Etrandish language

The Etrandish language is a Human language first spoken in the territories that would become the Kingdom of Etrand by 0 BEKE/AEKE. It reached it's currently recognizable and intelligible form roughly around 600 AEKE, but changes are still ongoing.

At this point, Etrandish has became the lingua franca of global trade, turning from a borrowing language into a loaning language, extending the language beyond the boundaries of the Kingdom of Etrand

Consonants

 * The voiceless stops and affricates became aspirated
 * Modally voiced stops and affricates partially lost their voicing word-initially and word-finally, becoming slack-voiced (completely devoiced in northern dialects)
 * In uneducated speech, coda-position nasals merged into a new phoneme  at the ends of words
 * In all dialects but Standard Etrandish, the voiceless merges with the voiced

Vowels

 * The laxing of short to  has become fully accepted as standard and spread to diphthongs too.
 * ,, , and  shifted to , , ,  and.
 * and merged as
 * Diphthongization of long close-mid vowels:
 * and diphthongized to  and
 * and merged as
 * The long open-mid vowels remained unchanged
 * Shift of to
 * The cluster became
 * also became before the consonants.
 * Shift of to, eliminating historical distinction with  (which shifted to  400 years before)
 * remained unchanged
 * Merger of to  in all except the Northern dialects

Phonotactics
In Etrandish, the construction of a syllable is /(O)(O)(S)V(S)(S)(O)(O)/, 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.
 * 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 /zb zd zg/ are not tolerated, only /sp st sk/.
 * In native Etrandish vocabulary, stop-fricative clusters also take place in their voiceless forms, but voiced clusters like /bz dz gz/ 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 /ŋ/ - can only take place in the syllable coda, never at the offset.
 * The placeless nasal /ɴ/ - 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, /kɔl.dɛr/ (Calder) is pronounced [kʰɔłdəɹ] in isolation, while /eɪk/ (may, might, possibly) is always [eɪ̯k]. Come them together, and instead of [kʰɔłdəɹ‿eɪk], we get [kʰɔłdɛr‿reɪk] or [kʰɔłdɛrːeɪk]. The explanation is that /kɔl.dɛr/ + /eɪk/ equals /kɔl.dɛ reɪk/, not /kɔl.dɛr eɪk/. Normally, the end result would produce a single flapped [ɾ] instead of the geminated trill [rː], but since this is the combination of two words, the /r/ gets treated as a word-initial /r/ - a trill.

Other than /r/, /l/ also becomes geminated, if a word ending with it is followed by a word starting with a vowel. Stops, fricatives and nasals - other than /ŋ/ - simply get transferred over. /ŋ/ inserts a /g/ onto the following word instead.

Consonants

 * This is about Standard Etrandish phonology. If you want to read about dialects, see Etrandish dialects.


 * /h/ has a relatively large amount of allophones depending on their position:
 * Voiceless glottal approximant [h] word-initially, and after nasals, voiceless stops and voiceless fricatives
 * Voiced glottal approximant [ɦ] between two vowels
 * Voiceless velar fricative [x] between a back/central vowel and a voiceless stop, fricative or word boundary. Some speakers may use a voiceless uvular fricative [χ] instead.
 * Voiceless palatal fricative [ç] between a front vowel and a voiceless stop, fricative or word boundary
 * Voiced velar fricative [ɣ] between a back/central vowel and a voiced stop or fricative. Some speakers may use a voiced uvular fricative [ʁ] instead.
 * Voiced palatal fricative [ʝ] between a front vowel and a voiced stop or fricative.
 * The voiceless /ʍ/ is present only in conservative speech. In every other variant, it is merged with the voiced /w/.
 * The voiceless stops and affricates /p t t͡s t͡ʃ k kʷ/ are aspirated [pʰ tʰ t͡sʰ t͡ʃʰ kʰ kʷʰ] when not in the syllable coda or proceeding a sibilant.
 * There is no aspiration in conservative speech.
 * The voiceless stops /p t k/ are typically unreleased [p̚ t̚ k̚] in the syllable coda
 * In emphatic speech, they may be aspirated [pʰ tʰ kʰ] instead
 * The voiced stops and affricates /b d d͡ʒ g gʷ/ are slack-voiced [b̥ d̥ d̥͡ʒ g̊ g̊ʷ] word-initially and word-finally.
 * In the dialects of Northern Etrand, they may be completely devoiced [p t t͡ʃ k kʷ] in these environments. This is a marked feature of the stereotypical Steelhelm accent.
 * Modally voiced stops and affricates are always fully voiced in conservative speech.
 * The dental fricatives /θ ð/ are often shifted to other positions.
 * /ð/ is shifted to [d̪] or even merged with /d/ in most dialects
 * /θ/ is merged with /f/ in a lot of lower-class speech. Generally, /θ/ is preserved in its original form (as [θ]) much more widely than /ð/.
 * /θ ð/ are preserved as [θ ð] not only in conservative speech, but also in most educated speech
 * The placeless nasal /ɴ/ only exists in middle-class and lower-class speech as a merger of coda-position /m/, /n/ and /ŋ/ when no consonant follows
 * Conservative speech preserves /m/, /n/ and /ŋ/ fully intact, as [m], [n] and [ŋ]
 * Word-final /ɴ/ is vocalized to [ʊ̯̃] or [ʏ̯̃], forming nasal diphthongs. Otherwise, it assimilates to the following stop, becoming [m] before labial consonants, [ŋ] before velar consonants, [n] before all the other consonants.
 * /r/ is realized in multiple ways, depending on the envorniment
 * In Standard Etrandish - as well as in the dialect of Western Etrand -, /r/ is realized as an...
 * apico-alveolar trill [r̺] word-initially and when geminated
 * apico-alveolar/retroflex flap [ɾ̺] medially when not geminated
 * velarized alveolar/retroflex approximant [ɹˠ~ɻ] in the syllable coda
 * In several dialects, things are different:
 * in Northern Etrand, the Guttural R [ʀ~ʁ~ʁ̞~χ] reign supreme.
 * In Southern Etrand, /r/ is consistently realized as a post-alveolar / retroflex approximant [ɹ̠~ɻ] and may or may not be elided when no vowel follows (non-rhotic), based on speaker preference (speakers who elide the final /r/ pronunce /ər/ as [ɐ]).
 * In the Eastern Mountains, /r/ is realized as an alveolar/uvular trill [r~ʀ] consistenly. The flap and approximant are never used.
 * Non-humans will usually pronounce /r/ as in their native, non-human languages:
 * Dwarves realizing /r/ as a uvular trill [ʀ]
 * Halflings realizing /r/ as either an alveolar tflap [ɾ] or a uvular trill [ʀ], depending on the context.
 * Lizardmen realizing /r/ as a retroflex approximant [ɻ].

Vowels

 * This is about Standard Etrandish phonology. If you want to read about dialects, see Etrandish dialects.

Monophthongs

 * The vowels /ɒ/, /ɔː/ and /ɛː/ only exist before /r/ and /l/
 * In all but the most conservative pronunciations - Standard and dialectal alike - /uː/ is centralized to [ʉː], or even fronted to [yː], especially after /j/.
 * /ɑ/ is primarily pronounced as [ɑ] or [ɑ̈], but also has the following allophones:
 * [ɒ] before coda-position /r/
 * [ɔ] before coda-position /l/
 * [ɐ] in diphthongs, word-finally, and also in vowel clusters following /ɪ/, /ʏ/, /ʊ/, /ɛ/ or /ɔ/: in other words, /ɪɑ ʏɑ ʊɑ ɛɑ ɔɑ/ are pronounced as [ɪɐ ʏɐ ʊɐ ɛɐ ɔɐ].

Diphthongs

 * In lower-class and middle-class speech, the nasal diphthongs [ɑʊ̯̃ əʏ̯̃~əʊ̯̃ ɛʏ̯̃ œʏ̯̃ iʏ̯̃ ɔʊ̯̃ uʊ̯̃] exist too, as allophones of /ɑɴ əɴ ɛɴ œɴ ɪɴ ɔɴ ʊɴ/
 * /ɴ/ does not exist in conservative speech. Conservative speech preserves /m/, /n/ and /ŋ/ fully intact, as [m], [n] and [ŋ]
 * Even in most non-conservative speech, /ɴ/ only exists word-finally