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Silesian orthography consists of many systems for writing theSilesian language. The current de facto standard^{[citation needed]} is theŚlabikŏrzowy szrajbōnek orślabikŏrz for short, largely but not entirely displacingSteuerowy szrajbůnek ("Steuer's alphabet). These systems use variants of the Silesian alphabet, which derives from theLatin alphabet, but includes some additional letters withdiacritics. The orthography is mostly phonetic, or rather phonemic—the written letters (or combinations of them) correspond in a consistent manner to thephonemes of spoken Silesian.

The first major and widely adopted writing system for Silesians was created by doctorFeliks Steuer in the 1930's. It consists of 30 graphemes and 8 digraphs, based partially on Polish orthography and partially on Czech orthography.

Steuer's alphabet did not account forvoicing assimilation, so any voiced letter such as <d> might also be pronounced unvoiced when before an unvoiced consonant or at the end of a word. Palatalized consonants are written with <j>.

Ślabikŏrzowy szrajbōnek was adopted byPro Loquela Silesiana in 2010 and has since become the main writing systems for Silesian,^{[citation needed]} accounting for dialectal variation. It uses the Latin alphabet with additional digraphs and diacritics.

^[1]

Vowels are largely pronounced as they are written. <Ŏŏ> can vary from /ɔu~ɔ/, where /ɔu/ is largely pronounced inOpole and /ɔ/ everywhere else, making it a homograph of <o>. Ôô is used largely at the beginning of words, sometimes word-medially with affixed words (wy-ôbrazić and compounds (boli-ôczko). <Ãã>, <Õõ>, and <Ŏŏ> are used more in formal literature, as many dialects do not retain their pronunciations, and replace <Ãã> with <Aa>, and <Õõ> and <Ŏŏ> with <Oo>.^[2]

Consonants are regularlyvoiced or devoiced depending on the end consonant in a cluster.

jabko is pronounced/'japko/

także is pronounced/'taɡʐɛ/

Two notable exceptions are the groups <w> and <rz>, which do not determine the voicing of the cluster.

wpadnōńć is pronounced/'fpadnoɲt͡ɕ/

przichodzić is pronounced/pʂi'xɔd͡ʑit͡ɕ/

Consonants are also devoiced at the end of a word, known asfinal-obstruent devoicing.

miydź is pronounced/mjɪt͡ɕ/

Rarely,⟨rz⟩ is not a digraph and represents two separate sounds:

• in various forms of the verb-marznōńć (i.e.zamarznōńć) – "to freeze"
• in borrowings, for exampleerzac (from GermanErsatz)

The spelling rule for thealveolo-palatal sounds/ɕʑt͡ɕd͡ʑɲ/ is as follows: before the vowel⟨i⟩ the plain letters⟨s z c dz n⟩ are used; before other vowels the combinations⟨si zi ci dzi ni⟩ are used; when not followed by a vowel the diacritic forms⟨ś ź ć dź ń⟩ are used. This is different from Steuer's alphabet, where soft consonants are always written with the acute accent. For example, the⟨s⟩ insiwy ("grey-haired"), the⟨si⟩ insiarka ("sulphur") and the⟨ś⟩ inświynty ("holy") all represent the sound/ɕ/.

The letter⟨u⟩ represents/ł/ in the digraphs⟨au⟩ and⟨eu⟩ in loanwords, for exampleautor, Europa; but not in native words, likenauka, pronouncedna'(w)uka.

It is prescribed to write prepositional, adverbal, numeral, particle, conjunctional, and pronominal phrases with a space.^[3]

bele co, notbeleco

w porzōndku, notwporzōndku

Some fully lexicalized prepositional phrases serving as adverbs or conjunctions are prescribed to be written together.^[3]

bezto, "that is why; therefor"

doprŏwdy, "really"

It is prescribed to use the same punctuation rules as inPolish orthography, namely:^[4]

1. Periods <.> are to be used
   1. To end sentences in theindicative mood
   2. After ordinal numbers written inArabic numerals, e.g.2. pies "the second dog"
   3. Ininitialisms
   4. In dates given in Arabic numerals
   5. After the hour when a time is written in Arabic numerals, e.g. 12.03
2. Commas <,> are to be used generally to separate coordinating and subordinating clausesexcept:
   1. Before the conjunctionsa, i, abo
   2. ani when the subject of all verbs in the clause are the same
3. Colons <:> are to be used
   1. After the name of a quoted word before the quotation
   2. To specify or clarify a noun
4. Ellipses <...> are to be used
   1. To show interruption or missing text
   2. To show a pause in speech, usually for emphasis
5. Question marks <?> are to be used to mark questions
6. Exclamation marks <!> are to be used show surprise

Capitalization is used at the beginning of a sentence or to mark aproper noun, such asplace names orgiven names, among others.^[5]

Silesian edition ofWikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of:Silesian

Silesian edition ofWikisource, the free library

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