Welsh phonology

The phonology of Welsh is characterised by a number of sounds that do not occur in English and are rare in European languages, such as the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative [ɬ] and several voiceless sonorants (nasals and liquids), some of which result from consonant mutation. Stress usually falls on the penultimate syllable in polysyllabic words, while the word-final unstressed syllable receives a higher pitch than the stressed syllable. Welsh has the following consonant phonemes: Symbols in parentheses are either allophones, or found only in loanwords. The sound /z/ generally occurs in loanwords, e.g. sŵ /zuː/ ('zoo'), although this is usually realised as /s/ in northern accents, e.g. /suː/. The postalveolar affricates /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ occur mainly in loanwords, e.g. tsips /tʃɪps/ ('chips') and jeli /ˈdʒɛli/ ('jelly'), but also in some dialects as developments from /tj/ and /dj/, e.g. /dʒaul/ from diafol /ˈdjavɔl/ ('devil'). The voiceless nasals /m̥ n̥ ŋ̊/ occur mostly word-initially, as a consequence of nasal mutation. These nasals have recently been interpreted as sequences of /m n ŋ/ + /h/. Initial /χw/ (or /χw/) is colloquially realised as [ʍ] in the south, e.g. chwech /χweːχ/ ('six') pronounced [ʍeːχ]. [ç] results from /j/ when preceded by /h/, often as a result of h-prothesis of the radical word, e.g. iaith /jai̯θ/ 'language' becomes ei hiaith [ɛi çai̯θ] 'her language'. It also occurs in some Northern dialects as the cluster [çj] in place of intervocalic /ɬ/ in words like allan ('out') where it is pronounced [açjan] rather than the more common (and standard) [aɬan]. The stops /p t k/ are distinguished from /b d ɡ/ by means of aspiration more consistently than by voicing, as /b d ɡ/ are actually devoiced in most contexts. This devoiced nature is recognised in the spelling of /sp sk/ as , although /st/ is orthographically for historical reasons. The fricatives /v ð/ tend not to be pronounced in certain contexts, e.g. nesaf /nɛsav/ ('next') realised as /ˈnɛsa/ or i fyny /iː ˈvənɨ/ ('up') from mynydd /mənɨð, mənɪð/ ('mountain').