Cernelian/Phonetics and orthography
Phonetics
Consonants
| Labial | Dental | Post-alveolar | Alveo-palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | Palatal | Plain | Palatal | |||||
| Nasal | /m/ | /mʲ/ | /n/ | /ɲ/ | /ŋ/ | |||
| Plosive | /p b/ | /pʲ bʲ/ | /t d/ | /k ɡ/ | /kʲ ɡʲ/ | (/ʔ/) | ||
| 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]).
Cernelian has the phoneme /ʔ/ that arose between vowels to avoid hiatus (jeószmie /jɛˈʔuʂmʲjɛ/ "if we share"), but this was actually not phonemic.
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 structure
The maximal consonant structure in Cernelian is CCVCC (C = consonants, V = vowels).
Consonant gradation
Like Finnish and Estonian, consonant gradation (involving lenition) 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 endings often affected by weak gradation include:
- Nominative (including accusative and vocative) plurals of regular declensions (jako : aja)
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 (iję̀ "I grinded" vs. ìję "of the horsehair").
- 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").
