Lephardic

Lephardic is a variety of Central German spoken on the central parts of Germany.

Stress
Stress in Lephardic usually falls on the first syllable, with the following exceptions:


 * Many loanwords, especially proper names, keep their original stress.
 * Nouns formed with Latinate suffixes, such as -ant, -anz, -enz, -ion, -ismus, -ist, -ment, -tet:
 * Verbs formed with the French-derived suffix -ieren
 * Compound adverbs with här, hen, do, or wah as they are stressed on the first syllable of the second element
 * Many monosyllabic words, with some exceptions

Consonants
Double consonants are pronounced as single consonants, except in compound words.

Vowels
Double vowels after a vowel make it short. Many monosyllabic words have short vowels, although there are some exceptions.

A vowel is pronounced long if:


 * as a final letter (except for e, where it's pronounced as schwa)
 * when following a single consonant
 * when following a single consonant, preceding a vowel
 * when doubled, diphthongized or followed by h

Articles
Lephardic's definite and indefinite articles inflect for three cases, nominative, oblique and genitive. The accusative and dative, which stayed in Standard German merged together to create the oblique case, while the nominative and genitive stayed the same. They also inflect for three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural).

Pluralization
The forming of plurals in Lephardic is complicated. Plurals in Lephardic can be formed in 3 procedures:


 * 1) adding the suffixes -e, -en, -er or -s
 * 2) fronting the first vowel, which might require palatalizing a consonant
 * 3) voicing the final voiced consonant

A given word could have one or two, all or none of these characteristics.


 * No ending:
 * No sound change at all: Fisch, Fisch, (fish, fish)
 * Voicing only: Barch, Barzj (mountain, mountains)
 * Vowel fronting only: Futz, Fütz (foot, feet)
 * Adding the suffix -e
 * only: Licht, Lichte (light, lights)
 * with vowel fronting: Monn, Mönne (man, men)
 * with voicing: Zeet, Zeede (time, times)
 * with voicing, vowel fronting and palatalization: Kalf, Kjälwe (calf, calves)
 * Adding the suffix -en
 * short masculine or neuter nouns: Bal, Balen (ball, balls)
 * kinship terms: Frou, Frouen (woman, women)
 * masculine and neuter nouns ending in -el or -en, the latter may drop the final e in the ending: Läwwel, Läwweln (spoon, spoons)
 * Adding the suffix -er
 * ending only: Kent, Kenter (child, children)
 * vowel fronting and ending: Haus, Häuser (house, houses)
 * The pluralizing suffix -s is mostly used in English and French loanwords.

Diminutives
The diminutive is used by adding the suffix -kjen to the end of the word.


 * Mät (maid), Mätkjen (little maid, girl)
 * Kanin (rabbit), Kaninkjen (little rabbit)

Weak
The weak declension is used when:


 * the definite articles precede the noun
 * quantifiers precede the noun