Ingrian phonology
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ingrian is a nearly extinct Finnic language of Russia. The spoken language remains unstandardised, and as such statements below are about the four known dialects of Ingrian (Ala-Laukaa, Hevaha, Soikkola and Ylä-Laukaa) and in particular the two extant dialects (Ala-Laukaa and Soikkola).
The written forms are, if possible, based on the written language (referred to as kirjakeeli, "book language") introduced by the Ingrian linguist Väinö Junus in the late 1930s. Following 1937's mass repressions in the Soviet Union, the written language was abolished and ever since, Ingrian does not have a (standardised) written language.
Diphthongs
The following chart shows the monophthongs present in the Ingrian language:
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | rounded | |||
| Close | i /i/ | y /y/ | (ь /ɨ/) | u /u/ |
| Mid | e /e/ | ö /ø/ | o /o/ | |
| Open | ä /æ/ | a /ɑ/ | ||
- The vowel /ɨ/ is only present in some Russian loanwords, like rьbakka ("fisher"); this vowel has been replaced by /i/ in some idiolects.[1]
- All vowels can occur as both short (/æ e i ɨ ø y ɑ o u/) and long (/æː eː iː ɨː øː yː ɑː oː uː/). The long vowel /ɨː/ is extremely rare, occurring in borrowed words like rььžoi ("red-haired").
- The vowels /eː øː oː/ are usually realised as diphthongs ([ie̯ yø̯ uo̯]) in the southern varieties of the Ala-Laukaa dialect, as diphthongoids ([i̯eː y̯øː u̯oː]) in many transitional varieties, and as [iː yː uː] in the northernmost Soikkola subdialects.[1]
Besides the diphthongs that arise due to diphthongisation of the long mid vowels ([ie̯ yø̯ uo̯]), Ingrian has a wide range of phonemic diphthongs, present in both dialects:
| -i | -u | -i | -y | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a- | ai /ɑi̯/ | au /ɑu̯/ | ä- | äi /æi̯/ | äy /æy̯/ |
| i- | – | iu /iu̯/ | |||
| e- | ei /ei̯/ | eu /eu̯/ | |||
| o- | oi /oi̯/ | ou /ou̯/ | ö- | öi /øi̯/ | öy /øy̯/ |
| u- | ui /ui̯/ | – | y- | yi /yi̯/ | – |
Ingrian has only one falling phonemic diphthong, iä (/iæ̯/), which is only present in the personal pronouns miä ("I") and siä ("you", singular).
Vowel reduction
Phonemically, Ingrian vowels can be long (/Vː/) and short (/V/) in both dialects. Short vowels after short stressed syllables are realised as half-long:[1]
- kana /ˈkɑnɑ/ [ˈkɑnɑˑ]
Vowel reduction is furthermore a common feature in both dialects. In the Soikkola dialect, vowel reduction is restricted to the vowels a and ä; These vowels are sometimes reduced to [ə] in quick speech:[1]
- linna /ˈlinːɑ/ [ˈlinːə] ("city")
- ilma /ˈilmɑ/ [ˈiɫmə] ("weather")
In Ala-Laukaa, this process is much more common and regular, but varies greatly by speaker.[1] In the northernmost varieties, reduction is similar to that of the Soikkola dialect. In the southernmost idiolects, the following features appear:[1]
- Long unstressed vowels are shortened to short vowels (/ɑː eː iː oː uː æː øː yː/ to [ɑ e i o u æ ø y] respectively).
- Unstressed vowel clusters /u.ɑ o.ɑ/ are reduced to [o], /y.æ ø.æ/ to [ø], and /i.ɑ i.æ/ to [e].
- Unstressed diphthongs generally keep their quality and length. Diphthongs ending in /i̯/ may sometimes lose this glide, although this may be a phonological feature.
- Short unstressed vowels following a short stressed syllable remain unreduced, and continue to be realised as halflong (/ɑ e i o u æ ø y/ to [ɑˑ eˑ iˑ oˑ uˑ æˑ øˑ yˑ]).
- Other short unstressed /i o u ø y/ are shortened to [ĭ ŏ ŭ ø̆ y̆], respectively.
- When at word-end, these shortened vowels are furthermore pronounced as voiceless: [ĭ̥ ŏ̥ ŭ̥ ø̥̆ y̥̆] respectively.[4]
- The voiceless word-final [ĭ̥] may surface as palatalisation of the preceding consonant instead.
- Other short unstressed /ɑ æ/ are shortened to a schwa ([ə]), and dropped (or, potentially, devoiced to [ə̥]) at word-end.
- Short unstressed /e/ at word-end is dropped, and is sometimes also reduced to a schwa in polysyllabic words, although this is not as frequent as the reduction of /ɑ/ and /æ/.
Although some vowels merge in the process of reduction, speakers do generally have the knowledge of the original (unreduced) vowel quality.
Vowel harmony
Ingrian, just like its closest relatives Finnish and Karelian, has the concept of vowel harmony. The principle of this morphophonetic phenomenon is that vowels in a word consisting of one root are all either front or back. As such, no native words can have any of the vowels {a, o, u} together with any of the vowels {ä, ö, y}.[2][5]
To harmonise formed words, any suffix containing one of these six vowels have two separate forms: a front vowel form and a back vowel form. Compare the following two words, formed using the suffix -kas: liivakas ("sandy") from liiva ("sand") and iäkäs ("elderly") from ikä ("age").[2][5]
The vowels {e, i} are considered neutral and can co-occur with both types of vowels. However, stems with these vowels are always front vowel harmonic: kivekäs ("rocky") from kivi ("rock").[2]
Compound words don't have to abide by the rules of vowel harmony, since they consist of two stems: rantakivi ("coastal stone") from ranta ("coast") + kivi ("stone").[2]