Vowels and Vowel Length

Nordsippisk has five vowel letters, each with one short and one long value.

Length rules

Vowel length is determined inside the morpheme containing the vowel.

1. vowel + one consonant unit → long;
2. vowel + doubled consonant → short;
3. vowel + consonant cluster → short;
4. single vowel in an open syllable → short;
5. doubled vowel in an open syllable → long;
6. neighboring affixes do not change the root’s vowel length.

Examples:

• hus — long u
• mann — short a
• timb — short i because mb is a cluster
• ka — short a
• kaa — long a
• tvaa — long final a
• þrii — long final i
• frii — long final i
• tuu — long final u

Doubled vowels

Vowel doubling is used only to mark a long vowel in an open syllable.

mer is already long by the one-consonant rule, so meer is invalid.

Doubled consonants

A doubled consonant marks the preceding vowel as short. It is not pronounced as a geminate consonant.

Adjacent vowels

Diphthongs are not part of the default system. A doubled vowel under the open-syllable rule represents one long vowel. Other adjacent vowels are separate syllables unless a future rule states otherwise.