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 CCVCC (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 | ∅ | j/i/∅ |
The weak grades g, d, and w are used after consonants, although due to Slavic metathesis the original weak grades sometimes still exist (*oldak → łodo "to be", not *ła). 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 → ùto "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.
Orthography
The Cernelian orthography is written in Latin, and definitely same as that of Polish.
| 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/ |
| 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").
