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')
Grammar
Morphology
Consonant Mutations
As with all modern Celtic languages, Cumbraek makes extensive use of initial consonant mutations to help signal grammatical and syntactic information. Cumbraek has three main mutations: lenition (mootthei), spirantisation (anadhlolhei) and nasalisation (troonolhei). There is a fourth type of mutation called aspiration (anadhleth) in which word-initial vowels take an h'- before them.
The changes caused by the mutations are summarised in the following table.
| Radical | Lenition | Spirantisation | Nasalisation |
|---|---|---|---|
| p | b | f | |
| t | d | th | |
| c | g | ch | |
| b | v | m | |
| d | dh | n | |
| g | h | ng | |
| gw | w | nw | |
| j | y | ny | |
| m | v |
For brevity, words routinely causing mutations will be marked with superscript letters in this article: L for lenition, S for spirantisation, N for nasalisation and H for aspiration.
Vowel Mutations
Cumbraek also has two vowel mutations, which occur regularly. Feminisation is generally restricted to adjectives and causes an i to become e and a u to become o. Alternation is common in the formation of plurals and in certain verb forms, and causes the following changes:
| Radical | Alternate |
|---|---|
| a | e |
| e | i |
| o | |
| ae | ea |
| ay | |
| oy | oo |
| a...a | e...e |
| a...e | e...i |
| a...o | |
| o...o | |
| a...u |
In some cases, these changes work backwards (e.g. gwrek 'woman' has the plural form gwragedh).