Latgalian phonology
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Latgalian language is considered a Latvian language dialect by the Latvian government, others[who?] argue that it is an independent language.
| Front | Central | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | long | short | long | short | long | |
| Close | i ⟨i⟩ | iː ⟨ī⟩ | (ɨ) ⟨y⟩ | u ⟨u⟩ | uː ⟨ū⟩ | |
| Mid | ɛ ⟨e⟩ | (ɛː) ⟨ē⟩ | ɔ ⟨o⟩ | (ɔː) ⟨ō⟩ | ||
| Open | æ ⟨e⟩ | æː ⟨ē⟩ | a ⟨a⟩ | aː ⟨ā⟩ | ||
| Diphthongs | iɛ uɔ | |||||
- [ɨ] occurs in complementary distribution with [i], so that they can be regarded as allophones of a single /i/ phoneme.[2]
- Long /ɛː, ɔː/ are rare and occur only in interjections. The phonological long counterparts of the short /ɛ, ɔ/ are the diphthongs /iɛ, uɔ/.[1]
- There are very few minimal pairs for the /ɛ–æ/ opposition. In some dialects, [æ] is simply an allophone of /ɛ/.[3]
- /a, aː/ are phonetically central [ä, äː].[1]
- Apart from [iɛ] and [uɔ], there are also vowel+glide sequences [ɛi̯, æi̯, ai̯, iu̯, ɨu̯, au̯], which are very common. Rarer sequences include [ui̯], [ɔi̯] and [ɔu̯], with the last one occurring only in onomatopoeias and loanwords. Phonemically, they are all sequences of two phonemes, rather than proper diphthongs. In some dialects, [iu̯] and [ɨu̯] fall together as [ɛu̯]. [au̯] can also merge with [ɔu̯] as [ɔu̯].[4]