Yrkyr: Difference between revisions

Yrhu (''jyrhu'' /jər.ˈɦu/) is a dialect of Yrkyr spoken next to the Shallow Sea. While being mutually intelligible with Yrkyr to some degree (with Yrhu speakers understanding Yrkyr more than vice versa), it differ in vocabulary and grammar from the inland language. It shares some more lexical similarity with Yhkagur, while phonologically it is almost identical to Yrkyr. Yrhu is most notable for its breathy-voiced vowels at the end of many words and final /r/ and /l/ devoicing to /r̥/ and /ɬ/ respectively. Some consonant clusters, found in Yrkyr, are simplified to geminated consonants (all instances of /sn/, /t͡ʃŋ/, /t͡sn/, /tn/ become /nː/, /ln/ becomes /lː/ and /mn/ becomes /mː/. Most instances of /nt/ and /rt/ also become /tː/ and /t͡sː/, while /lt/ becomes /ɬ/ without gemination). Also the /x/~/s/ alteration in Yrkyr was leveled to /ɦ/ in Yrhu - ''tox'' ("rabbit") - ''tosyx'' ("rabbits") is ''toh'' - ''tohyx''. However, /ɬ/ is preserved in every position, while in Yrkyr the sound almost completely merged with /l/. The phoneme /t͡ɬ/ is also never substituted with /r/ which does not appear word-initially at all in Yrhu, even in loanwords. One of the smaller features is /h/ which is voiced [ɦ] except word-finally. A few villages next to the sea also preserve an ancient phoneme /ɸ/ (usually only word-initially), which merged with /h/ in all other North-Yrharian dialects, so such words as hahr /ɦɑːr̥/ "human" and fahr /ɸɑːr̥/ "[[w:Alpine tundra|mountain meadow]]" sound differently, while in Yrkyr they are both pronounced /hɑːr/. The word for "coast" is ''wytwal'' in Yrhu, which preserves the marginal phoneme [tʷ], since /tw/ cluster is not allowed, while in Yrkyr it became ''wytul'' where [tʷ] is an allophone of /t/. Some Yrhu speakers, living next to the area, where Yhkagur is spoken, also have palatalized consonants marginally.