User:Kolmiel/Ripuarian

This page describes the phonological system of contemporary Ripuarian, the northern dialect of Central Franconian.

The phonology of Moselle Franconian is very similar, though with the important difference that it lacks front-rounded vowels (and diphthongs).

Consonants

 * All of the above consonants are dinstinguished in Wiktionary’s phonetic transcriptions, although those in brackets are not fully phonemic, at least not in native words:
 * occurs only word-initially and after (where  may also be heard). In most of Ripuarian,  occurs only word-internally, so it and  may be considered allophones. However, in westernmost Ripuarian  does occur word-initially, while  occurs only word-internally. In this case  and  might be considered allophones (which is less intuitive).
 * is an allophone of after consonants and front vowels.  is an allophone of  after consonants and front vowels as well as word-initially. It is pronounced with friction  before  and . However,  is a full phoneme in loanwords (where it may occur after back vowels).
 * are assimilative allophones of respectively (see hereunder). However,  is a full phoneme in loanwords.


 * Word-final consonants:
 * There is no phonemic voice distinction in word-final position. Word-final consonants are generally devoiced.
 * Word-initial vowels are joined to the final consonant of the preceding word. In this, the word-final consonant undergoes assimilative voicing. is very little used in Ripuarian.


 * Voiceless stops are traditionally unaspirated. Through standard German influence they may now be mildly aspirated, particularly in younger speakers. Full aspiration is still marked as non-native.
 * occurs only word-internally, but is phonemically distinguished from both and.
 * The liquid is a “dark”  in all positions, though pronouncing a “clear”  is particularly marked in coda position.
 * is vowelized before alveolars and word-finally, sometimes giving rise to diphthongs (see below).
 * In contemporary Ripuarian the following mergers may occur:

Monophthongs in stressed syllables

 * All of the above are fully phonemic (though stressed word-final vowels are always long).
 * are central:.
 * The mid-open vowels are slightly more open, thus tending towards.

Monophthongs in unstressed syllables

 * Long vowels are shortened in closed unstressed syllables. On the other hand, two additional phonemes are added: and.
 * In open unstressed syllables further reductions of the system occur:


 * is generally distinguished in word-final position only.
 * may further merge with.
 * In contemporary speech, may also merge in.

Diphthongs

 * In most dialects, the open-closing diphthongs occur chiefly in word-final position. In Kölsch, however, they also commonly occur word-internally.
 * The mid-closing diphthongs occur chiefly word-finally in all dialects.
 * Centralizing diphthongs are not fully phonemic, but arise through vowelization of coda.
 * The mid- and open-centralising vowels occur only word-finally. is now typically merged with, and  may also be merged with.
 * The closed-centralising vowels occur word-finally and—except in Kölsch—before alveolars.

Tone
Ripuarian has a two-way system of phonemic tone distinction called Rheinische Schärfung (“Rhenish sharpening”). See German wikipedia for details. Tone distinctions are not represented in our transcriptions, but we do indicate homophones that may be distinguishable by tone.

In younger speakers the Schärfung is typically preserved only to limited degrees. (Many dialects of Moselle Franconian have lost it entirely.)