Frisian (North)

Source: Lasswell, Steven Theophilos. 1998. An ecological reference grammar of Sölring North Frisian. Santa Barbara, CA: UCSB dissertation.

Comments: The dental phoneme /ð/ is now very infrequent in usage, having largely merged into /r/ or /l/ in recent times (p. 87). Except for initially, the voiced [velar stops] are generally fricativized (p. 88). The (voiceless) palatal stop /c/ occurs medially and finally, in initial position and in initial consonant clusters, it is now affricated to [tʃ] (pp. 88–89). The velar [nasal] does not occur in initial position... The phoneme /r/ has the widest range of allophony of all the consonants. It is (a) trilled initially and (b) flapped as part of a cluster... Intervocalically, it is (c) a flap or, in rapid speech, an approximant. Before a stop, it occurs (d) as the voiceless velar fricative [x]. In final position (e) following the diphthong /au/ [aʷ], it is lost entirely; in other syllble-final environments, it vocalizes (f) to [ɐ̯] except for of Uastring.., for whom it also disappears (p. 89). In the labiodental series, final /v/ is devoiced... [M]edially in a voiced environment, [the voiceless alveolar sibilant] is voiced at the beginning of an unaccented syllable, particularly if the preceding syllable is long... PostaIveolar /ʃ/ occurs only in initial position (p. 90). The phoneme /x/ occurs only medially and finally, where it has two allophones: velar [x] following back vowels (including [a]) and palatal [ç] after front vowels... The glottal fricative occurs only syllable-initially... [The palatal approximant] is found only syllable-initially (p. 91). The long open-mid sounds /ɛː/ and /ɔː/, however, are relics that have lost their contrastiveness in the speech of most present-day speakers, having merged into the corresponding long close-mid phonemes (pp. 92–93). Willkommen (1991) posits only one "true" diphthong at the phonemic Ievel, namely /ua/... the sounds in the present-day language seem better characterized synchronicalIy as diphthongs (p. 96). The unstressed allophone of /e/ [is] [ə] (p. 99). [T]he medial cluster -njs- has... by now palatalized to [ɲʒ]... A consistent exception to [lowering of short vowels] is found in the tense, closed articulation [i] < /i/ before [ŋ] in both stressed and unstressed syllables (p. 101).

Contributed by: Anton Kukhto (kukhto@mit.edu)