Etrandish phonology

Like many other languages, Etrandish has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically (see Old Etrandish and Middle Etrandish) and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regional dialects of Etrandish share a largely similar (but not identical) phonological system.

Phonotactics
In Etrandish, the construction of a syllable is, O standing for Obstrudent (stop, fricative, affricate), L standing for sonorant (nasal, rhotic, lateral approximant, semivowel), and V standing for vowel. There are some limitations however.
 * Syllable-initially, two stop or affricate consonants cannot follow each other in the same syllable. Only stop-fricative and fricative-stop clusters are allowed (not counting the optional glide or rhotic that may follow).
 * Syllable-initially, fricative-stop clusters are only tolerated if they are voiceless. Clusters like are not tolerated, only.
 * In native Etrandish vocabulary, stop-fricative clusters also take place in their voiceless forms, but voiced clusters like are in fact tolerated in foreign loanwords, such as the personal name Gzaxia.
 * Only up to two sonorants may form a cluster within a single syllable. Such a cluster can only be followed by a fricative within the same syllable. It may not be followed by a stop or affricate consonant, unless it is in the following syllable.
 * Sonorant-clusters can only exist at syllable coda, not the syllable onset.
 * Some consonants - such as the velar nasal - can only take place in the syllable coda, never at the offset.
 * The placeless nasal - which only occurs in lower-class dialects - appears only at the end of words, and only when following a vowel.

Now that we know how Etrandish syllables are structured, we also need to realize that Etradish also has sandhi - in other words, if a syllable is followed by a syllable that begins with a vowel (has no initial consonants), the first syllable's last consonant gets transferred over to the second syllable. This also extends beyond word boundaries. For example, (Calder) is pronounced  in isolation, while  (may, might, possibly) is always. Come them together, and instead of, we get or. The explanation is that +  equals, not. Normally, the end result would produce a single flapped instead of the geminated trill, but since this is the combination of two words, the  gets treated as a word-initial  - a trill. The only exception to this is if the final vowel of the first word is long, in which case a flapped is produced instead.

Other than, also becomes geminated, if a word ending with it is followed by a word starting with a vowel - so long as the first word's final syllable has a short vowel, that is, as a long vowel would block the gemination. Stops, fricatives and nasals - other than - simply get transferred over without any gemination. inserts a onto the following word instead.

Consonants

 * occours exclusively in loanwords and onomatopoeia.
 * occours exclusively in loanwords and most speakers conflate it with or reinterprete it as.
 * can only occour in syllable coda. If followed by a vowel, it is extended to.
 * Clusters of velar stops + labial approximant  coalesce into labio-velar stops  in all variants of Etrandish, but for the sake of clarity, we won't treat them as new phonemes and instead transcribe them as.

Vowels

 * The status of the schwa as a separate phoneme is questionable, because it primarily occurs as the allophone of, , ,  and  before non-prevocalic , as well as the allophone of  between another vowel and non-prevocalic . Nevertheless, for the sake of clarity, it will be treated as a separate vowel phoneme, because the pronounciation of word-final  and  as  has been lexicalized.
 * Most dialects also feature vowel reduction absent from Standard Etrandish that makes the schwa surface in other contexts as well.

Consonants

 * In both Standard Etrandish and the majority of dialects, the fortis stops and affricates are aspirated  when in the syllable onset. In the syllable coda, the plosives  are unreleased, the affricates  are simply unaspirated . The plosives  are also unaspirated  when they are preceded by a sibilant fricative or affricate.
 * The geminated fortis stops and affricates are actually realized as unreleased stop + aspirated stop/affricate clusters . Their lenis counterparts  are geminated normally.
 * The lenis stops and affricates are slack-voiced  word-initially and word-finally, fully voiced otherwise. In the northern dialect, they are devoiced completely when not word-medial.
 * has three main realizations in Standard Etrandish:
 * An apico-alveolar or post-alveolar multi-period trill word-initially and when geminated
 * An apico-alveolar, post-alveolar or retroflex approximant when not followed by a vowel - or alternatively, the R-colouring of the vowel it follows, with  being  for example, before a word boundary or another consonant.
 * An apico-alveolar or post-alveolar flap in every other position.
 * The aspiration of voiceless stops and affricates also devoices in clusters, causing  to be pronounced as .  can alternatively be pronounced as an alveolar or post-alveolar non-sibilant affricate.
 * For the clusters, there is a free variation between stop + trill/flap clusters and non-sibilant affricates . The earlier is the conservative and upper-class pronunciation, the latter is the more casual/broad one associated with the lower stratas.
 * The lateral approximant is velarized  when not followed by a vowel.
 * has a relatively large amount of allophones depending on their position:
 * Voiceless glottal approximant word-initially, and after nasals, voiceless stops and voiceless fricatives
 * Voiced glottal approximant between two vowels
 * doesn't occour after voiced stops and fricatives because causes said voiced stops and fricatives to devoice, due to regressive assimilation
 * Voiceless velar fricative between a back/central vowel and a voiceless stop, fricative or word boundary. Some speakers may use a voiceless uvular fricative  instead.
 * Voiceless palatal fricative between a front vowel and a voiceless stop, fricative or word boundary
 * Voiced velar fricative between a back / central vowel and a voiced stop or fricative. Some speakers may use a voiced uvular fricative  instead.
 * Voiced palatal fricative between a front vowel and a voiced stop or fricative.

Vowels

 * The vowels are lowered, often even approaching near-open . In contrast.  are somewhat raised, sometimes even approaching true mid.
 * Just like in most other dialects, in Standard Etrandish, the vowel has the rounded allophone  before non-prevocalic  and . Historical  has shifted completely to  before non-prevocalic  and  - unlike the previous allophony, this has been fully lexicalized. The vowel  has two additional allophones in Standard Etrandish:
 * after other vowels and word-finally. In other words, are pronounced as.
 * between other vowels and non-prevocalic . As such, The clusters are pronounced as  or  when they aren't being followed by a vowel.
 * The vowels are all neutralized as a schwa  before non-prevocalic . It could be argued that  are all realized as an R-coloured vowel  word-finally and before other consonants.
 * The second element of the diphthongs is replaced by a schwa  when said diphthongs are followed by a non-prevocalic, resulting in  or . Historical  have become  before non-prevocalic  and.
 * are realized as, when not followed by another vowel.