Cumbraek

Cumbraek is a modern reconstruction of the lost medieval language of Cumbric, a Brythonic Celtic tongue once spoken in parts of southern Scotland and northern England.

Phonology and Orthography

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m			n			ŋ
Plosive	p b			t d			k g
Fricative		f v	θ ð	s (z)	ʃ		x	h
Affricate					t͡ʃ d͡ʒ
Approximant	w					y
Trill				r
Flap or tap				ɾ
Lateral app.				l	ɫ

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	iː y(ː)		u(ː)
Near-close	ɪ
Close-mid	eː		oː
Mid		ə
Open-mid	ɛ		ʌ ɔ(ː)
Near-open	æː
Open	a(ː)

Vowel Length

Pure vowels have long and short forms, with vowel length being determined by environment:

• Long vowels occur in monosyllables where the syllable ends in a single consonant or no consonant (-VC, -V)
• Short vowels occur in all polysyllables; in monosyllables ending in more than one consonant (-VCC(C)) and in proclitics

Note that the digraphs th, dh and ch are considered to be single letters.

Orthography

Cumbraek is written with the Latin alphabet and uses the following letters.

a b c/k ch d dh e f g gw h hw i j l m n o p r s t th u v w y

The table below shows the correspondences between letters and pronounciation.

Graph	IPA	Comments
a	/a(ː)/
ae, ay	/æː/	takes stress in final syllables
ai	/əɨ̯/
aw	/au̯/
b	/b/
c, k	/k/	c occurs word initially and in the digraph ck, k occurs everywhere else
	/g/	word-finally, before a voiced sound in the next word
ch	/x/
d	/d/
dh	/ð/
e	/eː/	long
	/ɛ/	short
ea, ee	/eː/	takes stress in final syllables
ey	/ɛɨ̯/
ew	/ɛu̯/
f	/f/
g	/g/
gw	/gʷ/
h	/h/	word-initially
	Ø	between vowels
hw	/xw ~ ʍ/	the distinction between /xw/ and /ʍ/ is largely a matter of personal choice
i	/iː/	long
	/ɪ/	short
iw	/ɪu̯/
j	/d͡ʒ/
l	/l/
l	/ɫ/
m	/m/
n	/n/
ng	/ŋ/
o	/oː/	long
	/ɔ ~ ɒ/	short (/ɒ/ is more common in the south)
oa	/ɔː ~ ɒː/	/ɒː/ is more common in the south
oe	/oː/	takes stress in final syllables
oo	/uː/	long
	/u/	short
ou	/yː ~ ʉː/	long; /ʉː/ is the southern form
	/y ~ ʉ/	short; /ʉ/ is the southern form
oy	/ɔɨ̯/
ow	/ɔu̯/
p	/p/	in most environments
	/b/	word-finally, before a voiced initial
r	/r/
rr	/r/
s	/s/	generally written <ss> between vowels
t	/t/	in most environments
	/d/	word finally, before a voiced initial
u	/uː/	long
	/u/	short, in monosyllables
	/ʌ/	in pretonic syllables and proclitics
uw	/uː/
v	/v/	v is a weak consonant, liable to be lost in final position unless a vowel initial follows
w	/w/
y	/j/	before vowels
	/ɪ/	in word-final, unstressed syllables only

Diacritics

Cumbraek makes occasional use of three diacritics:

• the acute accent is used to show an unexpected long vowel (e.g. bónt 'they may be'); when it occurs in the final syllable, it also marks stress (e.g. cantín 'canteen')
• the grave accent is used to show an unexpected stressed syllable (e.g. gràvity 'gravity'); it is also used to mark a short vowel in monosyllables (e.g. bùs 'bus')
• the trema is used to mark diaeresis and is place on the second vowel of a sequence (e.g. troäv 'I turn', troöun 'I was turning')