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The phonology of Old Saxon mirrors that of the other ancient Germanic languages, and also, to a lesser extent, that of modern West Germanic languages such as English, Dutch, Frisian, German, and Low German.

Old Saxon is an Ingvaeonic language, which means that it belongs to the West Germanic branch of the Germanic languages and that it is particularly closely related to Old English and Old Frisian. Thus, anyone looking at Old Saxon phonology will recognize some typical West-Germanic phonological features also found in Old English, such as gemination and the different pronunciations of the letter g.

Distinctive features

Old Saxon was in a direct continuum with Old Dutch, with which it shares the distribution of the reflexes of Proto-Germanic *ai and *au, which monophthongize to /ɛː/ and /ɔː/ unless followed by a semivowel or, in the case of *ai, under the influence of an umlaut. This contrasts with Old High German, which monophthongizes *ai and *au only in front of certain consonants and word-finally, thus creating no distinction between older *ai and its umlaut. In a similar vein, Old English merges both Proto-Germanic *au and *auw into /æːɑ/, whereas Old Frisian partially merges older *ai and *au into /ā/.

Old Saxon, unlike the other West Germanic languages, consistently preserves Germanic -j- after a consonant, e.g. hēliand ('savior'), cf. Old High German: heilant, Old English: hǣlend, Gothic: háiljands.

Consonants

The table below lists the consonantal phonemes of Old Saxon.

Old Saxon consonant phonemes
Labial Dental/
Alveolar
Palatal/
Velar
Glottal
Nasal m n
Plosive p b t d k
Fricative
(sibilant)
f (v) θ (ð) (x) ɣ h
(z)
Approximant w l j
Rhotic r
Notes

Vowels

Old Saxon monophthongs
Front Back
unrounded rounded
short long short long short long
Close ɪ (ʏ) () ʊ
Close-mid (e) (øː)
Open-mid ɛ ɛː (œ) (œː) ɔ ɔː
Near-open (æ) (æː)
Open ɑ ɑː

Notes:

Diphthongs

Old Saxon diphthongs
Front Back
Opening io/ia/ie (uo)
Height-harmonic iu
Closing aːi  ɛi  ɛu ɑu  ɔːi  oːi

Notes:

See also

References