Phonetic Inventory and Translitteration

Evolution from Early Old Norse to Eittlandic

Eittlandic evolved early on from Early Old Norse, and as such some vowels it evolved from are different from the Old Norse vowels and consonants some other Nordic languages evolved from. In this chapter, we will see the main list of attested phonetic evolution Eittlandic lived through.

The history of Eittlandic goes from the late 8th century until modern-day Eittlandic. Its history is divided as shown on table below. It is not an exact science though as changes happened progressively through the country. Changes were also progressive, meaning the dates chosen to go from one language to the other are relatively arbitrary. In evolution examples, it will be indicated whether the Eittlandic pronunciation is specific to a certain time area (with Early Middle Eittlandic, Late Old Eittlandic, etc…) but if it only specifies Eittlandic it means no significant changes in pronunciation occurred since the phonetic rule shown. Meaning is also shown between parenthesis. In case of semantic shift, its new meaning in Eittlandic is shown — the same goes for the word’s spelling.

It is generally considered the gj-shift of the 13th century is the evolution that marks the change from Old Eittlandic to Middle Eittlandic while the great vowel shift marks the change from Middle Eittlandic to Modern Eittlandic between the 16th and the 17th century.

hʷ > ʍ

One of the first evolution of the Eittlandic was the evolution of the /hʷ/ into a /ʍ/ (written «hv»). It differs from other nordic languages which evolved their /hʷ/ into a /v/, like in Icelandic or in Norwegian. However, this evolution is cause to debate, mainly due to the original phoneme /hʷ/ which could be inherited from Proto-Norse instead.

C / #h_ > C[-voice]

When preceded by a /h/, word-initial consonants such as «l», «r», «n» would lose their voicing and become voiceless consonants. Note «hj» went to /ç/.

g / {#,V}_⁣{V,#} > ɣ

In word-initial position and followed by a vowel or when between vowels, Early Old Norse /g/ gets palatalized into a /ɣ/.

V / _⁣# > ∅ ! j _

When finishing a word, short unaccented vowels disappeared. Historically, they first went through a weakening transforming them into a /ə/, but they eventually disappeared before long vowels got affected by the first part of the rule. However, it did not apply to final vowels following a «j».

Reflecting this change, the last vowel got lost in the Eittlandic orthography. However, this rule did not get applied consistently with a good deal of people that kept them well until the Great Vowel Shift.

V / j_# > ə

While the final short vowel of words did not disappear when preceded by a «j», they still weakened to a schwa.

Vː / _# > ə

When at the end of a word, long unaccented vowels get weakened into a schwa.

Notice how in the modern orthography the «ó» didn’t get lost, unlike with the previous rule. Unlike the schwa from the previous rule, the current schwa still bears the long vowel feature, although it is not pronounced any more by that point, influencing the final schwa loss.

ɣ / {#,V}_ > j ! _{l,j}

During the 13th century, continued palatalization of the letter «g» when beginning or preceding a vowel transformed it from /g/ in Proto-Norse to /ɣ/ in Old Eittlandic to /j/ in Early Modern Eittlandic.

This is the first rule of the g/j-shift along with the three next rules, marking the passage from Old Eittlandic to Middle Eittlandic.

gl > gʲ

The exception to the above rule is the «g» remains a hard /g/ when followed by an «l» in which case /gl/ becomes /gʲ/.

d g n s t / _j > C[+palat]

Another exception to the lenition of /ɡ/ is it remained until the appearance of this change a hard /g/ when followed by a /j/. It however ended up getting assimilated by /j/. Other phonemes /d/, /h/, /n/, /s/, and /t/ also get palatalized, assimilated by the following /j/. In the end, we have the conversion table given by the table below.

Note this is also applicable to devoiced consonants described above.

j > jə / _#

With the appearance of word-final /j/, and epenthtetic /ə/ appeared due to the phonological rule forbidding word-final consonant clusters to end with a /j/.

u / V_ > ʊ

When following another vowel, /u/ becomes an /ʊ/.

{s,z} / _C[+plos] > ʃ

If /s/ or /z/ precede a plosive consonant, they become palatalized into a /ʃ/ — the distinction between «s» and «z» is lost.

Note that in the Modern Eittlandic orthography, the «z» is replaced with an «s».

f / {V,C[+voice]}_ {V,C[+voice],#} > v

When a «f» is either surrounded by voice phonemes or is preceded by a voiced phoneme and ends a word, it gets voiced into a /v/.

l / _j > ʎ

When followed by a «j», any «l» becomes a /ʎ/, merging with the following «j».

ɑʊ > oː

Sometime in the 15th century, any occurence of «au», pronounced by then /ɑʊ/, began shifting to /oː/.

C[+long +plos -voice] > C[+fric] ! / _C > C[+long +plos] > C[-long]

Unless followed by another consonant, any unvoiced long plosive consonant becomes a short affricate while other long plosives simply become shorter.

The only exception is a double «g» /ɡː/ which became /ɡ/.

r > ʁ (Eastern Eittlandic)

From the beginning of the 16th century, the Eastern Eittlandic /r/ began morphing into an /ʁ/ in all contexts except in word-final «-r», remanants of Old Norse’s nominative «-R». This is typical in the Eastern region of Eittland, and it can be even heard in some dialects of Southern Eittlandic.

Great Vowel Shift

The great vowel shift happened during the 16th and 17th century during which long vowels underwent a length loss, transforming them into different short vowels. Only three rules governed this shift:

• V[+high +long] > V[-high -long +LT]
• V[+tense +long] > V[-tense -long +LT]
• V[-tense +long] > V[-long -low +LT]

This shift reintroduced a bitonal system in Eittlandic, contrasting former long vowels with short vowels. Hence, the vowels evolved as shown in the table below.

As you can see, some overlap is possible from Old Norse vowels and Modern Eittlandic vowels. For instance, Eittlanders will read «é» and «á» both as an /ɛ̀/.

Diphthongs also evolved following these rules:

• /ei/ > /ɑɪ/
• /ou/ > /ɔʊ/
• /øy/ > /œʏ/

It is probably up to this time period when Eittlandic stopped nasalizing its vowels aside from Southern Eittland (see below), although the timeframe regarding this evolution is very much unclear and it might have happened as early as during the 13th century.

ə[-long] / C_# > ∅

As described in the weakening of final long vowels, the schwa resulting from it kept its long vowel feature, although it wasn’t pronounced anymore. This resulted in the current rule making all schwas resulting from short vowels at the end of words to disappear when following a voiced consonant. However, this process lengthened any previous vowel, thus reintroducing a contrast between short vowels and long vowels in Eittlandic. This distinction is however unmarked when written in Standard Eittlandic due to the spelling dropping the final vowels affected here.

C[+plos +fric] > C[-plos +long]

During the late 19th century to early 20th century, Eittlandic lost its affricate consonants as they morphed into simple fricatives. Therefore, some Middle Eittlandic /pː/ became in Modern Eittlandic /ɸː/ through /pɸ/.

t / _C > ʔ ! _ʃ

When a /t/ precedes another consonant, it becomes a glottal stop.

Spelling and pronunciation

Eittlandic is written in two different alphabets: Modern Futhark, also known as the Eittlandic runes, and the Latin alphabet. Eittland saw some use of the Latin alphabet in the 13th and 14th century, but documents ceased to be produced with it until the 17th century, when immigrants from continental Europe brought this script with them and as commerce opened up with European countries again. Until a few decades ago, the Modern Futhark alphabet was the most popular alphabet in use in Eittland. But since the democratisation of the computer and smartphone, usage of the Latin alphabet saw a quick rise in popularity. According to some estimates, only 2% of Eittlanders used the Latin alphabet more often than the Modern Futhark alphabet in 1920, while in 2020, 23% of Eittlanders primarily use the Latin alphabet.

Most letters are used the same way in Eittlandic as they are in most standard European languages, with a few additions that lack in the standard Latin alphabet, Just like Icelandic, Eittlandic still uses the letters «þ» and «ð» when using the Latin alphabet. These letters were already used in Old Norse but nether became deprecated, unlike in other Nordic languages such as Swedish or Norwegian, or other Germanic languages such as English. They represent the sounds /θ/ and /ð/ respectively; unlike Old Norse, these two sounds became distinct enough to constrast in some words, such as in maðr (man) and maþr (maths). You will also find vowels with acute accents. They used to represent long vowels, but due to sound changes, they are associated with a lower tone and generaly more lax vowel, as described below.

Aside from Standard Eittlandic, there is no standard spelling and the language is written generally phonetically, although there is a tendency to keep the spelling reflecting the historical pronunciation of words; i.e. when representing the vowel /ɛ̀/, Eittlanders will tend to write «á» when it comes from a historically long /ɑ/ but «é» if it comes from a historically long /e/. There is also a tendency in dialects other than Standard Eittlandic to write word-final vowels, even if they are no longer pronounced, as in «posi» (Standard Eittlandic pos, meaning seal).

These are the letters used natively in Eittlandic:

a b d ð e f g h i j k l m n o p r s t þ u v y z ø œ

All vowels, with the exception of «ø» and «œ», can bear an acute accent, extending the list with:

á é í ó ú ý

Most of these letters represent their standard phonological value, but a few don’t. Here are some rules that will help you read Eittlandic phonetically:

• «a»: this is an unrounded, open back vowel /ɑ/ in some dialects, or front /a/ in some others
• «á»: this is an unrounded, mid open front vowel /ɛ/ with a low or falling tone
• «ð»: this is a voiced dentad fricative /ð/, as in English “this”
• «é»: pronounced like «á»
• «g»: the most unstable letter in Eittlandic. When in contact with another consonant, it will be a standard voiced uvular stop /ɡ/. However, if it is a word-initial consonent immediately followed by a vowel or between vowels, it will be pronounced as a /j/. Lastly, if it is word-final and preceeded by a vowel, it is pronounced as a voiced velar fricative /ɣ/.
• «í»: this is an unrounded mid closed front vowel /e/ with a low or falling tone. It contrasts with «e» wich is pronounced with a neutral or high tone
• «j»: this is the palatal semivowel /j/, as in German or other North Germanic languages
• «ó»: this is a rounded mid open back vowel /ɔ/ with a low or falling tone
• «p»: in most places, pronounced as a voiceless bilabial plosive /p/ as expected, unless before a «t» where it becomes a voiceless bilabial fricative /ɸ/
• «þ»: this is the unvoiced counterpart to «ð», the /θ/, as in English “think”
• «ú»: this is a rounded mid closed back vowel /o/ with a low or falling tone. It constrasts with neutral or high tone «o»
• «v»: this is the voiced bilabial fricative /β/, unless when following an «h» in a word-initial position; in this case, «hv» is pronounced as a voiceless labialised velar approximant /ʍ/.
• «y»: this is the rounded front high vowel /y/, as in German ü or French u
• «ý»: this is the mid front rounded vowel /ø/ with a low or falling tone, contrasting with the neutral or high tone «ø» described below
• «ø»: is a mid front rounded vowel /ø/, like German «ö» or French «eu» in deux
• «œ»: this is a low, lax, frount rounded vowel /œ/, like French «eu» in «neuf», but with an additional low or falling tone

There are another three additional digraphs when it comes to vowels:

• «au»: this is a rounded mid open back vowel /ɔ/ with a neutral or high tone, which contrasts with «ó»
• «ei»: this is one of the two diphthongs left in Eittlandic, /ɑɪ/
• «ey»: this is the other diphthong left in Eittlandic, /œʏ/

Vowel Inventory

Modern Eittlandic has a total of ten simple vowels and three diphthongs, regardless of the dialect. It does not directly inherit the vowel length contrast Old Norse bore anymore since the great vowel shift (see the Great Vowel Shift), though most of it shifted to a bitonal contrast instead. The original bitonal contrast believed to have existed in Old Norse has been most likely lost early on during Eittlandic’s evolution, leaving room for the current one. The first table below lists the Eittlandic simple vowels while the second table lists the Eittlandic diphthongs. Note that the contrast by length or tone is not listed in the table.

Eittlandic also has a second vowel inventory dedicated to unstressed vowels. While the one described above describes all vowels found in stressed positions, the unstressed inventory is much lighter.

As shown in the table above, /i/ and /e/, /u/ and /o/, and /a/ and /œ/ are considered as allophones in unstressed positions. Their pronunciation is based on the vowel harmony spread forward by the preceding stressed vowel.

Regarding the first two pairs, in case a vowel is not preceded by a stressed vowel, then the first one will spread its vowel harmony backward. Vowel harmony follows the ±high feature of stressed vowels, meaning a stressed vowel with a +high feature will be always followed by either /e/ or /o/.

The unstressed vowel «a» on the other hand follows the same vowel harmony principles following the ±round phonological feature, morphing into /œ/ if the stressed vowel influencing it is rounded.

When writing in Standard Eittlandic, the vowel written in unstressed position will follow its pronunciation, but when written in other dialects, it may follow the historical spelling. The grapheme of unstressed «a» becomes «œ» only in Standard Eittlandic, otherwise it won’t change in other dialects.

Note the features borne by the diphthongs:

• ei: +high -round
• au: -high +round, same as «ó»
• ey: same as «ei»

Consonant Inventory

Regarding Eittlandic’s consonants, the two main changes from Old Norse other than changes in their pronunciation is the now differenciation between «þ» and «ð» where in Old Norse, the former was used word-initially while the latter was used in all other positions.

Similarly, the «f» letter was used to represent both /f/ word-initially and /v/ in all other positions. In Eittlandic, voiced «f» /v/ merged into «v» /β/. Therefore, the letter «f» is no longer used to represent /v/ anymore; the letter «v» is instead used to represent both historical «v» and historically voiced «f».

Occasionally, the letter «h» may precede another consonant in a word-initial position, mainly «l», «r», and «v». These consonants become devoiced, with «hl», «hr», and «hv» becoming /l̥/, /r̥/, and /ʍ/ respectively.

Underlying vowels

While most word-final vowels were dropped a few centuries ago, they still exist as underlying vowels that may affect the word’s morphology. By default, when there is no final vowel for a noun, a dummy «i» is used to join the word with the definite morphene together. For instance, dag (day), a word with no underlying vowel, which becomes dagin in its singular accusative definite form. However, even if it is no longer present in its non-definite form, sag still bears the word-final vowel «a» which appears in its definite form, such as sagat (singular accusative definite form).

Pitch and Stress

The original bitonal pitch accent of Eittlandic is thought to have been lost around the 10th or 11th century, though it is no certain this dating is accurate due to next to no documentation contemporary documentation existing regarding this evolution. It has been, however, replaced by a newer bitonal system during the Great Vowel Shift as a replacement for the loss of the contrast between short and long vowels. The low pitch is marked, while the high pitch is unmarked.

The distinction between low and high pitch is only done on stressed vowels, whether they are the bearer of the primary stress or a secondary stress. The primary stress always falls on the first syllable of a word, while the secondary stress falls where the primary stress would fall in compound words, such as noregsúlv /ˈnorejsˌòlv/. In this instance, no distinction is made regarding whether /e/ is a high pitch or low pitch vowel as it bears no stress. On the other hand, the initial /o/ bears a high pitch, while the second /o/ bears a low pitch. Note that there is no correlation between which stress carries which pitch.

Regional accents

Eittlandic is a language in which three distinct main dialects exist with their own accent. These three main dialects are Eastern Eittlandic spoken in the majority Kingdom of Hylfjaltr, Western Eittlandic spoken in the majority of the Kingdom of Ðeberget, and Southern Eittlandic spoken on the southern parts of the island, regardess of the legal kingdom (see the map shown in Culture). These dialects are further divided into other dialects, such as the dialect spoken around Hylfjaltr differing from the dialect spoken in the neighbour town of Tvinnár, or the dialect spoken in Ðeberget differing from the dialect spoken in the nearby city of Kóparvall.

Additional minor dialect exist, as Northeastern or Northwestern Eittlandic do exist, but most of these are considered as endengered as they are spoken mostly by older folk. Interestingly, younger Eittlanders living in Northern Eittland are beginning to speak a new dialect commonly referred to as Teveseittlandsk (“TV Eittlandic”) or Internetseittlandsk (Internet’s Eittlandic). While it may have some regional variation regarding its vocabulary, its grammar and pronunciation tend to merge both Western and Eastern Eittlandic into a common dialect resembling in some aspects urban Eittlandic.

Western Eittlandic

V^U > ə ! diphthongs

Recently, Western Eittlandic evolved a weakening of all of its unstressed vowels that are not diphthongs, transforming them into schwas. It is only documented in casual speech but almost never in formal speech.

/ɔ/ and /ɑ/ merger

Western Eittlandic is currently going a phonological merge of the vowels /ɔ/ and /ɑ/ into /ɒ/. The vowel /ɔ̀/ also follows this pattern, morphing into /ɒ̀/.

Great Vowel Shift variation

While the Great Vowel Shift is happened relatively uniformly in Eittland, some regions did not follow the same pattern as what happened everywhere else.

The main example is the area around Đeberget where the vowel /ɑː/ evolved not as /ɛ̀/ but as /ɔ̀/.

Eastern Eittlandic

/y/ and /u/ merger

In areas around Vestrheim especially, locals tend to merge /y/ into /u/.

Centralisation of /i/

In the northern rural parts of Eastern Eittland, populations tend to centralise /i/ into /ɨ/.

Great Vowel Shift variation

When the Great Vowel Shift happened, not all regions were affected the same. As such, we can find in some rural parts of the Eastern Eittlandic dialect area high vowels slightly more open than their equivalent in Standard Eittlandic, as shown in table below.

Southeastern Eittlandic

rg > ʁ

Some time after the Great Vowel Shift, the phonemes /r/ and /g/ began assimilating with one another, with an initial evolution as /ɣɡ/ which eventually led to a pronunciation of «rg» as /ʁ/. For instance, the word myrgun, pronounced /myrɡun/ in Standard Eittlandic, is prononced as /mʏʁːʊn/ in Southeastern Eittlandic.

Ø > ʁ / V#_V

A recent evolution in Southern Eittlandic seems to highlight a tendency for rhoticism in this dialect, as a prothesis of /ʁ/ appears to occur at the beginning of words beginning with vowels, especially between words ending and beginning with a vowel.

Southern Eittlandic

ɑ > a / {C[+nas],C[-cons]}_ and ɑ > ɐ

Southern Eittlandic tends to front its /ɑ/ into /a/ after nasal consonants and glides and into /ɐ/ otherwise.

VN / _ > Ṽ[-tense] ! V[+high] (Southern Eittlandic)

When preceding a nasal, any vowel that is not high as determined by the vowel tree in Vowel Inventory gets nasalized when preceding a nasal consonant and loses its tenseness if it has any. Hence, the pronunciation of the «a» in Eittland is /ã/. However, Old Norse runa (rune) /runɑ/ becomes run (letter, character, rune) /run/ without any nasalization.

Note this evolution is mostly proeminent in the southern regions of Eittland and the city of Hundraðskip. It is less often documented in Eastern Eittland and almost undocumented in Western Eittland. It is more often documented in casual conversation buch rarer in formal conversation, especially when the majority of the speakers in a group are not southerners.

Urban Eittlandic

ɣ > h (Urban Eittlandic)

Since around the middle of the 20th century, urban Eittlandic started leniting any /ɣ/ into a /h/.

In urban areas North of Ðeberget, word-final /h/ resulting from this evolution tends to get completely dropped since around the 90s.