Vowel system of Burgundian is quite archaic. The oldest known form of the language had the following vowels:
short a, (e), i, (o), u
long e:, i:, o:, u:
diphthongs ai, au, eu
Short e and o only occurred in closed syllables before r and h - technically they were allophones of ai and au. The writing system did not differentiate between short and long vowels, the only exceptions being e: (e) and o: (o) - the two sounds that were nearly always long. The letters i and u signified both short and long vowels, in contrast to Gothic, which had a special digraph for the long i: (ei).
In time, however, this system was modified. Quite early diphthongs started moving towards monophthongs. The pronuncation of vowel digraphs changed in the following way:
ai: OB. [aɪ] > LOB. [æɪ] > MB. [æ:] (written ai or ae) > NB. [æ ~ ɛ]
au: OB. [aʊ] > LOB. [ɔʊ] (written ) > MB. [u:] > NB. [u]
eu: OB. [eʊ] > LOB. [əʊ] > MB. [ɯ:] > NB. [ɯ]
During Middle Burgundian stage, diphthongs ai and au became e and o respectively in closed syllables, so xaifsts 'quarrel' became xefst, and laistjan 'to follow, obey' became lestjen. The sequence auj became oj, e.g. Froja 'Lord' from Frauja.
The combination of the semi-vowel w and the short i (wi, and also the old sequence qi-) quite quickly came to be pronounced similarly to eu in open syllables and before one consonant. The resulting sound used to be spelled as ui, e.g. suimen 'to swim', kuik 'crazy'. The latest orthography reform, however, changed this state, so all words containing an [ɯ] sound are now spelled with the digraph eu (seumen, keuk, and also eula, leud). It is worth noting that this change did not involve words with a long i:, e.g.
svin 'pig', sviben 'to cease'.
As i and u were the only vowels that had both short and long variants, the whole opposition of long and short vowels was lost as early as in Middle Burgundian. Before that, the short i was nearly always dropped when unstressed, thus twalif 'twelve' became tvalf or tvalb, and iniþ 'sin' became ind.
Unstressed vowels were often lost (especially the short i), sometimes causing radical changes in the structure of a word, e.g. xaubiþ 'head' became xoft, eudilo 'baby' became eula.
Modification of combinations like -adi- and -egi- and mass borrowing from German gave rise to four new diphthongs in Burgundian: ai, ei, oi and au, e.g. gajlings 'relative' (from MB. gadilings), nej 'new' (from OB. neujis or niwjis), grojl 'shoot (of grass) (from OB. growils), galaubjen (from OB. galoubjan, influenced by German glauben).
short a, (e), i, (o), u
long e:, i:, o:, u:
diphthongs ai, au, eu
Short e and o only occurred in closed syllables before r and h - technically they were allophones of ai and au. The writing system did not differentiate between short and long vowels, the only exceptions being e: (e) and o: (o) - the two sounds that were nearly always long. The letters i and u signified both short and long vowels, in contrast to Gothic, which had a special digraph for the long i: (ei).
In time, however, this system was modified. Quite early diphthongs started moving towards monophthongs. The pronuncation of vowel digraphs changed in the following way:
ai: OB. [aɪ] > LOB. [æɪ] > MB. [æ:] (written ai or ae) > NB. [æ ~ ɛ]
au: OB. [aʊ] > LOB. [ɔʊ] (written ) > MB. [u:] > NB. [u]
eu: OB. [eʊ] > LOB. [əʊ] > MB. [ɯ:] > NB. [ɯ]
During Middle Burgundian stage, diphthongs ai and au became e and o respectively in closed syllables, so xaifsts 'quarrel' became xefst, and laistjan 'to follow, obey' became lestjen. The sequence auj became oj, e.g. Froja 'Lord' from Frauja.
The combination of the semi-vowel w and the short i (wi, and also the old sequence qi-) quite quickly came to be pronounced similarly to eu in open syllables and before one consonant. The resulting sound used to be spelled as ui, e.g. suimen 'to swim', kuik 'crazy'. The latest orthography reform, however, changed this state, so all words containing an [ɯ] sound are now spelled with the digraph eu (seumen, keuk, and also eula, leud). It is worth noting that this change did not involve words with a long i:, e.g.
svin 'pig', sviben 'to cease'.
As i and u were the only vowels that had both short and long variants, the whole opposition of long and short vowels was lost as early as in Middle Burgundian. Before that, the short i was nearly always dropped when unstressed, thus twalif 'twelve' became tvalf or tvalb, and iniþ 'sin' became ind.
Unstressed vowels were often lost (especially the short i), sometimes causing radical changes in the structure of a word, e.g. xaubiþ 'head' became xoft, eudilo 'baby' became eula.
Modification of combinations like -adi- and -egi- and mass borrowing from German gave rise to four new diphthongs in Burgundian: ai, ei, oi and au, e.g. gajlings 'relative' (from MB. gadilings), nej 'new' (from OB. neujis or niwjis), grojl 'shoot (of grass) (from OB. growils), galaubjen (from OB. galoubjan, influenced by German glauben).
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