Alska/Dialects

Dialect Classification

Alska has six primary dialects. Four of these form a continuum across the main island of Alsland; the fifth and sixth dialects are not related to each other, but are easily recognizable as Alska.

On Alsland Proper, there are four dialect regions: East, West, North, and South. Southern Alsla is the standard, and Northern Alska is the farthest from it. The two colonial dialects are even further, but are not spoken on the main island. These regions in turn have their own dialects, but they are far too small to be recognized by non-speakers as such.

Sydalska

<url=http://linguifex.com/index.php?title=Alska>Southern Alslandic<url> - Will fix later

Nordalska

Northern Alska is one of the least spoken of all the dialects, and is the farthest away from Southern Alska on the dialect continuum. Major differences include pronunciation, spelling, and small grammar changes.

Phonology

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Letters	Pronunciation	Further information
a	[a:]/[ɑ]	can make two different sounds, but has no short version
b	[b]	-
d	[d]	-
e	[ɛ] / [e:]	-
f	[f]	-
g	[g]	-
h	[h]	-
i	[i]	No short version
j	[j]	corresponds to y in English you
k	[k]	-
l	[l]	-
m	[m]	-
n	[n]	-
o	[ò]/[o̞]	-
p	[p]	-
r	[ʁ]
s	[s]	-
t	[t]	-
u	[u:]	has no short version
v	[f]	-
y	[i:]	pronounced like 'e' in English 'me'
å	[au]	-
ø	[ø]	-
æy	[aj]	-
ey	[ei:]	-
uy	[u:i]	-
iy	[i:j]	Mid-closed version of [i:]
øy	[øy]	-

The Northern Alska alphabet has 28 letters. The five digraphs, æy, ey, ui, iy, and øy, are counted as single letters. All of these sounds can be made with Standard Alskan (SA) orthography, with the exception of [au], which is represented by the letter å in Northern Alska.

The letter iy is also known as 'creaky i' because of it's pronunciation.

Certain letters, such as å and y do not correspond to their Standard counterparts. Compare the SA versions of å and y ([ɔ] and [y:]) to NA's [au] and [i:].

The letter s is also pronounced [ʃ] in many cases, and the digraph sj is pronounced [sj]

Another overarching rule for NA pronunciation is that most consonants switch with their voiced or unvoiced versions when they are used in a word, but are pronounced normally when they start a word.

• [k] - [d]
• [g] - [k]
• [d] - [b]

And so forth.

Pronunciation Differences/Spelling Differences

Many words are spelled the same in both dialects, but can be pronounced very differently from each other:

Word	Pronunciation (NA)	Pronunciation (SA)	Meaning
Alsland	[alʃ'lɑ:nt]	[als'la:nd]	alsland
Flyge	[fli:'kɛ]	[fly:'gɛ]	girl, woman
Vadr	[fa:'tɛʁ]	[fa:'r]	father

There are certain common words that are spelled differently but are pronounced the same:

Word (SA)	Word (NA)	Pronunciation (Both)	Meaning
Hej	Hæy	[haj]	hello
Sju	Su	[ʃu]	shoe
Dig	Dæyg	[dajg]	you (acc.)

Finally, there are many words that are spelled differently and pronounced differently:

Spelling (SA)	Pronunciation (SA)	Spelling (NA)	Pronunciation (NA)	Meaning
Ja	[ja]	Jå	[jau]	yes
Nej	[naj]	Ney	[nei:]	no
ett Vere	[et vɛrɛ]	i Ve	[i: ve:]	to be

Grammar

Grammar is largely the same in Northern Alska as it is in Standard Alska, with a few execptions.

When verbs are in the infinitive, i is placed in front of them instead of SA's ett:

• i køyke (NA) - ett kyke (SA) - to cook

Notice the spelling change from 'y' to 'øy' to accommodate the missing [y:] phoneme in NA.

The formation of past tense endings also changes in NA. Words that have an '-r' ending in the past tense in Standard Alska have a '-kk' ending in Northern Alska:

• gikk (NA) - gir (SA) - went
• fikk (NA) - fir (SA) - found

This change applies only to '-r' words and the other past tense suffixes are the same in Northern Alska as they are in Southern Aslka.

Personal Pronouns

Standard Alska first, Northern Alska second:

Case	1st person
	Singular		Plural
Nominative	jeg/jæyg		vi/vi
Accusative	mig/mæyg		oss/uss
Dative	mig/mæyg		oss/uss
Genitive	minn/mæyn		osser/usser
Case	2nd person
	Singular		Plural
Nominative	du/du		i/enne
Accusative	dig/dæyg		ig/enneg
Dative	dig/dæyg		ig/enneg
Genitive	-		-
Case	3rd person
	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	han/han	hun/hun	den/det / den/det	disse/disse / disse/disse
Accusative	han/han	hun/hun	den/det / den/det	disse/disse / disse/disse
Dative	ham/ham	hum/hum	dan/dat / dan/dat	dasse/dasse / dasse/dasse
Genitive	-	-	-	-