Old Dersite is a posteriori derived from Common Brittonic, and thus related to Welsh and Breton.
(It's "Old" Dersite because my intention is for this iteration of the language to be eventually be a liturgical and literary language contrasted with a more modern spoken form—but that is fairly far in the future lmao.)
Consonants:
- The consonant reflexes of obstruents are quite conservative between Old Dersite and Common Brittonic; the vast majority have remained basically the same.
- /k/ is spelled as <c>. /ɸ, β, θ, ð, χ, ɣ/ are spelled as <ph, bh, th, dh, ch, gh>.
- /n/ is realized as [ŋ] before a velar, but this distinction is not phonemic or orthographically represented.
- /h/ is now only pronounced word-initially, but is still written word-internally.
- <ll> represents /ɬ/.
- /r/ has become [h] word-finally in certain contexts (primarily after reflexes of CBr /u, o, ʉ/); in other contexts word-final /r/ is realized as [ʂ] (primarily after reflexes of CBr /i ɨ/). [ʂ] is always written as <r>; whether the <r> is orthographically retained in cases where it is realized as [h] is somewhat idiosyncratic and lexically determined.
- Similarly, syllable-final /rr/ is sometimes realized as [ʐ] (primarily after reflexes of CBr. /i ɨ/).
- The labialized phonemes CBr /gw β̃ hw/ → OD /gʷ β ʍ/ are written <g(w) bh hw>, but are in the process of shifting into [w β ɸ].
| CBr | OD reflex | Spelling |
| p b t d k g | p b t d k g | p b t d c g |
| f β θ ð x ɣ | ɸ β θ ð χ ɣ | ph bh th dh ch gh |
| gw β̃ hw | gʷ β ʍ | g(w) bh hw |
| h s j w | [h~∅] s j w | h s i w |
| l ll r rr m n | l ɬ [ɾ~h~ʂ] [r~ʐ] m [n~ŋ] | l ll r/∅ rr m n |
Vowels:
| CBr | OD reflex | Spelling |
| e | ɛ | e |
| ė (e̝) | eɪ | ei |
| ɨ | ɪ (stressed), ə (unstressed) | y |
| i | i | i |
| ʉ | ɪ (stressed), ə (unstressed) | u |
| u | wɔ | ou |
| a | a | a |
| o | aw (stressed), ɔ (unstressed) | au, o |
Stress and Syllabification:
Stress is mostly regular, falling on the final syllable. One exception is "bird" edhyn [ˈɛː.ðən] < CBr *edn.
Length is non-phonemic for vowels, but gemination is phonemic for consonants. Typically, the vowel in a stressed syllable is lengthened, unless one of the consonants in that syllable is geminated or part of a cluster; that is, only one “long” phoneme may appear in a syllable. Thus, “woman” ben is [bɛːn], but when the geminate or nasalizing mutations apply, it is bben [bːɛn] and mmen [mːɛn]; “this” hynn is [hənː], not *[həːnː] (although the monosyllable hynn is typically not stressed in any case).
This syllabic length restriction also applies to consonants; in the case where a syllable contains a phonemically long consonant in both onset and coda, an epenthetic vowel is added if necessary and the word is resyllabified to move the long coda consonant to the next syllable. Epenthetic vowels are not written orthographically, and note that stress does not move. Thus, a hypothetical lexeme bbenn would not be realized *[bːɛnː] but as [ˈbːɛ.nːə] or [ˈbːɛn.nə].
Note also that this applies to phonemically long consonants; [χ] when originally derived from a geminated /h/ ([hː] > [χ]) is, of course, patterned as a geminate (thus chynn *[χənː] > [ˈχən.nə]), and other instances of the phoneme /χ/ are typically reanalyzed this way by analogy as well.
Consonant mutations:
There are four mutations in Old Dersite: null, leniting (L), nasalizing (N), and geminating (H).
- Leniting mutation: voiceless plosives become voiced plosives; voiced plosives (and /m/) become voiced fricatives. /p t k {b m} d g/ → /b d g β ð ɣ/
- Nasalizing mutation: voiced plosives become geminated nasal, nasals geminate, n- prothesis before vowels. /{b m} {d n} g V/ → /mm nn ŋg n-V/
- Geminating mutation: plosives and voiceless fricatives geminate, h- prothesis before vowels. /p b t d k g s h V/ → /pp bb tt dd cc gg ss ch h-V/