Northern Nezo-Germanic

Overview

Northern Nezo-Germanic is a dialect of Proto-Nezo-Germanic (PNzG) spoken in the southern regions of the Nezo-Germanic Islands.

Phonology

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Plosive	p, b	t, d		k, g
Fricative	ɸ ~ f (f)	s
Nasal	m	n
Liquid	w	l	j
Tap/Flap		ɾ

	Front	Center	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

Main Phonological Shifts

The most notable sound shift in Northern Nezo-Germanic is the Great Northern Nezo-Germanic Vowel Shift. This vowel shift dropped all vowels:

/i/ > /e/ > /a/

/u/ > /o/ > /a/

ek > ak

tu > to

tris > tres

The vowel /y/ shifted to /i/, unrounding.

Nasals in coda position (the end of a syllable) disappeared:

mangas > magas

drinkan > dreka

etam > ata

Noun Class Merger

The noun class system of Proto-Nezo-Germanic included to different classes: Class I nouns, ending in "-as", and Class II nouns, ending in "-ō". In the northern dialect, all Class II nouns became merged into Class I.

fetrō > fatras

The northern dialect is the only dialect to merge these two classes.