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�lvard J. te Kraamlep wrote:
First, apologies for crossposting, but this is applicable to both the germaniconlang and romconlang lists. I'm looking for a bit of guidance. Capraian is my Mediterranean Germanic conlang, with Italian influences. One of its distinctive features is the Early Capraian Vowel Shift (courtesy of Thomas Leigh), such that the Germanic vowels shuffled round one: i > e > a > o > u > y. However, only the first vowel of diphthongs is so affected. This leaves a problem. While the diphthongs /au/ and /eu/ neatly turn into /ou/ and /au/ respectively, /ai/ and /ei/ are left as /oi/ and /ai/, with the vowel /i/ which no longer exists in Capraian. So what would've happened to a Germanic language under the influence of 5th-century Italic languages? A different diphthong? A long vowel? Or something even weirder? I would appreciate any suggestions.
No reason that a diphthong can't contain a vowel that doesn't exist elsewhere in the language. Some dialects of English, for example, use /O/ in the diphthong "oy", but lack /O/ elsewhere. Also, if there's no /i/, but there *is* /y/, then it's quite likely that /y/ would become /i/. It would be very unusual to have /y/ but not /i/.