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===Cyrillic script=== | ===Cyrillic script=== | ||
==Historical changes== | |||
===Wulfilan Gothic to Post-Gothic=== | |||
====Vowels==== | |||
Wulfilan Gothic had three (in some analyses five) short vowels and seven long vowels. The short vowels were maintained in Post-Gothic and the long vowels reduced to five; Wulfilan Gothic already showed signs of close-mid vowels with close ones: | |||
*Got. ''ē'' /eː/ > Post-Got. ''ei''/iː/ | |||
*Got. ''ō'' /oː/ > Post-Got. ''ū'' /uː/ | |||
This is attested in variant spellings such as leikeis for lēkeis. In Post-Gothic this merger was complete. | |||
The most important sound change with respect to short vowels was loss of syllable-final ''h'' /h/ with compensatory lengthening: | |||
* Got. ''ah'' /ah/ > Post-Got. ''ā'' /aː/ | |||
* Got. ''aíh'' /ɛh/ > Post-Got. ''ái'' /ɛː/ | |||
* Got. ''aúh'' /ɔh/ > Post-Got. ''áu'' /ɔː/ | |||
This raised ''ā'' /aː/ from a marginal phoneme to a common one. | |||
====Consonants==== | |||
The proposed [[w:Thurneysen's law|Thurneysen's law]] became fully operational in Post-Gothic, although it was modified: | |||
* Spirants gained or lost voice in dissimilation with the previous consonant in ''all'' syllables, not only unstressed ones | |||
* The condition for the law depended only on whether the previous consonant was voiced, and consonant clusters did not affect it | |||