Sähsch

Sähsch is a Germanic-based constructed language. Made by Ceige, it has previously been know by various names before, with various orthographies. Sähsch in its current incarnation is an attempt to consolidate previous versions of the language with a new and better balanced phonology, and discard features outside its scope. In-universe, it's speakers are largely European, and one could interpret the language and its culture as a reflection, parody, or idealisation of Northern continental Europe from the eyes of a descendent of its emigrants.

Phonology

Orthography

The Sessian orthography uses the Latin alphabet with diacritics such as the diaresis, popularly known as the umlaut.

Consonants

	Labial	Dento-Alveolar	Post-Alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Plosives & Affricates	p d	t d	tʃ (dʒ)	k g
Fricatives	f v	s z	ʃ (ʒ)		h
Nasals	m	n		ŋ
Liquids		l r

Vowels

Phonemic Monophthongs

	Front	Central	Back
High	i i:	ü ü:	u u:
Mid	e e:	ö ö:	o o:
Open	ä ä:	a a:	å å:

Diphthongs

Some dialects have /ai/ and /au/ instead of /i:/ and /u:/, or in addition to them. Other dialects produce diphthongs from /e:/ and /o:/.

Phonetic Realisations

The underlying phonemic symmetry is often broken by the dialects of the language, including the standard language. Several popular processes underway which cause this include:

• "Vowel Breaking" (diphthongisation)
• U-Fronting / U-Ü Merger (/u:/ and new diphthongs containing /u/ have this element centralised to /ü/)

• New diphthongs include /ou/ from /o:/, as opposed to the older /au/ from /u:/

• L-Vocalisation (sequences of a vowel followed by L result in a velarisation of the vowel)

In the Lowlands dialect, the following broadly described phones in the table below are generally produced by the underlying phonology of the language. The split between realisations reveals the presence of sub-dialects within the Lowlands dialect.

The Highlands dialect is affected less by diphthongisation but has very consistent U-Fronting in /u:/ and has completed the /i:/ and /u:/ diphthongisation process, unlike the Lowlands dialect where speakers still have a very old split on the issue.

Lowlands

Underlying Phoneme	Realisation
a	ɑ̈
a:	ɑ̈:
ä	[e̞ ~ ɛ]
ä:	[e̞ɪ ~ ɛɪ] or [ɛ:]
å	[o̞ ~ ɒ]
å	[o̞:], or [o̞ü]
e	[e̞ ~ ɛ]
e:	[e̞ɪ ~ ɛɪ], or [ɪi ~ i: ~ e̞]
i	[ɪ]
i:	[äɪ], or [ɪi: ~ i:]
o	[o̞]
o:	[o̞ü ~ ɔü], or [ɔʊ ~ u: ~ o̞:]
ö	[ə]
ö:	[ə:]
u	[u ~ ʊ ~ ü]
u:	[äʊ ~ äu] or [ʊ̈ü ~ ü: ~ u:]
ü	[ü ~ ʊ]
ü:	[ʊ̈ü ~ ü: ~ y:]

Highlands

Underlying Phoneme	Realisation
a	ɑ̈
a:	ɑ̈:
ä	[e̞ ~ ɛ]
ä:	[e̞:]
å	[o̞]
å	[o̞:]
e	[e̞ ~ ɛ]
e:	[e̞:]
i	[ɪ]
i:	[äɪ]
o	[o̞]
o:	[o̞:]
ö	[ə]
ö:	[ə:]
u	[u ~ ü]
u:	[äʊ]
ü	[ü ~ ʊ]
ü:	[ü:~ y:]

Prosody

Sähsch uses stress to identify words rather than pitch or tone, which are instead used suprasegmentally in intonation (although stress can also be used for intonation too at the sentence level).

Stress

Stress is almost always on the first syllable of a root. Prefixes are generally unstressed except for emphasis. The main exception to this rule is where long vowels are involved, as they are almost always stressed (primary, secondary, tertiary etc). This resulted from unstressed long vowels first being eliminated, and then being repropagated throughout the language again with compounding and loanwords.

Romance and Latinate loanwords are renown for having final or penultimate stress in the language.

Intonation

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Phonological History of Sähsch

Vowel Mutations

Sähsch has historically undergone a large series of vowel mutations, called the i-, u-, and a-mutations or umlauts. Respectively they are characterised by the following effects they have on preceding vowels:

• i-umlaut: +front, -round, -open
• u-umlaut: -front, +round, -open
• a-umlaut: +open, +back (albeit subtle)

I-Umlaut

• a+i → ä in Älbe < albī river
• ā+i → äh in Käse < kāsijaz cheese
• ē+i → äh in Bräde < brēþiz vapour, breath
• also in Quäne < kwēniz lady
• ō+i → öh in Glöde < glōdiz glow
• u+i → ü in Bühte/Bühte < buhtiz bight, bay, cove
• ū+i → üh in Brüde < brūdiz bride

U-Umlaut

• a+u → å in Ånd < anudz duck
• also in Åss < ansuz áss as in æsir
• also in Dråhte/Dråchte vestments or burden
• also in Hånd < handuz
• e+u → ö in Quöde < kweþuz belly
• i+u → ü in Lüde < liþuz member
• also in Früde < friþuz peace

A-Umlaut

• e+a → ä in Ärl < erlaz earl
• i+a → ä in Fäsch < fiskaz fish
• ī+a → äh in Dähk < dīkaz dyke (but Deick)
• u+a → o in Bode < budô apostle
• ū+a → oh in Hobe < hūbǭ hood (but Haub and Hohf)