Editing Breton language (section)

==Phonology==

===Vowels===
Vowels in Breton may be [[vowel length|short or long]]. All unstressed vowels are short; stressed vowels can be short or long (vowel lengths are not noted in usual orthographies as they are implicit in the phonology of particular dialects, and not all dialects pronounce stressed vowels as long). An emergence of a schwa sound occurs as a result of vowel neutralization in post-tonic position, among different dialects.

All vowels can also be [[nasalization|nasalized]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hemon |first1=Roparz |author-link1=Roparz Hemon |last2=Everson |first2=Michael |author-link2=Michael Everson |title=Breton Grammar |edition=2 |year=2007 |publisher=Evertype/Al Liamm |isbn=978-1-904808-11-4}}</ref> which is noted by appending an 'n' letter after the base vowel, or by adding a combining tilde above the vowel (most commonly and easily done for ''a'' and ''o'' due to the [[Portuguese orthography|Portuguese letters]]), or more commonly by non-ambiguously appending an {{Angle bracket|ñ}} letter after the base vowel (this depends on the orthographic variant).

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
! rowspan="2" |
! colspan="2" | [[Front vowel|Front]]
! rowspan="2" |[[Central vowel|Central]]
! colspan="2" | [[Back vowel|Back]]
|-
! <small>unrounded</small>
! <small>rounded</small>
! <small>unrounded</small>
! <small>rounded</small>
|-
! [[Close vowel|Close]]
| ''i'' {{IPAslink|i}} || ''u'' {{IPAslink|y}} 
| || || ''ou'' {{IPAslink|u}}
|-
! [[Close-mid vowel|Close-mid]]
| ''e'' {{IPAslink|e}} || ''eu'' {{IPAslink|ø}} 
| || || ''o'' {{IPAslink|o}}
|-
! [[Open-mid vowel|Open-mid]]
| ''e'' {{IPAslink|ɛ}} || ''eu'' {{IPAslink|œ}} 
| || || ''o'' {{IPAslink|ɔ}}
|-
! [[Open vowel|Open]]
| || 
|''a'' {{IPAslink|a}}||''a'' {{IPAslink|ɑ}} ||
|}
Diphthongs are {{IPA|/ai, ei, ou/}}.

===Consonants===
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
! rowspan="2" colspan="2" |
! rowspan="2" | [[Labial consonant|Labial]]
! rowspan="2" | [[Dental consonant|Dental]]
! rowspan="2" | [[Alveolar consonant|Alveolar]]
! rowspan="2" | [[Postalveolar consonant|Post-<br />alveolar]]
! colspan="2" | [[Palatal consonant|Palatal]]
! colspan="2" | [[Velar consonant|Velar]]
! rowspan="2" | [[Uvular consonant|Uvular]]
! rowspan="2" | [[Glottal consonant|Glottal]]
|-
! plain
! [[Labial consonant|lab.]]
! plain
! [[Labial consonant|lab.]]
|-
! colspan="2" | [[Nasal consonant|Nasal]]
| ''m'' {{IPAslink|m}}
|
| ''n'' {{IPAslink|n}}
|
| ''gn'' {{IPAslink|ɲ}}
|
|
|
|
|
|-
! rowspan="2" | [[plosive consonant|Plosive]]
! {{small|[[voice (phonetics)|voiced]]}}
| ''b'' {{IPAslink|b}}
|
| ''d'' {{IPAslink|d}}
|
|
|
| ''g'' {{IPAslink|ɡ}}
| ''gw'', ''gou'' {{IPAslink|ɡʷ}}
|
|
|-
! {{small|[[voicelessness|voiceless]]}}
| ''p'' {{IPAslink|p}}
|
| ''t'' {{IPAslink|t}}
|
|
|
| ''k'' {{IPAslink|k}}
| ''kw'', ''kou'' {{IPAslink|kʷ}}
|
|
|-
! rowspan="2" | [[Fricative consonant|Fricative]]
! {{small|[[voice (phonetics)|voiced]]}}
| ''v'' {{IPAslink|v}}
| (''z, d'' {{IPAslink|ð}})
| ''z'', ''zh'' {{IPAslink|z}}
| ''j'' {{IPAslink|ʒ}}
|
|
| ''cʼh'' {{IPAslink|ɣ}}
|
|
|
|-
! {{small|[[voicelessness|voiceless]]}}
| ''f'' {{IPAslink|f}}
|
| ''s'' {{IPAslink|s}}
| ''ch'' {{IPAslink|ʃ}}
|
|
| ''cʼh'' {{IPAslink|x}}
|
|
| ''h'', ''zh'' {{IPAslink|h}}
|-
! colspan="2" | [[Trill consonant|Trill]]
|
|
|''r'' {{IPAslink|r}}
|
|
|
|
|
| (''r'' {{IPAslink|ʁ}})
|
|-
! rowspan="2" | [[Approximant consonant|Approximant]]
! {{small|[[Central consonant|central]]}}
|
|
|
| (''r'' {{IPAslink|ɹ}})
| ''y'' {{IPAslink|j}}
| ''u'' {{IPAslink|ɥ}}
|
| ''w'' {{IPAslink|w}}
|
|
|-
! {{small|[[Lateral consonant|lateral]]}}
|
|
| ''l'' {{IPAslink|l}}
|
| ''lh'' {{IPAslink|ʎ}}
|
|
|
|
|
|}
* The pronunciation of the letter {{angbr|r}} varies nowadays: {{IPA|[ʁ]}} is used in the French-influenced standard language and, generally speaking, in the central parts of Lower Brittany (including the south of Trégor, the west of Vannetais and virtually all parts of Cornouaille) whereas {{IPA|[r]}} is the common realisation in Léon and often in the Haut-Vannetais dialect of central Morbihan (in and around the city of Vannes and the Pays de Pontivy), though in rapid speech mostly a tapped {{IPA|[ɾ]}} occurs. In the other regions of Trégor {{IPA|[ɾ]}} or even {{IPA|[ɹ]}} may be found.
* The voiced dental fricative ({{IPAslink|ð}}) is a conservative realisation of the [[lenition]] (or the "spirant mutation" in cases where the phenomenon originates from the mutation of {{IPA|/t~θ/}}, respectively) of the consonants {{IPA|/d/}} and {{IPA|/t/}} which is to be found in certain varieties of Haut-Vannetais. Most of the Breton dialects do not inherit the sound and thus it is mostly not orthographically fixed. The ''Peurunvan'', for instance, uses {{angbr|z}} for both mutations, which are regularly and more prominently pronounced {{IPA|[z]}} in Léonais, Cornouaillais, Trégorrois and Bas-Vannetais. In traditional literature written in the Vannetais dialect, two different graphemes are employed for representing the dental fricative, depending on the scripture's historical period. There once was a time when {{angbr|d}} was used to transcribe the sound, but today mostly the regular {{angbr|z}} is instead used, and this practice can be traced back to at least the end of the 17th century.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Christmas Hymns in the Vannes Dialect of Breton|publisher=Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies|year=1956|editor-last=Hemon|editor-first=Roparz|location=Dublin|pages=x, xxvi}}</ref> The area this phenomenon has been found to be evident in encompasses the towns of [[Pontivy]] and [[Baud, Morbihan|Baud]] and surrounding smaller villages like [[Cléguérec]], [[Noyal-Pontivy]], [[Pluméliau]], [[Saint-Allouestre|St. Allouestre]], [[Saint-Barthélemy, Morbihan|St. Barthélemy]], [[Pluvigner]] and also parts of [[Belle Île|Belle-Île]]. The only known place where the mutation occurs outside of the Vannes country is the [[Île de Sein]], an island located off [[Finistère]]'s coast. Some scholars also used {{IPA|[ẓ]}} as the symbol for the sound to indicate that it was rather an "infra-dental" consonant than a clear interdental, which is the sound the symbol {{IPA|/ð/}} is usually describes. Other linguists, however, did not draw that distinction, either because they identified the sound to actually be an interdental fricative (such as Roparz Hemon in his phonetic transcription of the dialect used in Pluméliau or Joseph Loth in his material about the dialect of [[Sauzon]] in Belle-Île) or due to the fact that they attached no importance to it and ascertained that their descriptions were not in need of a further clarification of the sound's phonetic realisation as it was a clearly distinguishable phoneme.<ref>{{Cite book |title=A Historical Phonology of Breton|last=Jackson|first=Kenneth H.|publisher=Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies|year=1968|location=Dublin|pages=661 ff}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title = A Historical Morphology and Syntax of Breton|last = Hemon|first = Roparz|publisher = Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies|year = 1975|isbn = 978-0901282637|location = Dublin|pages = 5}}</ref>
* The digraph ''zh'' represents a variable sound that may exhibit as {{IPA|/s/}}, {{IPA|/z/}}, or {{IPA|/h/}}, and descends from a now-extinct sound {{IPA|/θ/}}, which is still extant in Welsh as ''th''.