Suwáá/New Urban

New Urban Sjowaázh is an emergent variety of Sjowaázh spoken by the youngest generation (children and teens) of the urban middle class.

Origins

Compared to other groups, urban women speakers of Sjowaázh speak somewhat more uniformly, in a less dialectal and somewhat more posh style of speech. Young women being the main drivers of linguistic change, a version of the gynelect is on its way to becoming a new, non-posh standard for Sjowaázh.

Phonology

The phonology is similar to High Sjowaázh, with a few differences.

• plain unaspirated consonants /p t c k ts tʂ tɕ s ɕ ʂ/ become voiced /b d ɟ g dz dʐ dʑ
• Word-initial /sC-/ clusters become /C-/.
• zh is a retroflex approximant.
• ly merges with y.
• p may be pronounced [f].
• Stress accent rather than pitch accent (as in Modern Greek).