Cernelian/Phonetics and orthography

Consonants

	Labial		Dental	Post-alveolar	Alveo-palatal	Velar
	Plain	Palatal				Plain	Palatal
Nasal	/m/	/mʲ/	/n/	/ɲ/	/ŋ/
Plosive	/p b/	/pʲ bʲ/	/t d/			/k ɡ/	/kʲ ɡʲ/
Affricate			/t͡s d͡z/	/t͡ʂ d͡ʐ/	/t͡ɕ d͡ʑ/
Fricative	/f v/	/fʲ vʲ/	/s z/	/ʂ ʐ/	/ɕ ʑ/	/x/	/xʲ/
Tap			/ɾ/
Approximant			/l/		/j/	/w/

Like Polish, Cernelian exhibits final-obstruent devoicing that causes word-final voiced obstruents become devoiced (prów /pruf/ "flock"). Obstruents (plosives and fricatives), when voiced are unvoiced before unvoiced obstruents, while when unvoiced become voiced before voiced obstruents (/x/ has the voiced allophone [ɣ]).

Consonant structure

The maximal consonant structure in Cernelian is CCCVCC (C = consonants, V = vowels).

Vowels

		Front	Central	Back
Close		/i/	/ɨ/	/u/
Mid	Plain	/ɛ/		/ɔ/
	Nasal	/ɛ̃/		/ɔ̃/
Open				/a/

Extreme northern dialects has phonemic vowel length, denoted by acute accent (ác /aːts/ "boat", íłmo "air, sky"). Standard Cernelian have ⟨ó⟩, but only for etymological reasons.

Cernelian reflects limited vowel harmony between the vowels -o- (back) and -e- (front), otherwise the Proto-Finnic vowel harmonies *o : *ö displaced by Cernelian o : e, and *u : *y become Proto-Cernelian yers *ъ and *ь that often deleted in some positions.

The nasal vowels become /ɛn, ɔn/ before plosives and affricates, /ɛm, ɔm/ before labials, /ɛŋ, ɔŋ/ before post-alveolars and velars, /ɛɲ, ɔɲ/ before alveo-palatals, and /ɛ, ɔ/ before l or ł and word-finally in the case of ę.

Consonant gradation

Like Finnish and Estonian, consonant gradation (involving lenition, Cernelian: sona, lit. "voicing", or lenicja) are frequent in Cernelian. However, it is not possible to predict the ending whose affected by gradation (weak grade), due to syllable structure changes. This is the gradation table:

Strong grade (unaffected)		Weak grade (affected)
Plain	Palatal	Plain	Palatal
k	cz/c	∅/g	ż/dz
t	ć/ci	∅/d	dź/dzi
p	p/pi	∅/w	w/wi
s/ch	ś/si/sz	∅/z	j/i/∅

The weak grades g, d, and w are used after nasal vowels (nom. pl. pięzo : dat. pl. pięsoję "people, suppletive plural of jęziemnię"). The nature of palatal weak grade of s varies: j are used intervocalically, i used after the rest of consonants, and ∅ (just succeeding vowels, i → y) only used after consonants c, cz, dż, l, sz, and ż. The exact history of the gradations are:

Proto-Finnic	Proto-Cernelian		Cernelian
	Early	Late
-kVb-	-k-
-kVf-, -kjV	-k-	-č-	-cz-
-kVbVf-	-k-	-c-	-c-
-CgVb-	-CC-	-C-
-NgVb-	-g-
-VbgVb- (adjacent vowels)	-V̄-	-V-
-gVf-	-g-	-ž-	-ż-
-CgVbVf-	-g-	-dz-	-dz-
-pVb-	-p-
-pVf-, -pVbVf-, -pjV-	-p-	-p-	-p-, -piV-
-CbVb-	-CC-	-C-
-NbVb-	-b-
-VbbVb- (adjacent vowels)	-V̄-	-V-
-bVf-, -CbVbVf-	-w-	-v-	-w-, -wiV-

The endings often affected by weak gradation include:

• Nominative (including accusative and vocative) plurals of regular declensions (śció : sio "pig, pigs"), and locative, ablative, and instrumental plurals of most declensions (śció, siaso "pig, in the pigs")
• 1st and 2nd person singular past tenses (jaka : jeżę "to share, I shared")
• All of the conditional endings

Stress

Like Polish, Cernelian words are almost always stressed in penultimate (second-from-last) syllable. However, some conservative eastern and southern dialects influenced by Russian and Ukrainian, have unpredictable stress (sonò "word" vs. sòno "sauna").

• Proto-Finnic *áivastàdak → jawostà vs. standard jawòsta "to sneeze"
• Proto-Finnic *áutugas → ùtwo "blessed, wealthy" (same in standard patterns)

Note that Proto-Finnic stress is originally non-phonemic, with secondary stress existed in last non-final odd-numbered syllables.

Mobile paradigms

In such conservative dialects, there are numerous mobile paradigms, especially in verbs.

History (from *armastadak to romostà "to love")

• Proto-Finnic:

	Participles		Other non-finite
Active	*armastapa	*armastanu	Infinitive	*armastadak
Passive	*armastatapa	*armastatu	Verbal noun	*armastama
	Present	Past	Conditional	Imperative
1st singular	*armastan	*armastoin	*armastakcin	*armastagon
2nd singular	*armastat	*armastoit	*armastakcin	*armastak
3rd singular	*armastapi	*armastoi	*armastakci	*armastasen
1st plural	*armastakmak	*armastoimak	*armastakcimak	*armastakadamak
2nd plural	*armastaktak	*armastoidak	*armastakcidak	*armastakata
3rd plural	*armastabat	*armastoi	*armastakci	*armastasen
Impersonal	*armastaksen	*armastatihen	*armastadakcisen	*armastatagasen

• Early Proto-Cernelian:

	Participles		Other non-finite
Active	*armastapa	*armastanu	Infinitive	*armastadak
Passive	*armastatapa	*armastatu	Verbal noun	*armastama
	Present	Past	Conditional	Imperative
1st singular	*armastan	*armastoin	*armastakcin	*armastagon
2nd singular	*armastat	*armastoit	*armastakcin	*armastak
3rd singular	*armastapi	*armastoi	*armastakci	*armastasen
1st plural	*armastakmak	*armastoimak	*armastakcimak	*armastakadamak
2nd plural	*armastaktak	*armastoidak	*armastakcidak	*armastakata
3rd plural	*armastabat	*armastoi	*armastakci	*armastasen
Impersonal	*armastaksen	*armastatihen	*armastadakcisen	*armastatagasen

Orthography

The Cernelian orthography is written in Latin, and definitely same as that of Polish.

Vowels

Letter	IPA value
⟨A a⟩	/a/
⟨Ą ą⟩	/ɔ̃/ (see above)
⟨E e⟩	/ɛ/
⟨Ę ę⟩	/ɛ̃/ (see above)
⟨I i⟩	/(ʲ)i/ (see below)
⟨O o⟩	/ɔ/
⟨Ó ó⟩	/u/
⟨U u⟩
⟨Y y⟩	/ɨ/

Consonant

Letter	IPA value
	Elsewhere		Before -i- and -iV
	Voiced	Unvoiced
⟨B b⟩	/b/	/p/	/bʲ/
⟨C c⟩	/dz/	/ts/	/tɕ/
⟨Ć ć⟩	/d͡ʑ/	/t͡ɕ/	always as ⟨c⟩
⟨D d⟩	/d/	/t/	/d/
⟨Dź dź⟩	/d͡ʑ/	/t͡ɕ/	always as ⟨dz⟩
⟨F f⟩	/f/	/v/	/fʲ/
⟨G g⟩	/ɡ/	/k/	/ɡʲ/
⟨H h⟩	/ɣ/	/x/	/xʲ/
⟨J j⟩	/j/
⟨K k⟩	/ɡ/	/k/	/kʲ/
⟨L l⟩	/l/
⟨Ł ł⟩	/w/
⟨M m⟩	/m/		/mʲ/
⟨N n⟩	/n/		/ɲ/
⟨Ń ń⟩	/ɲ/		Always as ⟨n⟩
⟨P p⟩	/b/	/p/	/pʲ/
⟨R r⟩	/r/
⟨Rz rz⟩	/ʐ/
⟨S s⟩	/z/	/s/	/ɕ/
⟨Ś ś⟩	/ʑ/	/ɕ/	Always as ⟨s⟩
⟨T t⟩	/d/	/t/
⟨W w⟩	/v/	/f/	/vʲ/
⟨Z z⟩	/z/	/s/	/ʑ/
⟨Ź ź⟩	/ʑ/	/ɕ/	Always as ⟨z⟩

-V- in this context are all vowels except ⟨i⟩ and ⟨y⟩. In -iV- sequences, plosives are inserted with preceding /j/ before vowels, but velars not (Stamiesie /staˈmʲjɛɕɛ/ "Cernelia").

Sound changes

See Cernelian/Sound changes