West Saxon Rebooted (Now Playing: OWS Nouns & Adjectives)

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Introduction to West Saxon
Okay, after raising my West Saxon thread from the bowels of the archives on numerous occasions, I've decided that I need a fresh start with the language. Therefore, consider everything in the earlier thread (those who have seen it), apocryphal at best, and let's start anew.

For those who don't remember, or weren't here when the language first started, West Saxon is a sister language to English spoken in an alternative history where the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England continued after the Norman Conquest in what had historically been the Kingdom of Wessex. It is a descendant of the West Saxon dialect of Old English, and is much more conservative than English in many regards, and retains a number of common Germanic features lost in English, but retained in most or all other Germanic languages, a feature I call "Germanicy goodness". It is intended to see what English might have been like, not just without Norman influence, but without Norse influence as well. The sundering of Wessex from England in this universe locks out many of the linguistic effects of the Danelaw which slowly crept south during the course of English's history.

Since I want a fresh start, I've decided to re-derive West Saxon from Anglo-Saxon afresh. To do so, I'll be posting a series of articles detailing both the linguistic development of West Saxon, as well as the historical and social development of Wessex. I'm going to be breaking it up into several periods, corresponding to the periodization schema the language has.

Language Periods
Anglo-Saxon: This period covers the years 450 through 850, and corresponds to what we would consider Early Old English. In the West Saxon universe, this is considered a separate branch of the language's evolution, and is considered the common ancestor of West Saxon, English, and Scots. It begins with the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons to England, and ends about the time of the establishment of the Danelaw. This event, in the Wessex-verse, is the socio-historical event which is considered the end of the period, much as the Norman Conquest is often considered the socio-historical event that closed our Anglo-Saxon Period. Since this is before our universe's point of departure, it will not be covered.

Old West Saxon: This period covers the years 850 through about 1150, and corresponds to what we consider late Old English and Early Middle English, or as some old scholars called it, the Semi-Saxon Period. It also contains the our alt-history's point of departure, the Battle of Hastings in which both Harold Godwinson and William I are killed, and the country torn apart into England and Wessex. Some extend this period to 1250, to include the significant linguistic changes which occurred between 1150 and 1250 in the Old West Saxon period, or call that century a transitional period. This work will use the more traditional, historically informed period.

Middle West Saxon: This period covers the years 1150 through about 1600. It is often broken up into Early Middle West Saxon, covering 1150 through 1350, and Late Middle West Saxon, covering 1350 through 1600. This work will treat these two periods separately, giving Early Middle West Saxon and Late Middle West Saxon their own articles.

Modern West Saxon: This period covers the years 1600 through the present. Like Middle West Saxon, it is often broken up into Early Modern West Saxon, covering 1600-1850, and Contemporary West Saxon, extending from 1850 through to the present. As with Middle West Saxon, each of these sub-periods will get their own articles.

Articles
Each article will be a short overview of the material in question. The first article, on dialects, will be just an overview of the dialect zones of West Saxon, with their geographic extent, relationship to other dialects, and a brief overview of their characteristics.

After the Dialects articles, each period will get an article on the major sound changes which occurred during the period, in chronological order. This will be followed by a summary of the major grammatical changes which occurred during the period, again in roughly chronological order. This will be followed by a brief grammar sketch of the language at the end of the period (mainly inflectional paradigms, with some comments on usage). Next will be a series of notes on changes in the dialects. The sound and grammar change articles will only cover the Winchester dialect, which represents "Standard" West Saxon. The Dialect Notes articles will show what's going on out in the rest of the country.

The last two articles Period Timeline and Socio-Historical Commentary, will be where I do some conworlding. The timeline will be just that, a list of the major events in chronological order that happen during the period. The Socio-Historical Commentary will be where I go into more narrative depth on the major narrative events which happen during the period.

I'm going to try and go through these in order, and put out at least one per week, on average. I might sprinkle in other things along the way, like vocabulary lists, maps, etc, as I create them. As I add articles, I'll change each item to a link to that particular post. Once I've gotten through the articles, I'll probably put together a formal reference grammar, a lexicon, some texts, and so forth. I'll cross that bridge, however when I get to it.

Schedule of Articles
Dialects
Old West Saxon

• -Sound Changes
  -Grammar Changes (Out of Date)
  -Grammar Sketch: Phonology & Orthography
  -Grammar Sketch: Nouns & Adjectives
  -Grammar Sketch: Verbs
  -Grammar Sketch: Pronouns, Numbers, Articles, & Particles
  -Grammar Sketch:: Word Order & Syntactic Constructions
  -Grammar Changes
  -Dialect Notes
  -Period Timeline
  -Socio-Historical Commentary

Early Middle West Saxon

• -Sound Changes
  -Grammar Sketch: Phonology & Orthography
  -Grammar Sketch: Nouns & Adjectives
  -Grammar Sketch: Verbs
  -Grammar Sketch: Pronouns, Numbers, Articles, & Particles
  -Grammar Sketch:: Word Order & Syntactic Constructions
  -Grammar Changes
  -Dialect Notes
  -Period Timeline
  -Socio-Historical Commentary

Late Middle West Saxon

• -Sound Changes
  -Grammar Changes
  -Grammar Sketch: Phonology & Orthography
  -Grammar Sketch: Nouns & Adjectives
  -Grammar Sketch: Verbs
  -Grammar Sketch: Pronouns, Numbers, Articles, & Particles
  -Grammar Sketch:: Word Order & Syntactic Constructions
  -Dialect Notes
  -Period Timeline
  -Socio-Historical Commentary

Early Modern West Saxon

• -Sound Changes
  -Grammar Sketch: Phonology & Orthography
  -Grammar Sketch: Nouns & Adjectives
  -Grammar Sketch: Verbs
  -Grammar Sketch: Pronouns, Numbers, Articles, & Particles
  -Grammar Sketch:: Word Order & Syntactic Constructions
  -Grammar Changes
  -Dialect Notes
  -Period Timeline
  -Socio-Historical Commentary

Contemporary West Saxon

• -Sound Changes
  -Grammar Sketch: Phonology & Orthography
  -Grammar Sketch: Nouns & Adjectives
  -Grammar Sketch: Verbs
  -Grammar Sketch: Pronouns, Numbers, Articles, & Particles
  -Grammar Sketch:: Word Order & Syntactic Constructions
  -Grammar Changes
  -Dialect Notes
  -Period Timeline
  -Socio-Historical Commentary

[Herr Dunkel]

Cheers! Will be looking forward to it.

[vec]

Consider me on board.

[roninbodhisattva]

I am the excite.

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Hey, look at that! I've already got the first post up. Don't expect them all the updates to come this quickly Here's a (very) brief rundown on West Saxon dialectology.
(By the way, does anyone have any good online references for the Kentish dialect of Old English? It would prove quite helpful in developing Southeastern.)

Dialects
Modern West Saxon is broken up into four dialect zones, most of which are composed of several sub-dialects.

• -Central Zone
  -Peninsular Zone
  -Southeastern Zone
  -Thames River Zone

A fifth dialect zone, called Northern, is now extinct, and was spoken in the counties of Cloucester, Hereford, Worcester, Shropshire, and Stafford. The dialect (or dialects, not much can be said with great certainty) spoken there were replaced by English between about 1300 (when the territories were lost to England), and 1450.

Central Zone
This zone is the main dialect group of West Saxon, and covers the areas of Hampshire, southern Wiltshire, the Isle of Wight, most of Dorset, and about half of Somerset (the lands east of the Parrett river, which forms the Western edge of the dialect zone). The Central Zone is bordered by the Thames River Zone to the north, the Southeastern Zone to the East, and the Peninsular Zone to the West. The most prominent dialect in this zone is Winchesterish, which is the "official" form of the language, spoken in the capital and surrounding areas (namely the rest of Hampshire, except for the lands south east of the River Dun.

Southeast of the Winchesterish dialect lies the Costal dialect, which is spoken in Hampshire southeast of the River Dun, and in the southern two thirds of Dorset. It is not very distinct from Winchesterish, mainly differing in the distribution of some vowels. It does, however show some substrate influence from the Kentish dialect which was spoken there earlier. Grammatically, Costal and Winchesterish are essentially identical, except for a few features of probable continental origin it shares with the Southeastern dialects.

Finally, there is the Western Central dialect, spoken in the southern half of Wiltshire, eastern Somerset, and the very northern part of Dorset. Like Coastal, it is fairly similar to Central, with a few minor phonetic variations, most of which are identical to or have analogues with differences found in the Thames River Zone dialects. It also shares a few grammatical peculiarities with the Thames River Zone.

Peninsular Zone
This zone consists of three dialects: Somersetish, Devonshirish, and Cornwallish, and is spoken west of the Parrett river. By and large, it is more grammatically archaic than the Central Zone dialects, though it has was actually where a number of the most significant sound changes in West Saxon history were believed to have originated.

The first Peninsular Zone dialect, Somersetish, is spoken in the half of the county Somerset that lies west of the Parrett River. It shows a number of the sound changes common to the dialect zone, but is somewhat less diviergent from Central than Devonshirish. Many consider it more of a buffer zone between the Central Zone and Devonshirish.

And Devonshirish is more divergent, showing features like a true dative case and distinct subjunctive and imperative forms of verbs. Phonetically, it is relatively distinct as well, with a mix of quirky changes and archaism. Some of these are shared with Somersetish, but many more are not. A few are even shared with the distinctive Cornwallish dialect.

And Cornwallish is quite distinct, or at least it was, though its status is rather complicated. Traditional Cornwallish, spoken in the county of Cornwall, was highly influenced by the Cornish language, and during the Middle West Saxon period developed a number Cornish features, including shifts to a masculine/feminine gender system, initial consonant mutation, some syntactic features, and an influx of vocabulary from Cornish. Many consider Traditional Cornwallish to be its own dialect zone, and some even consider it to be a distinct language, much like Scots is considered distinct from English. The reason it is included in the Peninsular Zone is due to the fact that it shares a number of early innovations with the other Peninsular Zone dialects.

However, much as Scots has faced pressure from a more prestigious English, so to has Traditional Cornwallish faced pressure from Standard West Saxon, starting at the end of the 17th century. Many Cornish-ism have been abandoned, and Traditional Cornwallish dialect itself is beginning to be abandoned in favor of a more standard version of the language, with some Corwallish influences in pronunciation and vocabulary. There is a revitalization effort in place, modeled somewhat on the revival efforts of Cornish.

Southeastern Zone
The Southeastern zone is spoken to the east of the Central Zone in the county of Sussex. It is bounded on the west by the Central Zone, and on the north and east by England. Traditionally it is divided into Eastern, Western, and Whightish dialects, with the Eastern branch covering lands east of Brighton, and the Western branch including Brighton itself and the lands West of it. There are few differences between the two "mainland" dialects, and some lump them together into one "Sussex" dialect. Its defining characteristic is that these, unlike the other dialects, does not descend from the West Saxon dialect of Anglo-Saxon, but the Kentish dialect, and as such has a number of deep phonetic differences. It also has a number of grammatical peculiarities, some of which are believed to be native, and some of which are attributed to continental influences.

On the Isle of Wight is spoken, unsurprisingly, the Wightish dialect. It is the most divergent from the Southeastern dialects, sharing a number of forms and sound changes with the Central dialects. This is usually put down to extended contact between the two.

Thames Zone
This dialect zone exists along the northern border of the country, along the southern, West Saxon, side of the Thames river. It extends through northern Wiltshire and through West Saxon Berkshire (Berkshire east of Reading). It is bounded on the south by the Central Zone, and by England on the north and west. This dialect show significant influence from English, both in grammar and phonology. This has caused it to be jocularly called "bad West Saxon, and worse English". These changes include a lack of the West Saxon Bounce (the only dialect to lack the feature), lack of grammatical gender, more English-like articles (both in form and usage), and sound shift that could be considered a variant of the Great Vowel Shift, as well as many other modifications. Ironically, one "English" feature it has the use of the ending "-en" as a marker for the infinitive and indicative plural on verbs, is an Anglian borrowing that was subsequently lost later in English's history.

Some argue that the Thames Zone dialect is in fact the sole survivor of the extinct Northern Zone. This is based off of a number of similarities between documents produced in Wroxeter (the source of most documents in the Northern Zone during its existence), and those produced in Oxford. Most, however, say that there were also several differences that can be noted, and that our knowledge of Northern Zone West Saxon is so scanty that nothing really definitive can be said one way or another.

[roninbodhisattva]

And Cornwallish is quite distinct, or at least it was, though its status is rather complicated. Traditional Cornwallish, spoken in the county of Cornwall, was highly influenced by the Cornish language, and during the Middle West Saxon period developed a number Cornish features, including shifts to a masculine/feminine gender system, initial consonant mutation, some syntactic features, and an influx of vocabulary from Cornish. Many consider Traditional Cornwallish to be its own dialect zone, and some even consider it to be a distinct language, much like Scots is considered distinct from English. The reason it is included in the Peninsular Zone is due to the fact that it shares a number of early innovations with the other Peninsular Zone dialects.

On man please tell me you're going to be posting about this.

[hwhatting]

Do I remember correctly that you also used to have an outline of the alt history behind that somewhere?

[Herra Ratatoskr]

@roninbodhisattva Yes, details will be coming on Cornwallish. Eventually. I have a number of vague ideas, like specific sound changes it has undergone, and where some initial consonant mutations derive from, but I need a better understanding of Cornish before I could tackle it and do it any real justice. I do think it is a rather cool concept, however.

@hwhatting There was, ages ago. It was in the original West Saxon thread (which has since been pruned), not the second thread which is still kicking around, though is now officially out of date. I'm kind of sad that that the first on is gone though. I managed to find a copy of the board on archive.org that had a link to the thread, but the pages themselves weren't archived. So tantalizing! Google doesn't seem to have archived it either.

[Shrdlu]

Just posting to say "Yay!" and ask you to please keep the initial velar nasal. Was a follower of the old thread though I never posted there,

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Initial /ŋ/ is still firmly in place, and I can't think of any reason why I would ever take it out.

[Shrdlu]

Good choice. It would make the language stand out a bit more. On the top of my head I can't think of any Germanic language with initial velar nasal.

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Actually, I think the only other languages in Europe that do it are Welsh, Gaelic, and Manx, and they're all the result of initial consonant mutation.

[Nate]

I anticipate more cool stuffs, especially in the deep technical sound changes and grammar charts. So far, the dialect stuff seems nice.

Good luck!

[Herra Ratatoskr]

I've been playing around with the Morrigan's sound changer, and I think I've got a group of changes that works well. I've still got to write up an article on the changes, so the next major post is still a ways off. However, I was testing the sound changes on a number of word lists and short texts, and thought you might like a peek at the first text in rebooted West Saxon. Here's the Lord's prayer from circa 1150, written with the orthographic conventions of the time:

ur fæder þuþe ӕrt un heofonan
sie ʒihoalwad þin nama
cume þin riece
ʒiworþe þin willa
un eorþan swa swa un heofonan
urne dæʒes lhoaf syll us todæʒe
ond forʒef us ure gyltas
swa swa we forʒefaþ uran ʒyltindan
ond ne ʒilead us un costnunʒe
ac alies us of iufele
souþlice

And here is how it would have looked on the page, with the appropriate script:


And here's how it was pronounced:

ʊɹ fɛdeɹ ðʊðɛ ɛɹt ʊn høvonən
ziː jɪhɔːlwəd ðɪn namə
cumɛ ðɪn ɹiːtʃɛ
jɪwoɹðɛ ðɪn wilːə
ʊn øɹðən zwa zwa ʊn høvonən
ʊɹnɛ dɛjɛs l̥ɔːf zylː ʊs tɔdɛjɛ
ɔnd vɔɹjef ʊs ʊɹɛ gyltəs
zwa zwa wɛ vɔɹjevəþ ʊɹən gyltɪndən
ɔnd nɛ jɪlɛːd ʊs ʊn kostnʊŋgɛ
ak aliːs ʊs ɔf yːvelɛ
zoːðlɪtʃɛ

I know it's still pretty Anglo-Saxony, but it's just starting to diverge, and already a couple minor grammatical changes are showing up, as well as the changes in pronunciation. Hope y'all like! The sound changes article should be up within the week.

*Edit I just realized I was including a planned orthographic innovation that wouldn't have happened yet. Fixed. I've also found a decent Anglo-Saxon font. Since the scribal conventions would have carried over, I can make an actual manuscript image of how it would have looked on page.I'll add that a little later Picture's been added.

[Nortaneous]

Welp you've motivated me to dust off my old OE derivative. Where's the initial velar nasal come from? /#gn/?

[Grunnen]

Ah, really looking forward to seeing more.

[Herra Ratatoskr]

@Nortaneous. And also from initial /kn/.

@Grunnen All in due time. I think that my earlier failed reboots/revisions were caused by trying to do too much too quickly, and burning through the easy/fun stuff first. I'm trying a more measured approach this time.

[Grunnen]

@Grunnen All in due time. I think that my earlier failed reboots/revisions were caused by trying to do too much too quickly, and burning through the easy/fun stuff first. I'm trying a more measured approach this time.

Well, take your time, I wasn't trying to make you go too fast, just letting you know I think it's a cool project.

[Herra Ratatoskr]

I figured as much, I just thought I'd take the opportunity to let people know that it would go at a more relaxed, formalized pace.

Also, it turns out my History notes aren't completely lost after all. I found an old laptop of mine, and was cleaning it out when I found a folder called "Wessex", that had my original timeline and history notes in it. Which hadn't been modified since 2006. They need a lot of revision, but it was kind of cool to find bits of the language and culture that old, especially when I'd thought them lost.

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Meant to get this up a few days ago, but wasn't able to because Christmas. Here's the first round of sound changes!

Sound Changes During the Old West Saxon Period (850-1150)
While the title says that these are the sound changes that cover a 300 year period, I am really only listing changes that distinguish this language from what in our timeline was Late Old English, probably from about the year 950-1000 and onward. A number of these changes occurred in the history of English as well. This is because I suspect that many of these sound changes were starting to occur prior to my timelines Point of Departure. Also, I like the idea of keeping a sort of "linguistic momentum" in the early stages of the language.

That is not to say that this is just copying what happened in English and calling it done. I've added a number of changes that I feel give the language a bit of extra character, such as the sr/sn metathesis and the pretonic vowel modifications. And speaking of pretonic vowels, this would probably be a good time to mention that in West Saxon's phonetic history, there were four historic stress levels that could cause different sound changes. There is tonic, which corresponds to what we would call a stressed syllable. All content words will have at least one tonic syllable. If the word is a compound, then the tonic vowels of both are considered tonic, even though the second will usually be stressed slightly less.

Then there is post-tonic, which is what is found in all non-tonic syllables of content word roots. A word may have zero or more post-tonic syllables.

Third, there is inflectional stress. This is a weaker form of stress than post-tonic, and is found in the inflectional endings of West Saxon. Words may have anywhere from zero to two inflectional syllables.

Fourth, there is what is called "pretonic". This stress is found in function words, such as prepositions, particles, and (sometimes) demonstratives and pronouns. Most pronouns come in both tonic forms (which syntactically act more like nouns), and pre-tonic forms, which are used more often as clitics. Demonstratives and articles would later be distinguished by being either tonic or pre-tonic stress, respectively. Most prefixes (except for separable prefixes on verbs) also take pre-tonic stress.

The structure of these articles will be as followsː A title for the change, a prose description of the sound change, and a more "schematic" equivalent to summarize the change. I've tried to keep the schematics fairly transparent. I will note that the meaning of [+/- tonic/post-tonic/inflectional/pretonic] has two similar meanings, depending on the rule in context. If the rule is applying to a vowel, then the brackets indicate that it is marking the stress level of the vowel, whichever side it occurs on. When the rule in question is applying to a consonant, then the position of the brackets shows where the vowel with that stress level occurs in relation to the consonant, e.g. the "[+inflectional]_" in Rule 1 means "when preceded by a vowel with inflectional stress."

Okay, now on to the sound changes.

1 - M > Shifting
The consonant [m] becomes [n] when it is in the coda of a syllable with inflectional stress, when followed by s, or when preceded by s, except if the [sn] cluster is before a stressed vowel (essentialy word initially).
m > n / [+inflectional]_ , _s , s_[-tonic]

2 - First Inflectional Vowel Reduction
The back inflectional vowels [u, a, o] reduced to schwa.
u a o > ə / _[+inflectional]

3 - Nasal Raising
Inflectional [e] is raised to before nasal consonants
e > i / [+inflectional]_[+nasal]

4 - Diphthong Smoothing
*Noteː I am operating under the position that the anglo-saxon diagraph "ie" (when not marking a preceding palatal consonant) represents two distinct diphthongs. The first, and much more common, is [iy], and is a result of i-umlaut of earlier [eo]/[io], and [ӕa]. The second is [ie], and is the result of followed by an earlier [e]. The most notable examples are the subjunctive forms of the verb "to be", such as 'sie' and 'sien'.
The diphthong [iy] will become [y] if preceded by a labial consonant [w m p b f], otherwise it becomes . The diphthongs [ie, eo, ӕa] are simplified to [i ø ӕ] (note that [ӕa] is the diphthong represented by "ea". Length is preserved during this simplification. The only complication to this change is that the short diphthong [eo] breaks to [jo] when word initially. When found in pre-tonic syllables, long [eo] breaks to [jo] as well.
iy(ː) > y(ː) / [+labial]_
eo > jo #_
e:o > jo #_[+pretonic]
i(ː)y i(ː)e e(ː)o ӕ(ː)a > i(ː) i(ː) ø(ː) ӕ(ː) / _

5 - Pretonic Vowel Simplification
The vowels in pretonic syllables underwent a number of modificatons.

5.1 - Pre-Nasal Raising
Preceding a nasal consonant, the consonants [i e eː] merge with [iː], [y ø øː] merge with [yː], and [u o oː] merge with .
i e eː > iː / [+pretonic]_[+nasal]
y ø øː > yː / [+pretonic]_[+nasal]
u o oː > uː / [+pretonic]_[+nasal]

5.2 - Yod Raising
Pretonic short [e] raises to when preceded by [j]
e > i / j_[+pretonic]

5.3 - Mid/High Vowel Collapse
The vowels [i eː ӕ] all collapse with [e], the vowels [y øː] collapse with [ø], and the vowels [u oː] collapse with [o].
i eː ӕ > e / _[+pretonic]
y øː > ø / _[+pretonic]
u oː > o / _[+pretonic]

5.4 - Nasal Rounding of [a]
Short [a] becomes short [o] before when adjacent to a nasal consonant
a > o / [+nasal]_[+pretonic], [+pretonic]_[+nasal]

5.5 - A Collapse
The low long vowels [ӕ aː] collapse with short [a]
ӕː aː > a / _[+pretonic]

5.6 - Length Nullification
Remaining long high vowels [uː iː yː] merge with their short counterparts
uː iː yː > u i y / _[+pretonic]

5.7 - W Loss
When in the coda following pretonic [o u], w is dropped.
w > 0 / u_[+pretonic]
w > 0 / o_[+pretonic]

6 - Length Modification
Before the homorganic clusters [mb nd ld rd rl rn ŋg] the short vowels [i e ӕ y ø u o a] lengthen to [iː ɛː ӕː yː øː uː ɔː aː], if the cluster is followed by a vowel or a word boundary. Additionally, the long vowels [iː eː ӕː yː øː uː oː aː] shorten to [i e ӕ y ø u o a] when followed by three or more consonants. In the lengthening, it should be noted that this change occurs before the raising of [ӕː] and [aː] to [ɛː] and [ɔː] (see below), so at this point the [ɛː] and [ɔː] resulting from this change are merely allophones of [oː] and [eː] at this point. However, when the later raising does occur, the resulting vowels absorb the [ɛː] and [ɔː] resulting from this change. Therefore, at the end of the period, the long vowels [eː] and [oː] do not occur before one of these lengthening clusters.
i e ӕ y ø u o a > iː ɛː ӕː yː øː uː ɔː aː / _(mb,nd,ld,rd,rn,ŋg)(V,#)
iː eː ӕː yː øː uː oː aː> i e ӕ y ø u o a / _CCC

7 - Pretonic Cluster Simplification
The consonants are dropped from the clusters [mb nd ŋg] when following a pretonic vowel and followed by a word boundary or another consonant.
mb nd ŋg > m n ŋ / [+pretonic]_C, [+pretonic]_#

8 - Long A Retraction
The vowel [a] is retracted and raised to [ɔ] when it is long.
aː > ɔː

9 - Yogh Vocalization
The voiced fricative [ɣ] vocalizes to [w]
ɣ > w / _

10 - Diphthong Shortening
The long diphthongs [aːw ɔːw oːw uːw øːw yːw ӕːj eːj ij] shorten to [aw ɔw ow uw øw yw ӕj ej ij]
aːw ɔːw oːw uːw øːw yːw ӕːj eːj ij > aw ɔw ow uw øw yw ӕj ej ij / _

11 - OW Collapse
Coincidentally with the preceding change, the mid-low back dipththong [ɔw] merges with [ow]
ɔw > ow / _

12 - W Shifting
When following a front round vowel [y ø], [w] fronts to [ɥ].
w > ɥ / y_ , ø_

13 - T Shifting
Several sounds change to [t]. These include the clusters [tθ] and [dθ]. [d] becomes [t] when followed by [st]. [θ] also becomes [t] word finally, when preceded by a consonant.
tθ dθ > t / _
d > t / _st
θ > t / [+consonant]_#

14 - Fricative Voicing
The fricatives [f θ s ʃ] voice to [v ð z ʒ] when initial and followed by a voiced sound. This change is not shown orthographically.
f θ s ʃ > v ð z ʒ /#_[+voice]

15 - W Coloring
The vowels [y yː yɥ ø øː øɥ ӕ ӕː] become [i iː ij o uː a aː] when preceded by a [w].
y yː yɥ ø øː ӕ ӕː > i iː ij o uː oi a aː / w_

16 - H Cluster Simplification
[h] is lost before [w l r n]. When word initial, [h] triggers devoicing of the following consonant before it is lost. Additionally, the cluster [lx] simplifies to voiceless [l̥].
hw hl hr hn > ʍ l̥ r̥ n̥ / #_
hw hl hr hn lx > w l r n l̥ / _

17 - SR/SN Metathesis
The clusters [sr] and [sn] metathesize to [rs] and [ns] when between vowels.
sr sn > rs ns / V_V

18 - Æ Raising
The sound [ӕ] is raised to [ɛ]. Length is retained. It should be noted that this is contrary to the normal outcome in our timeline, where [ӕː] became [ɛː], but [ӕ] merged with [a]. However, it seems that a change more like this one occured in our timeline's Southwestern dialect area (where the descendant of our timeline's West Saxon dialect was spoken), giving me some more room to stand on.
ӕ(ː) > ɛ(ː) / _ (Moved to later).

[hwhatting]

Can you give an example or two with every sound change? I'm like that, I like illustrations.

[vec]

Seconded!

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Okay, this took a little longer than expected. Because Christmas. But now it's back on track baby!

@hwatting & @vec. I'll include them in future sound change posts, and will go back at some point and add them into the post above, but not right now.

Also, I forgot to include a sound change that should have occurred. I will update the above post to reflect it shortly, but now, onto the grammar changes! There isn't too much happening now, but the Middle West Saxon Period will be pretty big. I'm looking forward to and also kind of dreading writing it.

Okay, now that we've got the sound changes that occurred, it's time to cover the grammatical changes which happened during the Old West Saxon Period. Thes articles describing the grammar changes will be broken up into five sections.

The first of these will be Nominal/Adjectival Changes. Into this section will go any changes affecting nouns and adjectives. These will cover morphological changes, but also changes in case usage, changes to the gender system, and nominal/adjectival derivational developments.

The next section will be Pronominal/Demonstrative/Prepositional Changes. Here will go all the changes to the "little" words. The most common of these will be changes to pronouns, demonstratives, and prepositions, but it will also cover the development of the number system, the evolution of the articles, and the use of particles and even adverbs.

Next comes Verbal Changes. These will cover morphological changes to the verb system, but also changes in derivation, in tense usage, and in the development of periphrastic tenses, and even common verbal constructions as they arise.

After that comes Word Order Changes. West Saxon's sentence structure goes through a number of significant developments during its history, and this section will document each period's steps on the road to Contemporary West Saxon's word order. This will cover primarily clause structure, but also developments in the order of the noun, verb, and adjective phrases. Next to last is Orthographic Developments, a section on general trends (if they exist) in the orthography

The final portion (in this post at least) Incipient Changes. These are changes that are first seen late in the period, but only sporadically noted during the time period, and are not "standard" before the period's end. Think of them as a preview of coming attractions.

In the following posts, I'll also have a section called Relics, which will cover the last few instances of forms that were already all but dead in the previous period, but still occurred occasionally in a few later documents, or occurs to give a marked, archaic character. An example from modern English could be the use of the verb ending "-eth", rather than "-s" for 3rd person singular.

Grammatical Changes During the Old West Saxon Period (850-1150)
Compared with the Middle West Saxon Period, the Old West Saxon period was relatively stable, as it was the last period before the (almost) complete leveling of inflectional vowels to schwa. It didn't experience the significant nominal simplification the Nominal/Adjectival would experience in Early Middle West Saxon. Nor did it experience anything like the innovations of the Late Middle West Saxon Period (though admittedly many of those changes first appeared late in the Early Middle period). That being said, a few important trends began during this time, which would affect the

Nominal/Adjectival Changes
Spread of the -ina Genitive
With the collapse of back inflectional vowels [a o u], the plural forms of the nominative/accusative and genitive cases for feminine strong nouns and neuter strong nouns which ended in a "light" syllable were identical. Once this happened, it became increasingly common for the weak genitive plural ending "-ina" (from earlier "-ena") to be used as the genitive plural marker for these nouns.

Masculine strong nouns, as well as neuter strong nouns which ended in a "heavy" syllable, and thus had a null nominative/accusative plural ending, typically retained the genitive plural ending "-a" (but see Incipient Changes below).

Umlaut Plural Leveling
In nouns which show vowel change in the plural, the vowels are leveled between the different case forms, with all forms of the plural taking the vowel of the nominative/accusative plural, and all forms of the singular taking the vowel of the nominative/accusative singular. Therefore, in words like "fot" (foot), the dative singular at the end of the period is "fote", rather than earlier "fet", and the plural dative is "fetan" (compared with earlier "fotum").

This change occurred somewhat late in the period, and many believe that it was driven by the influence of the so-called "e/a" nouns. These are nouns which had [ɛ] (earlier [æ]) all through the singular, but [a] all through the plural. These are not the results of I-umlaut, but rather [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Fris ... estoration]A-Restoration[/a]. In English sound changes would leave these two vowels identical, but in West Saxon, nouns that showed the sound change proved somewhat frequent, and even predictable (for a time at least).

Decline of bare Dative as Instrumental
The use of a bare dative case as an instrumental died out by the end of the period, replaced by prepositional constructions.

Cg# becomes Ca# in Nouns/Adjectives.
The vocalization of [ɣ] to [w] made a number of nouns ending in Cg look like -wa/-wo stems in all cases but the nominative and accusative singular (for feminines, only the nominative singulars). Therefore, I'm having those feminines move over to the -wo stem declension completely, and having their nominative singulars now end in -a, matching the other nouns therein. For instance, earlier "beorg" (meaning "hill/mountain") became beora (with a stem of beorw- for the inflected forms).

Pronominal/Demonstrative/Prepositional Changes
Strong/Weak Pronoun Distinction Begins Appearing
Pronouns and demonstratives had both strong forms (which were stressed) and weak forms (which were unstressed). The weak demonstratives would also go onto be used as articles later, while the importance of the strong/weak distinction for pronouns would be seen in word order, where the weak forms were considered syntactically "invisible" for the purposes of V2 word order, while strong (emphatic) forms behaved like nouns.

Verbal Changes
Standardization of the "Contracted" 2nd/3rd Person Singular
The 2nd and 3rd person singular forms of strong verbs and Class 1 weak verbs show a contraction of the endings "-est" and "-eþ" to "-st" and "-t/-þ" when followed by a singular consonant (when that consonant isn't a sibilant). The distinction between "-t" and "-þ" is based on the consonant it is adjacent to (see the sound change post for clarification). This often triggered shortening of the stem vowel if it was long, which reinforced the umlaut of stem vowels in 2nd/3rd person singular of some strong and irregular vowels. Class 2 verbs sometimes show this reduction as well, but it was still uncommon at the period's end.

Generalization of ʒe-/ʒi- as Marker of the Past Participles
The prefix ʒi- (or occasionally still ʒe-) came to be more and more used solely as a marker of the past participle with verbs. Like in German, it wasn't used when the verb had an inseparable prefix, but by the end of the period it was otherwise mandatory for past participle.

Development of Periphrastic Verb Forms
Periphrastic verb forms become more common during this period. The biggest developments were the development of perfect forms (typically with the verb "habban" (to have) for transitive verbs, and "beon" (to be) for intransitive verbs combined with the past participle of the verb. At this point, the meaning was still somewhat semantic, i.e. "I have eaten the meal" meant "I have a meal that is eaten (by me)" or "I am run" meant "I am in a state of having run". This is show somewhat by word order, and by the fact that the past participle still inflects to agree with the object (in transitive sentences) or the subject (in intransitive ones) of the sentence. This was not the only periphrastic form to develop, however.

The verb "beon" was used present participle (still inflected for agreement with the subject) to give something of a habitual tense, or to express a tendency towards something. When the when used with the "b" forms of "beon" (beo/bist/biþ/beoþ), it gave a gnomic sense.

Additionally, a number of ways of forming a future tense began to grow more common. Of these, the two most common were the use of the verbs willan and sculan with the infinitive. However, the "b" forms of "beon" were used by themselves a a future tense of "to be" with increasing frequency, and by the end of the period the "b" forms plus an infinitive start showing up as well. However, while this construction was becoming less uncommon, it was still not as frequent as ones with willan or sculan.

Occasionally, a form of "worþan" plus an infinitive appears with future meaning, but this is very uncommon.

It should be noted that, even with these methods of future construction, the most common future was the present tense + context, or with some adverb denoting futurity.

Word Order Changes
Standardization of V2 SOV word order
During the period, the only real significant development in word order was a gradual settling on an SOV clause structure, subject to a V2 constraint. This put West Saxon on the trajectory to having a word order much like the other West Germanic languages, like German, Dutch, and Frisian. The only major difference between West Saxon and those other languages is that a weak pronoun was not subject to the V2 constraint, meaning that if an object or adverb was fronted before a vowel, a weak pronoun did not seem to be taking up a syntactic slot, as it were, and was not moved behind the verb as it would be in, say, German. A strong pronoun would be moved, but being stressed it was typically considered emphatic itself. More and more commonly, when both a strong pronoun and an emphasized object or adverb appeared in a sentence, the object or adverb would be backed (see below). An example of such a sentence might be "I want to go to the store" (rather than Joe, who wants to go to the movies.)

Beginnings of Object/Modifier Backing
Even as the word order of West Saxon clauses was beginning to settle into its fairly conventional West Germanic word order, a complication was beginning to arise which would eventually rework the whole West Saxon clause structure. The back of a clause became a second "emphasis" point, along with the front of a clause. Objects were placed there more often than adverbs, but it wasn't for either to go there. By the end of the period, the back of the clause had supplanted the front and the point of emphasis for objects, while the front was more typically used for adverbs still. However, this structure was still quite marked, and the default V2 SOV word order was still the one most commonly found.


Orthographic Developments
Initial [j] is shown by [ʒ] before a front vowel, or |ʒi| before a back vowel. The combination [jo], when found word initially, is often written as |eo|, due to many instances of that sound combination arising from the development of initial short /eo/. This convention even extends to some instances of intitial /jo/ that don't derive from earlier /eo/. Thus, the spelling "eonʒ" for "young" (pronounced /jɔːŋg/). It should be noted that this is not conventional, and eventually fell out of favor. The more common spelling would be "ʒionʒ" at the end of the period.

To distinguish initial /ø/ from initial /jo/, the combination |eu| is used. Since instances of initial /ø/ are always long (as initial short /eo/ developed into /jo/), it became increasingly common for long /ø/ to be written with /eu/, regardless of whether or not it was word initial.

It should be noted that, right now, I'm using ʒ for /g/ and many of its reflexes. This is because ʒ and g will later split (much like g and yogh did in English), and ʒ will eventually be absorbed into j.

Also, distribution of þ/ð is becoming more fixed in the language, with ð being used mainly when the coda of a syllable, especially when word final, and þ being used elsewhere. By the end of the period, double . This is not a firm rule, but a general trend, showing ð's gradual reduction in use, portending it's eventual abandonment.

Incipient Changes
Article Developments
The use of the demonstratives, the number one, and the adjective "sum" with pretonic stress as distinct articles (rather than demonstratives or numerals) begins in this period. Their usage, however, was not settled. While later the language would settle into a three-way definite/specific/generic system, the Old West Saxon period shows a great deal of flux in the usage.

Leveling of Strong Verb Vowels
Though by and large the distinction in strong verbs between the first and second preterite vowels (occurring in the first/third person singluar, and everywhere else respectively), an increasing number of texts have the second preterite vowel leveled across all the preterite forms, starting around the year 1100. This would not be generalized until will into the Middle West Saxon period, however.

Genitive Adjective Endings Begin Sporadically Dropping
Occasionally, the genitive ending of adjectives are omitted or replaced with the nominative. This is somewhat most common in the feminine and plural forms (where the endings -re and -ra are replaced with the nominative endings -a), though it is seen occasionally in the masculine and neuter forms too. This change is only noted in the strong adjective inflection.

Beginnings of Object/Modifier Backing
Even as the word order of West Saxon clauses was beginning to settle into its fairly conventional West Germanic word order, a complication was beginning to arise.

Strong Masculine Nouns with -ina Genitive
Though it was never very widespread, it is not unheard of to see the genitive plural ending "-ina" on strong masculine nouns on occasion in texts from later in the period. Much work has been spent trying to find reasons behind the usage, but no real pattern has yet been found. It seems to be more pure analogy at this point, as the sound changes that would later help drive "-ina"'s later dominance do not seem to have occured in the documents which show this effect.

Collective Forms
Though more a feature of the Middle West Saxon Period, a number of texts show the prefix "ʒe-" or "ʒi-" used with the plural forms of nouns to denote a collective sense. During this period, these forms are most commonly found with kinship terms (which is also where this usage would linger longest).

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Errata: Vol 1
Okay, so in making up the grammar sketch for Late Old West Saxon, and in doing some extra research on Kentish for dialect purposes, I realized I'd made a few mistakes and omissions, and I've changed my mind on a few things. Therefore, I'm posting the first (and probably not the last) errata for my West Saxon posts. I'll change the posts to match these changes, but I thought it best to post here as well so people don't miss them.

Change 1: Wightish is of Kentish Stock, and the Coastal Central dialect shows Kentish Influence.
In the description of dialects, I said that the Wightish dialect was in the Central Zone, making it a descendant of the West Saxon Dialect. Further investigation into Kentish showed that it extended along the Hampshire coast, and onto the Isle of Wight. Therefore, Wightish should be descended from Kentish, and as such belongs in the Southeastern Zone. Also, the Coastal would theoretically be descended from Kentish, but I've decided to have the prestige dialect of nearby Winchester overtake it, leaving some Kentish Influences.

Change 2: Delay of raising of æ to ɛ
I've decided to hold of on the raising of æ toɛ until early in the Middle West Saxon period. The end result will still be the same for Standard West Saxon, but I think that I can play with the vowels a bit in the dialects. Also, further investigation suggests that short æ at least was still æ into the early 1200s in the West Saxon dialect area.

Change 3: Pretonic loss of coda w
This is just a sound change I forgot to include. It happens shortly after the collapse of the pretonic vowels, and has coda [w] dropping when following a pretonic [o] or .

Change 4: Cg# becomes Ca# in Nouns.
This is a bit of grammar change that I forgot to include. The vocalization of [ɣ] to [w] made a number of nouns ending in Cg look like -wa/-wo stems in all cases but the nominative and accusative singular (for feminines, only the nominative singulars). Therefore, I'm having those feminines move over to the -wo stem declension completely, and having their nominative singulars now end in -a, matching the other nouns therein. For instance, earlier "beorg" (meaning "hill/mountain") became beora (with a stem of beorw- for the inflected forms).

Change 5: Spelling Conventions
I've decided to include any major developments in spelling conventions in the grammar change posts. Since I hadn't done so above, here the changes are:
Initial [j] is shown by [ʒ] before a front vowel, or |ʒi| before a back vowel. The combination [jo], when found word initially, is often written as |eo|, due to many instances of that sound combination arising from the development of initial short /eo/. This convention even extends to some instances of intitial /jo/ that don't derive from earlier /eo/. Thus, the spelling "eonʒ" for "young" (pronounced /jɔːŋg/). It should be noted that this is not conventional, and eventually fell out of favor. The more common spelling would be "ʒionʒ" at the end of the period.

To distinguish initial /ø/ from initial /jo/, the combination |eu| is used. Since instances of initial /ø/ are always long (as initial short /eo/ developed into /jo/), it became increasingly common for long /ø/ to be written with /eu/, regardless of whether or not it was word initial.

It should be noted that, right now, I'm using ʒ for /g/ and many of its reflexes. This is because ʒ and g will later split (much like g and yogh did in English), and ʒ will eventually be absorbed into j.

Also, distribution of þ/ð is becoming more fixed in the language, with ð being used mainly when the coda of a syllable, especially when word final. This is not a firm rule, but a general trend, showing ð's gradual reduction in use, portending it's eventual abandonment.

And that's it for now. The grammar sketch is almost done, and will be up hopefully tomorrow Friday or Saturday.

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Well, technically I did get this in on Saturday, just not the Saturday I'd planned. Partly this was due to being sick and overworked last week, and partly due to my attempt at a grammar sketch getting less and less "sketchy". I'd tried to pare it back some, but then it felt much too superficial. Because of this, I've decided to modify how I'll be doing these grammar sketches. The plan now is to break them up into 5 chapters, covering (1) Phonology & Orthography (2) Nouns and Adjectives (3) Verbs (4) Pronouns, Numbers, Articles, & Particles (5) Word Order & Common Constructions. This means that it will take a bit longer to finish this up (BOO!), but it will allow me to go into somewhat greater depth on these posts that I might have otherwise (YAY!).

Also, I'll be moving the "Grammar Changes" articles to after the Grammar Sketch articles. I've got my roadmap of the major changes in place, but in working on the grammar sketch, I realized I'd left out a bunch of small details, and some cool levelings suggested themselves. I'm keeping an inventory of them as I go, and I suspect that the later periods will go about the same. Therefore, I'll be holding off on the grammar changes until I'm sure I've got all of them for the period. Sadly, that means that the post I'd written earlier should be considered woefully incomplete. I'll leave it up until I get it's replacement written, but once that's done, it'll be deleted. For the same reason, disregard the errata post for now. I'm updating the original post to reflect these changes.

Oh, I should probably note that I'm giving up using ʒ for g right now, as there isn't really any point, other than looking a little more like the manuscripts would. Once |g| is reintroduced, making ʒ and g distinct letters, I'll bring it back of course, but for now it's just an extra hassle that isn't giving any real benefit.

Also, thank you to all who voted for this for Most Promising Revival!

Old West Saxon Grammar Sketch: Phonology & Orthography
Consonants
Winchester West Saxon in 1150 had 24 consonant phonemes, spread across 5 places of articulation. Length was contrastive for most consonants word-internally (except for [ŋ], [tʃ], and [dʒ]). Voicing was contrastive for stops, and also for the resonants [n w l ɹ] word initially. Voicing was also contrastive for [ɹ] and [l] word finally as well. When inflection would cause formerly final [l̥] or [ɹ̥] to no longer be final, they would voice to [l] or [ɹ]. A summary of the consonants are as follows:

Code: Select all

+---------+-----+------+-----+-----+-----+
|         | Lab | Dent | Alv | Pal | Vel |
+---------+-----+------+-----+-----+-----+
|   Stop  | p b |   -  | t d |  -  | k g | 
+---------+-----+------+-----+-----+-----+
|   Fric  |  f  |   θ  |  s  |  ʃ  |  x  | 
+---------+-----+------+-----+-----+-----+
|  Nasal  |  m  |   -  | n n̥ |  -  |  ŋ  | 
+---------+-----+------+-----+-----+-----+
| Liquid  | w ʍ |  l l̥ | ɹ ɹ̥ |  j  |  -  | 
+---------+-----+------+-----+-----+-----+
| Affric  |  -  |   -  |  -  |tʃ dʒ|  -  | 
+---------+-----+------+-----+-----+-----+

Voicing of the fricatives [f], [θ], [s], and [ʃ] was allophonic, being voiced when word initial and followed by a vowel or voiced consonant, or when between voiced phonemes when word internally. Long [f], [θ], [s], and [ʃ] were unvoiced. The velar fricative [x] was never voiced, and had several realizations based on its position. Word initially, it was realized as [h], while when preceded by a front vowel it was realized as [ç].

Vowels
Monophthongs
Winchester West Saxon around 1150 had a fairly rich vowel system, with 18 distinct monophthongs, though one of them [ə] only appears in inflectional endings. Vowels have four different heights (high, mid-high, mid-low, or low), can be either front(F) or back(B), and are either rounded(RD) or unrounded(UR). Additionally some have contrast purely on length, while others generally are part of long/short pairs that vary in quality also. Their values are as follows:

Code: Select all

+----------+------+------+------+------+
|  VOWELS  | F-UR | F-RD | B-UR | B-RD |
+----------+------+------+------+------+
|   HIGH   | iː ɪ | yː ʏ |  -   | uː ʊ |
+----------+------+------+------+------+
| MID-HIGH |   eː |   øː |  -   |  oː  |
+----------+------+------+------+------+
|  MID-LOW |   ɛ  |   œ  |  ə   | ɔː ɔ |
+----------+------+------+------+------+
|    LOW   | æː æ |   -  | ɑ ɑː |  -   |
+----------+------+------+------+------+

This analysis is, however, somewhat superficial, as it masks some of the underlying features of the language. This can be seen when the vowels are grouped into their long/short pairs:

Code: Select all

+--------+-------+
|  LONG  | SHORT |
+--------+-------+
|   iː   |   ɪ   |
+--------+-------+
|   yː   |   ʏ   |
+--------+-------+
|   uː   |   ʊ   |
+--------+-------+
|   eː   |   ɛ   |
+--------+-------+
|   øː   |   œ   |
+--------+-------+
| oː(ɔː) |   ɔ   |
+--------+-------+
|   ɔː   |   ɑ   |
+--------+-------+
| æː(ɑː) |   æ   |
+--------+-------+

While most of these are fairly straightforward, note that the long equivalent of [ɑ] is [ɔː], not [ɑː]. This is because [ɔː] comes from earlier [ɑː], at least most of the time. Some instances of [ɔː] descend from earlier [oː] which was lowered before certain consonant clusters. Also, the very existence of [ɑː] as a phoneme is hard to justify, as it only appears in place of [æː] when it appears before [w], making it just an allophone. Also, it is spelled as [æː] as well.

The reason the vowels have been presented this way, however, is to give a better idea of the pronunciation of the time. Also, many of these correspondences break down over West Saxon's evolution, so this schema gives a bit of a better view of where West Saxon is heading.

There are also three inflectional vowels, [ə ɛ ɪ].

Diphthongs
In addition to these monophthongs, there are a number of diphthongs. All of the diphthongs from the start of the OWS period have been reduced to monophthongs, but the vocalization of [ɣ] to [w] or [j] over the course of the period has created a number of other diphthongs, 8 in total, all of which are falling. They can end in either [j], [ɥ], or [w], and can have nuclei that are either high, mid, or low. Their values are as follows:

Code: Select all

+------+--------+----+----+
|      |   -j   | -ɥ | -w |
+------+--------+----+----+
| HIGH |   ij   | yɥ | uw |
+------+--------+----+----+
| MID  |   ej   | øɥ | ow |
+------+--------+----+----+
| LOW  | æj(aj) |    | aw |
+------+--------+----+----+

Unlike at the start of the period, length is not a feature of these diphthongs.

As with [ɑː] being an allophone of [æː] following [w], so to is [aj] an allophone of [æj] following [w]. The reason this is not counted as a distinct diphthong is that doing so is not as instructive. In standard West Saxon, the two eventually remerge, meaning that the only benefit would be a slightly better understanding of pronunciation.

Orthography
The spelling of West Saxon of this time period generally follows the conventions of earlier Old West Saxon authors, though some innovations and analogical levelings are making their way into the manuscripts. What this means is that the orthography is a mess.

Consonants
The consonants are, by and large, fairly straightforward in their spelling. [p t b d f s x m n l ɹ] are almost invariably represented by | p t b d f s h m n l r|.

Of the remaining consonants, [θ ʃ w] are also fairly simple, but some commentary should be included. First [w] is represented in these articles by [w], but this is just a convention to make typing easier. In the manuscripts of the time, the letter wynn (ƿ) is used. The reason that I'm using [w] is (a) it makes typing it easier, and (b) it's a bit easier to understand reading it. But it should still be remembered that it isn't exactly what you would be seeing in a manuscript. Next, [ʃ] is represented by [sc] almost invariably, though some authors will write |sci| when it is coming before a back vowel. In standardized texts, however, |sc] is always used. Finally, we have [θ]. Earlier in the period, either |þ| or |ð| could be used indescriminantly, but by the end of the period, their distribution had become more standardized, with |þ| expanding at |ð|'s expense. |þ| is always found when word initial, and generally within words, though |ð| appears there from time to time as well. By the period's end, |ð| is only found conistently when it is word final.

The voiceless resonants [ʍ l̥ ɹ̥ n̥] are still usually spelled with a preceding |h|, as in |hw hl hr hn|. However, there is a growing trend to put the |h| after the resonant, so the forms |wh lh rh nh| are not uncommon by the end of the period. This would later become universal, but for now it was still something of an orthographic upstart.

Then we have [k g j tʃ], whose representations all use |c| and |g|. Typically, |c| represents [k] when it is followed by a back vowel, [yː], or [ʏ] ("k" vowels) or if it is a syllable coda and is preceded by on of those vowels. |c| is usually [tʃ] when it is followed by [iː ɪ eː øː ɛ œ æː æ] ("ch" vowels"), or preceded by those vowels when it is part of a coda. These are just general rules, however, and there are numerous exceptions. |g| can represent either [g] or [j], using the rules of |c|'s representation of [k]/[tʃ].

One other way that [j] is represented is with the letter "e" in the cluster |eo| (representing [jɔ]) when it appears word initially. This is usually seen in words which earlier had word initial short [ɛɔ], which later shifted to [jɔ] instead of [œ].

Given the ambiguity in the above system, it became increasingly common to use |ci| and |gi| to represent onset [tʃ] and [j] when followed by a "k" vowel. For codas, |ic| and |ig| were used. This was by no means a perfect solution, nor was it universally used, but it worked for the time.

The representation of [dʒ], the most common representation was with |cg|, however, sometimes |gi| would be used when it followed a nasal, representing the cluster |ndʒ|. This was written even if the following vowel was a "ch" vowel, to distinguish it from |ng| representing[ŋg]

Finally, the velar nasal [ŋ] is represented by |n|, followed by either |g| or |c|.

Vowels
The spelling of West Saxon Vowels at this time is in a state of flux. Earlier in the period, length was generally not shown orthographically. As sounds changed, however, some new conventions arose, and the system began marking length on some vowels, at least some of the time. It should also be noted that in some manuscripts, long vowels carried an accute accent to show their length, though this was never very widespread, and later fell out of use as a standardized way of showing long vowels developed. I will address each complication in the vowel system orthography, but first here is a summary of how each vowel was written:

Code: Select all

+-----------------+--------------+
|  LONG VOWELS    | SHORT VOWELS |
+-----------------+--------------+
| Sound  | Orth   | Sound | Orth |
+--------+--------+-------+------+
|   iː   | i/ie   |   ɪ   | i    |
+--------+--------+-------+------+
|   yː   | y      |   ʏ   | y    |
+--------+--------+-------+------+
|   uː   | u      |   ʊ   | u    |
+--------+--------+-------+------+
|   eː   | e      |   ɛ   | e    |
+--------+--------+-------+------+
|   øː   | eu/eo  |   œ   | eo   |
+--------+--------+-------+------+
|   oː   | o      |   ɔ   | o    |
+--------+--------+-------+------+
|   ɔː   | oa/a/o |   ɑ   | a    |
+--------+--------+-------+------+
| æː(ɑː) | ea     |   æ   | æ    |
+--------+--------+-------+------+

The meanings of the "/" forms are as follows:
|ie| was a continuation of the graph for the earlier diphthongs [i(ː)ʏ] and [i(ː)ɛ], both of which usually turned into [iː] or [ɪ], depending on the length of the original diphthong. With this merger, the there was no phonetic difference between the realization of |i| and |ie|. Some later writers began using |ie| as a way to represent [iː], regardless of its source. A similar thing can be seein with the digraph |ea| representing [æː]. Originally this came from the older diphthong [æ(ː)ɑ], which merged with [æ(ː)]. Like with |ie|, |ea| took over the role of showing the long equivalent of that pair.

With the development of word intial short [ɛɔ] into [jɔ], some writers began using |eu| as a way to show word intial [øː]. Since this was always long, it became increasingly common for this structure to be used for all instances of [øː], though in many manuscripts |eo| representing [øː] can still be found.

Finally, there is the representation of [ɔː]. This originally came from the retraction of earlier [ɑː], and was bolstered by the lowering of [oː] before the lengthening clusters [mb], [nd], [ld], [rd], [rl], [rn], and [ŋg]. As such, it would historically be represented by |a| or |o|, and these can both be seen when followed by the aforementioned lengthening clusters. However, a new vowel digraph, |oa| began being used around the turn of the 12th century to represent [ɔː] and quickly grew in popularity.

As for the inflectional vowels, [ɛ] and [ɪ] are written as |e| and |i|. [ə] is normally written with |a|, but |o| occurs fairly often. |u| is also used occasionally, but that is not very common, usually being used in the dative plural ending in an attempt to keep with earlier conventions.