Consonants
Plosives: Today, voiced plosives in the syllable coda are usually terminally devoiced. Especially older speakers though may use undevoiced codae.
| Grapheme | Phoneme | Example | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| p | Pik (pitch) | ||
| t | Toom (bridle) | ||
| k | koold (cold) | ||
| b | Babe (father) | Occasionally voiced in syllable coda | |
| d | Dai (day) | May be voiced in syllable coda by older speakers | |
| g | Gäize (goose) | A realization especially used by younger speakers instead of . |
Fricatives:
| Grapheme | Phoneme | Example | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| g | Gäize (goose), Ploug (plough) | Voiced velar fricative, realised unvoiced in the syllable coda and before an unvoiced consonant. Younger speakers show a tendency towards using the plosive instead of like in German language; this development is however not yet reported in most scientific studies. | |
| f | Fjúur (fire) | Realised voicedly by a suffix: ljoof - ljowe (dear - love) | |
| w | Woater (water) | Normally a voiced labio-dental fricative like in German, after u it is however realised as bilabial semi-vowel (see below). | |
| v | iek skräive (I scream) | Realised voicelessly before voiceless consonants: du skräifst (you scream) | |
| s | säike (to seek), zuuzje (to sough) | Voiced in the syllable onset is unusual for Frisian dialects and also rare in Saterlandic. There is no known minimal pair s - z, therefore /z/ is probably not a phoneme. Younger speakers tend to use but . This development is however not yet reported in most scientific studies. | |
| ch | truch (through) | Only in syllable nucleus and coda. | |
| h | hoopje (to hope) | Only in onset. |
Other consonants:
| Grapheme | Phoneme | Example | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| m | Moud (courage) | ||
| n | näi (new) | ||
| ng | sjunge (to sing) | ||
| j | Jader (udder) | ||
| l | Lound (land) | ||
| r | Roage (rye) | Traditionally a rolled or simple alveolar in onsets and between vowels, after vowels or in the coda it becomes . Younger speakers tend to use uvular instead. This development is however not yet reported in most scientific studies. | |
| w | Kiuwe (chin) | Similar to English, this is realised as bilabial semi-vowel only after u. |
Read more about this topic: Saterland Frisian Language, Phonetics and Phonology