed to another noun or when receiving a grammatical mark. Simple words never change.
Classical Paolia used to contain grammatical gender, but it got lost, linguists believe raised words used to be of the feminine gender.
Unconjugated verbs always end in <a> & just like raised nouns, these can drop it to accept suffixes for conjugations. (-iceng is a verb suffix that gerundizes them & converts them to nouns that act like simple nouns, though they can't receive case marking & must rely on the word 'quìe' I.e 'naqui tequohoiceng quìepal', which literally translates to "about the thing of dying")
Verbs can receive prefixes, infixes & suffixes to add extra information
Adjectives in Paolia always end in <tl> these drop it to be prefixed to nouns, when they appear standalone, they receive their own set of infixed case markings differing from noun's markings.
Relative Case
I wanna make a special section about the relative case (not to be confused with the linguistic term), which is a special case marking used for prepositions, kinda like the prepositional case in languages like Russian.
The marking is -apal for raised nouns & -pal for simple nouns & it can accept prepositions like:
about/because = naqui (It can be used to express something similar to the expression 'due to x')
on = naoe
under= quaoe
in = incial
outside = sintzin
ablative = quenti
for = sonti
Examples
The language has no traditional writing system, it got lost around the time the ladewans & spaniards discovered & raided the island, ending in a similar fate to all native mesoamerican groups. The island is a nature reserve today belonging to Mexico where some ecaians still live, but the majority of the ecaian population lives in mainland Mexico, mostly concentrated in Nõu Raliji in the states of Nayarit & Jalisco.
A text about the Camutan.
A part of the ecaian creation myth, included in the former Ecaian Constitution.
Translation of Yoremnokki poem Taabu.
Note that the orthographical rules I wrote earlier in the post don't always apply as they're not universal & may differ from person to person.
A story about how a person felt about moving to Nõu Raliji as a kid. (I somewhat stutter when reading the language, I tried to get the accent as accurate as possible to make it seem as if I wasn't reading it but I just couldn't.)

En la fonética del inglés americano, ¿los vowels monophthongs (æ) y los “vowels diphthongs” (eə) se pronuncian de la misma manera? La pronunciación sería hacer una “a” con la boca pero pronunciar la letra “e”
æ: family, cat eə: hair, air

As an EFL speaker, I find myself doing this. As an example, I ordinarily use [eɪ ~ ɛɪ] for FACE, [aɪ] for PRICE, and [ɔɪ] for CHOICE, but in situations like day‿out, buy‿anything, enjoy‿it, I have somehow picked up a habit of sometimes monopthongizing them into [eː], [aː], and [ɔː] respectively, as a form of connected speech, as in ”enjoy it” = /ɛnˈd͡ʒɔ:ɪt/
Does that actually happen in any real native accents, and which ones?

I've heard that sometimes Koreans might have a hard time understanding foreigners speaking Korean.
So I would like to know what are the most common mispronunciations or even intonations that can hinder communication between natives and foreigners. I would like to be more conscious of my korean when I speak and avoid mistakes I might've not been aware I was making.
In my native language, for example, constantly not using the correct gender of the words and dropping articles on top of mispronouncing nasal sounds and using diphthongs instead of pure vowel sounds (especially foreigners whose native language is English) can make it difficult to understand foreigners. Especially if they make all these mistakes at the same time.

I've noticed alot of people naming random places, so here's the rundown on how to actually name things in Nodhish!
^{I made this because people kept getting it wrong, and this might prevent future hiccups.}
Warning: semi-long post (but it's also semi-important, so idk)

Alphabet: A Æ B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S Ŋ T U V W X Y Z

(X and Æ are only for borrowed and old words. They can not be used in newer words)

Accents

Nodhish has 2 accent types: umlauts and macrons.
Umlauts show when 2 vowel sounds don't interact. The accent is usually placed on the second vowel.
^{For an example \}in English), a word like "doing," or "being" would have it ("doïng," "beïng") because not having it (at least in this context) makes it pronounced "doyng," and "bang.")
macrons denote "length" (this is separate from double letters (see how below)). They basically just change the sound of the vowel.

Unlike English

(explained with example), "ade" isn't pronounced /aid/, it's pronounced "ah-deh." Letters almost never interact and change each other (except for diphthongs listed below)

K and Q are the same, but:

If it's at the start of a word, or after hard vowel (a, ā, æ, o, ō, u, ū), put a K. If it's at the end of a word, or after a soft vowel (e, ē, i, j, y), put a Q. (Whether it's at the start or end takes precedence over which letters are before it)

S and C are the same, but:

If it's before a hard vowel (a, ā, æ, o, ō, u, ū) or a consontant, put an S. If its before a soft vowel (e, ē, i, j, y) put a C.

Pronunciation (in IPA):

A = /ɑ/
E = /ɛ/
I = /ɪ/
O = /ɒ/
U = /ʌ/
Ā = /æ/
Ē = /i/
Ō = /oʊ/
Ū =
Æ = /æ/
āū/au = /aʊ/
oo = /oʊ/
ee = /ɔɪ/
ej = /eɪ/
W = /w/
J = /j/
Y = /aɪ/
Ŋ = /ŋ/
Th = /θ/
Dh = /ð/
Sh = /ʃ/
Zh = /ʒ/
Kh/qh = /ʧ/
Gh = /ʤ/
In English, "er" = /ə, but in Nodhish, it's "ur."
(Every other letter that hasn't been listed is pronounced the same as English)
And although they're spelled "Nodhland" and "Nodhish," they are pronounced just "nodlənd," and "noddish" (not "noðish"). ^\This is the English pronunciation. It follows the rules in the Nodhish pronunciation))

Correcting the names I've seen:

^\Please note that this is just how Nodhish works))
Benkstahd = Bejŋkstad
Gersthor = Gursthor

Nodhish has very strange rules

But I needed to post this because there's an entire language based on it, so it's actually really necessary.
If enough people ask, I will release Nodhish into the public (and you'll get to speak it)!

Thank you for your time.

I always thought of [ə, ɐ, Vɐ̯] as complementary allophones of /ɛ, er, V. English Wikipedia's Standard German phonology words it like a debated issue. Phonemic transcriptions of Standard German often use /ə, ɐ, Vɐ̯/. I read tense/lax vowel distinction to be unstable before / and vaguely remember having heard a dictionary be critiqued for suggesting tense/lax contrast before / despite "there being no indication of such in the spoken language".
In my idiolect there is no doubt in my mind that [ə] is an allophone of unstressed /ɛ/. In unstressed positions, /e & /a/ neutralise and I cannot discern a distinct /ɐ/ in my speech. I can't justify distinct /Vɐ̯/ diphthongs for me either. E.g. Meer, Tür, irr are ['meɐ̯#'tyɐ̯#'ɪə̯], but derivatives like Meere, Türen, irren turn into ['meː.ʀə#tyː.ʀən#ɪ.ʀən]. So, for me the supposed diphthong is broken apart into different syllables and underlying / resurfaces as an actual consonant if given the chance. Tense/lax distinction neutralises before / in the same syllable. So Herr, Heer are homophones to me, /her#he [heɐ̯#heɐ̯], but Herren, Heeren contrast as /'hɛ.rɛn#'heː.rɛn/ ['hɛ.ʀən#'heː.ʀən] as the / becomes the second syllable's onset, unneutralsing the prior vowels.
How do these enviroments behave for other accents?

I have read the following passages and have made two attempts. I'm from South Korea, and I would greatly appreciate any advice on improving my general intonation, accent, and pronunciation. Thank you so much in advance.
I think the intonation overall is off, resembling the softer american one. and I don't sound natural enough; that is, I don't sound as choppy and crisp or nasal enough as those of British people you would find in streets or dramas. And do I sound too soft or harsh for a British accent? I think I might be both.
Also, I don't know if my short o sound correct and appropriate, as in 'God'. My pronunciation used to be more tight, which was awkward to hear.
What could be changed to make improvements? I will read more and and add my recording in this post if you provide me with some passages or sentences to see where my weakness lies.
https://voca.ro/18WvDZoZcDtK (a reading from the sentence above)
https://voca.ro/18NJl1xeedDp (1st try)
https://voca.ro/12Et4IJdK4eQ (2nd try)
'I studied English History at university using a book called 'The Origin and Development of the English Language.' I recall reading somewhere that the non-rhotic phenomenon began at the start of the 18th century as a way to sound 'posh.' Additionally, the typical 'o' sound in British English is the result of a shift from the American diphthong during the Great Vowel Shift. I found these facts fascinating, which prompted me to ponder a few more questions. However, I couldn't find sufficient information on Google. We can discuss these questions further:

1. When was the 'accent and intonation' of BBC English or the modern Southern London accent established? Was the English accent during Jane Austen's era similar to the modern-day Southern London accent, with features such as non-rhotic, short 'o,' and long 'o' pronunciations?
2. I assume that the American accent retains some features from 17th-century English. Why do you think the British accent has changed so much since then, compared to the American accent from the North American continent which, despite being isolated, is densely populated and ethnically diverse?'

I studied English History at university using a book called 'The Origin and Development of the English Language.' I recall reading somewhere that the non-rhotic phenomenon began at the start of the 18th century as a way to sound 'posh.' Additionally, the typical 'o' sound in British English is the result of a shift from the American diphthong during the Great Vowel Shift. I found these facts fascinating, which prompted me to ponder a few more questions. However, I couldn't find sufficient information on Google. We can discuss these questions further:

1. When was the 'accent and intonation' of BBC English or the modern Southern London accent established? Was the English accent during Jane Austen's era similar to the modern-day Southern London accent, with features such as non-rhotic, short 'o,' and long 'o' pronunciations?
2. I assume that the American accent retains some features from 17th-century English. Why do you think the British accent has changed so much since then, compared to the American accent from the North American continent which, despite being isolated, is densely populated and ethnically diverse?

Salam! I’m Stealthy, but you may know me better as LingoLizard. For many years I’ve been interested in IALs, creating sketches of some as early as 2018. While those earlier ones weren’t good, I gradually honed my skill in making auxlangs, and starting in 2021, I started Dunyago, which I’ve been doing work for on and off ever since. With 950 roots and over 2000 words, Dunyago is ready to be unveiled to the public!
Introduction:
Dunyago is a culturally-neutral international auxiliary language (IAL), meant for communication between people who otherwise wouldn’t have a language in common, meant to be used by and optimized for the general world population. Dunyago avoids the contradictory presence of eurocentrism in other IALs, and has a variety of sources even more global than other modern worldlangs.
Dunyago has 21 source languages, which are, in order of number of speakers: English, Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish, French, Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese, Russian, Indonesian, German, Japanese, Telugu, Turkish, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Korean, Persian, Hausa, Swahili, and Thai.
Orthography and Phonology:
Consonants:

	labial	alveolar	palatal	velar
nasal	m	n		ŋ
plosive	p b	t d		k g
affricate		dz	tʃ dʒ
fricative	f v	s	ʃ	x
trill		r
approximant	w	l	j

Voiceless plosives and affricates are ideally aspirated [pʰ] [tʰ] [kʰ] [tʃʰ] in most syllable-initial contexts to the benefit of speakers of languages with aspiration distinctions instead of voicing.
The rhotic is ideally a trill or a tap /r~ɾ/, but a variety of other realizations are acceptable.
/ŋ/ is only allowed coda position, where it does not contrast with /n/ or /m/ and may be pronounced /ŋg/.
Semivowels /j/ and /w/ are written as glides after consonants and as part of diphthongs, but and elsewhere.
/v/ and /dz/ appear in only a few words, primarily for recognizability in very international words, or when loaning place names.
/dz/ is an affricate instead of a fricative in analogy with fellow sibilant /dʒ/, and is meant to transcribe both /z/ and /ts/.
Many consonants have forbidden minimal pairs to allow for the mergers of sounds that are difficult to distinguish for some speakers. These include but are not limited to:
/p/ with /f/, / with /l/, /s/ with /dz/, /tʃ/ with /ʃ/, /v/ with /w/, with /dʒ/ with /j/.
Vowels:
Typical of an IAL, the vowels of Dunyago are /a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ , and its diphthongs are /ai/ /au/ /oi/.
/e/ and /o/ are ideally realized as mid [e̞] and [o̞], in between open-mid [ɛ] and [ɔ] and close-mid [e] and [o].
Phonotactics:
The syllable structure of Dunyago is (C)(L)V(G), where:
C represents all consonants besides /ŋ/
L represents liquids /l/, /, /j/, and /w/
V represents monophthongs
G represents allowed coda consonants /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /p/, /t/, /k/, /s/, /, /l/, and /i/ and as part of diphthongs /ai/, /au/, and /oi/.
To break up consonant clusters which may be difficult for some to pronounce, filler vowels such as [ə], [ɯ], [ɨ], [i], and [u] may be inserted.
Grammar:
Word Order:
The basic word order of Dunyago is SVO, with prepositions instead of postpositions. As a compromise to head-final languages and in analogy with English and Mandarin, adjectives go before the nouns they modify.
As an example, “The cat drinks the white milk” translates as:
mao pit puti milku, literally “cat drink white milk”
Pronouns:

	singular	plural
1st person	mi	kami
2nd person	tu	antu
3rd person	ta	tara

While not derived regularly, the plural versions of pronouns each contain their singular counterparts inside of them.
mi: from spanish mi, english me, portuguese me, mim, bengali আমি ami, french me, german mich, mir, swahili mimi
kami: from indonesian kami, tagalog kami, russian мы my, нами nami
tu: from hindi तू tu, french tu, spanish tú, portuguese tu, german du, russian ты ty, bengali তুমি tumi, persian تو to
antu: from arabic أنتما ʾantumā, أنتم ʾantum, أنتن ʾantunna
ta: from mandarin 它, 她, 他 tā, hausa ta, ita
tara: from bengali তারা tara
Nouns:
Nouns are simple and isolating, with no articles, grammatical cases, or gender, and plural marking is not required. The plural marker ler may optionally be used, but only in the absence of a number word.
mao - cat, cats
ler mao - cats
dua mao - two cats
The majority of nouns for people are gender-neutral, with the option to prefix fem “woman” and nan “man” to indicate binary gender. All nouns with base gendered forms have gender-neutral equivalents.
bacha - child, kid (neutral)
fembacha - girl (feminine)
nanbacha - boy (masculine)
mama - mom, mother (feminine)
papa - dad, father (masculine)
oya - parent (neutral)
The particle su is used to mark possession, as well as use nouns in an attributive manner.
kuta su gor - dog’s house, dog house, house of the dog
Verbs:
Verbs do not inflect for person, and have a handful of tense and aspect markers, which are all optional and isolating. The base form of verbs without any of these particles can be any tense or aspect.
kar - to do, do, does, did, will do, doing
li kar - did (past tense)
sha kar - will do, shall do, going to do (future tense)
dang kar - doing (imperfective, active)
ha kar - have done, has done (perfective)
Particles be and mek mark the passive and causative forms of verbs respectively.
Derivation:
To form compound words in Dunyago, two words are simply placed next to each other.
bumikengua - peanut (from bumi “dirt” and kengua “nut”)
atismonte - volcano (from atis “fire” and monte “mountain”)
fedamachi - silverfish (from feda “silver” and machi “fish”)
The suffix -ya is used to mark abstractions, particularly of verbs and adjectives, but is used with a handful of nouns as well.
To derive adjectives (and by extension adverbs, since adjective and adverbs are the same in Dunyago), the suffix -ni is added to nouns and verbs ending with vowels, -di is added to ones ending with coda /n/, and -i is added to ones ending with any other consonant. The reason -di is used instead of -i after /n/ is to aid back-formation.
Kos, which in isolation means “thing”, is suffixed to verbs to form concrete nouns of a thing relating to the verb, or a single instance of the action.
The suffix -ka is used to indicate the doer of an action, and is suffixed to a variety of nouns as well to indicate a person with a relation to the noun.
Vocabulary:
When creating new words, the words for the concept in the sourcelangs are analyzed. If there is an international word present (particularly in 3-4+ languages), then the most international word is chosen for Dunyago. If there is no clear international word for a concept, then a word from one of the most currently underrepresented languages that fits Dunyago best is chosen.
Only compounds that one of the 21 source languages used are calqued into Dunyago, with artificial constructions forbidden.
Sample Text:
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”
Kul jen betanjo jiyuni wa igual en ijat wa haku. Tara be dar liyu wa chetnaya wa ingai soro praprut en siblingya su ruhu
(Literally: all people PASS-birth freedom-ADJ and equal in dignity and right 3P-PL PASS give reason and conscious-ABS and should mutually behave in sibling-ABS of spirit)
The etymologies of all the preceding words can be found in this sheet with the entire Dunyago lexicon.
Conclusion:
I’m quite proud of this language, and I hope Dunyago has piqued your interest! If so, feel free to join the official Dunyago Discord server, or the Dunyago subreddit Dunyago! The language is still a work in progress, and helpful feedback is appreciated! I will continue to flesh out Dunyago for many years to come.
A full reference grammar of Dunyago can be found here.