Pamarėska/Orthography

Pomorian orthography is the system of writing the Pomorian language. The Pomorian alphabet, called abecėde is derived from the Latin alphabet, but includes some additional letters with diacritics. The orthography is mostly phonemic - every single phoneme of the spoken language is represented with a single letter or digraph. There are three different orthographies: the traditional, the standard and the eastern (or dictionary). Each one has its' own usage, but only the standard orthography is used as the official one.

Modern Pomorian alphabet

Majuscule forms (uppercase or capital letters)

A

Ą

Å

B

C

Č

D

E

Ę

Ė

F

G

H

I

Į

Y

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

R

S

Š

T

U

Ų

Ū

V

Z

Ž

Minuscule forms (lowercase or small letters)

a

ą

å

b

c

č

d

e

ę

ė

f

g

h

i

į

y

j

k

l

m

n

o

p

r

s

š

t

u

ų

ū

v

z

ž

Name of Letters

a

a nosinå

a rįdžinå

bė

cė

čė

dė

e

e nosinå

ė dilgå

ef

gė

ha

i

i nosinå

i dilgå

jot

ka

el

em

en

o

pė

er

es

eš

tė

u

u nosinå

u dilgå

vė

zė

žė

Occasionally "Ť,ť" and "Ď,ď" can be used to indicate /c/ and /ɟ/ respectively. These letters called "tė hačinå" and "dė hačinå" are not treated as fully independent, but as variants of ordinary "T,t" and "D,d" which could be written instead.

Spelling rules

Palatalization

The Pomorian language has palatalized or palatal consonants as separate phonemes, but there are no special characters to represent them in its' orthography (except for /c/ and /ɟ/ sounds which in the Standard are written sometimes as "ť" and "ď"). Instead a silent "i" letter is used before a back vowel called "i kluså". This applies only to dental consonants (/n/, /l/, /r/, /t/, /d/, /s/ and /z/), other consonants can not palatalize in Pomorian. There is no distinction between plain and palatalized consonants after front vowels in the Pomorian Proper (somewhat palatalized consonants appear in this position, for example: ši - "this" - is usually /ʃʲɪ/, but /ʃʲ/ is not fully palatalized and is not a phoneme in Pomorian)

Written	Pronounced
ni	/ɲ/
li	/ʎ/
ri	/rʲ/
ti/či	/c//t͡ɕ/
di/dži	/ɟ//d͡ʑ/
si	/sʲ~ɕ/
zi	/zʲ~ʑ/

Nasal vowels

In Pomorian nasal vowels are represented by letters with an ogonek and in the Standard those letters should always be pronounced as nasal vowels. Despite that after plosive consonants (or "stops") most speakers pronounce them as a sequence of an oral (or sometimes nasal) vowel and nasal consonant usually of the same place of articulation as the stop is. This is very common among speakers of Western dialects. For example the word ązù - "narrow" - is pronounced /ɔ̃ː.ˈzʊ/, but blą̃de - "fog" - is /ˈblɒn.dɛ/ or /ˈblɒ̃n.dɛ/. In North-Western dialect a nasal consonant is always fully articulated and does not always match the following consonant, for example: dų́ti - "to blow" - is /ˈdʊm.tɪ/ (as if it was *dùmti), but in the Pomorian Proper the usual pronunciation is /ˈdʊ̃n.tɪ/ or /ˈdʊ̃n.tʲɪ/.

Devoicing

In Pomorian words almost always end with a vowel because of the final consonant reduction - a process happened in Old Pomorian. Only some words still end with a consonant, which if voiced can undergo devoicing before a word beginning with a voiceless consonant. For example: az tėkojå - "I run" - is pronounced /ɑs.tʲeː.ˈkoː.jɒ/, but az gålbėjå - I speak - is /ɑz.gɒl.ˈbʲeː.jɒ/. In non-Western dialects some final vowels are dropped and this rule proceeds in more cases.

History

First records

Early Pomorian was not a written language. First known written record came from a German monastery built in Viestūtė in the XIII century. It is a carving on a stone stating: "Deywes kun semya preienlus esti", which translates as: "God has come to this land". It is the only attestation where final "s" is present, but it is doubtful whether the "s" was actually pronounced as /s/. In later texts of the same century final consonants has already been absent. During this period the first Old Pomorian orthography began forming under the German language influence. About a hundred words and some phrases of that time were recorded by Teutonic order missionaries, for example:

1. Laypa kaylie! - "Hello!" (literally - "Good health!")
2. Ie estie drauge nassye - "He is a friend of ours".
3. Schweytheian weydan thymsaweie - "I enlighten the path in the darkness".
4. Atuesztun kun swetha - "(in order) to lead to the light".

These words are written with big variations in spelling, but are more or less recognizable.

A beginning of the Pater Noster was written in "Gudoniske Predihte" ("Gdańskie kazania" in Polish) from 1395: "Ate Nassye kao essi annebesseich". The word kater - which - is written here as kao (from earlier kan) showing that final "n" has already been dropped or turned into some kind of an approximant and in the result giving the word kå in North-Western dialect.