Bźatga

Phonology and Orthography

Orthography

Bźatga is written with the following 18 letters of the Latin alphabet:

a b c d e g i j l m n o r s t u v z

In addition to these base forms, called primary or unmarked letters, diacritics are used to create secondary and tertiary forms, which are collectively called the marked letters. In the case of vowels, secondary forms represent pretonic and therefore unstressed variants and are marked with a breve, e.g. răveusemi "I have seen". Secondary forms of consonants are iotised variants of the primary sounds and are marked with an acute accent, e.g. craśu "drier". The tertiary forms of both vowels and consonants are marked with the caret and only the letters ê, ô, ŝ and ẑ occur. They are not derived from the primary forms.

The table below shows the various forms of the letters:

	Vowels	Stops	Fricatives	Sonorants
Primary	a	e	i	o	u	b	t	d	c	g	v	s	z	j	l	m	n	r
Secondary	ă	ĕ	ĭ	ŏ	ŭ				ć	ǵ		ś	ź		ł		ń	ŕ
Tertiary		ê		ô								ŝ	ẑ

Additionally, two purely orthographic conventions are used:

• The letters î and û occur in diphthongs deriving from vi, *ji and *vu; e.g. doû, doî "black" from **dovu, **dovi
• The hook is used with any vowel or diphthong to show the absence of a following nasal, in Class 4 Nominals; e.g. camvǫ "foster son", pl. camvone.

Taken together the following letters may occur in Bźatga orthography:

a ă ą b c ć d e ĕ ê ę g ǵ i ĭ î į j l ł m n ń o ŏ ô ǫ r ŕ s ś ŝ t u ŭ û ų v z ź ẑ

Consonants

Bźatga contains the following consonant inventory:

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	m	n		ɲ
Plosive	b	t      d			k      g
Fricative	β	s      z	ʃ      ʒ
Affricate		t͡s      d͡z	t͡ʃ      d͡ʒ
Approximant				j
Trill		r
Lateral app.		l		ʎ

Vowels

Bźatga has the following eight pure vowels:

	Front	Near- front	Central	Near- back	Back
Close	i u e o ɛ ɔ ɐ a
Near-close
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid
Near-open
Open

Note: /ɐ/ is an allophone of /a/ found in unstressed final or pretonic position.

In addition there are the following six diphthongs: /aj/, /ɛj/, /ɔj/, /aw/, /ɛw/, /ɔw/.

Stress

Stress placement is regularly on the first syllable of a word. The only exception to this is in words with an unstressed prefix, the vowel of which is marked with a breve, e.g. căbrova "tribesman" /kɐˈbrɔvɐ/.

Phonetic Processes

Bźatga has a number of phonetic processes which affect the spelling and pronunciation of words in inflexion and composition.

Iotisation

Iotisation is the process by which an inflexional j affects the preceding consonant. It is seen, for example, in the comparative forms of adjectives and in some verb forms. All consonants, except j itself, are affected by iotisation, in the following ways:

• most consonants change to their secondary form, e.g. glasa "clear, blue", cpv. glaśu "bluer".
• d and t become ć and ǵ respectively, e.g. môde "soft", cpv. môǵu "softer".
• b and m are simply followed by the letter j, e.g. caba "crooked", cpv. cabju "more crooked".
• v becomes j, e.g. dova "black", cpv. doju "blacker".

Palatalisation

Palatalisation is an allophonic process whereby certain consonants are affected by a following i. This mainly affects the sonorants l, n and r, which are altered to their secondary form, and the letters d and t which become ẑ and ŝ respectively. For example, dana "gift", pl. dańi, cata "pool", pl. caŝi.

Alternation of j/i and v/u

As stated above, there are six dipthongs in Bźatga: ai, ei, oi and au, eu, ou. These are only permitted to occur before a consonant or at the end of a word. When any of these comes to occur before a vowel, the second element becomes j or v respectively, e.g. saide "(he) seeks" but saja "seek!". The same is true in reverse, so dova "black" becomes doudra "blackness".

Because of this alternation, only a, e and o can usually occur before j and v. In a few rare cases the combination iv occurs, which becomes û before a consonant, e.g. łiva "colour" becomes łûleda "colourful, coloured".

Whenever the combinations **ji and *vu would occur as a result of inflexion or derivation, the consonant is lost and the remaining i or u forms a diphthong with the preceding vowel. The same occurs to the combination *ovi, which becomes oî. The second element of a diphthong formed in this way is marked by a caret, not to show a difference in pronunciation from the unmarked form, but to show the absence of the consonant. This process can clearly be seen in the declension of the adjective dova "black": dova (NAsg), doû (Osg, < *dovu), doî (Pl, < *dovi). Note also the change of *iji > î and *ivu, *iju > û (e.g. bźija "power, status", Osg. bźû, pl. bźî).