Appendix:West Frisian pronunciation

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West Frisian pronunciation is indicated somewhat variably in different sources. Wiktionary's phonemic pronunciations (between / /) should follow the rules detailed here, which are in turn based on the Wikipedia article.

Diphthongs

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Falling and centering diphthongs are transcribed with an inverted breve ◌̯ below the second vowel, to distinguish them from two-vowel sequences where each vowel is a separate syllable. The falling diphthongs end in a fully close vowel.

  • au, ou/ɔu̯/.
  • ei/ai̯/. Also /ɛi̯/ or /ɔi̯/ in some regions.
  • ij/ɛi̯/.
  • oi/oi̯/.
  • ui/œy̯/. Some sources use /øi̯/ or some variant here, but the phoneme is in practice identical with the Dutch /œy̯/, so it is transcribed the same.
  • ea/ɪə̯/
  • eau, eo, eu/øə̯/
  • ie/iə̯/
  • oa/oə̯/
  • oe/uə̯/
  • ue/yə̯/

Rising diphthongs and triphthongs begin with a consonant.

  • ea, je/jɛ/.
  • ie, ji/jɪ/.
  • jau, jou/jɔu̯/.
  • oa/wa/.
  • uo/wo/.
  • uoi/woi̯/.

Diphthongs with a long vowel end with a consonant. This consonant is shifted to the next syllable when a vowel follows. Not all sources transcribe all of these with long vowels.

  • aai/aːj/, aaie/aː.jə/.
  • oai/oːj/, oaie/oː.jə/. With breaking, oai/waːj/, oaie/waː.jə/.
  • iuw, eau/joːw/, iuwe, eauwe/joː.wə/. This is also transcribed with a short diphthong /jou̯/ in some sources, but there is no /ou̯/ diphthong in West Frisian outside of these cases.
  • iuw/iːw/, iuwe/iː.wə/.
  • oei/uːj/, oeie/uː.jə/.

Consonants

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Transcribe w in the onset as /v/. It can be sometimes realised as [ʋ] or [w] in this environment, depending on the speaker, but this is automatic.

Use both /ɣ/ and /ɡ/ where appropriate. While these are usually analysed as allophones based on stress and word position, this does not apply in words like needgefal (with unstressed non-initial [ɡ]) and hartoginne (with stressed [ɣ]).

Do not write syllabic consonants, always precede them with /ə/. This applies in particular to the ending -en, but also other cases.

Do not use nasal vowels, but write /n/.

Dialects

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Use English names for the dialects, with the {{a}} template, i.e. {{a|Clay}} for Klaaifrysk, {{a|Wood}} for Wâldfrysk. Do not include the word "Frisian" in dialects as it's obvious from the language section name that we're talking about West Frisian.