Silesian orthography consists of many systems for writing the Silesian language. The current de facto standard[citation needed] is the Ślabikŏrzowy szrajbōnek or ślabikŏrz for short, largely but not entirely displacing Steuerowy szrajbůnek ("Steuer's alphabet). These systems use variants of the Silesian alphabet, which derives from the Latin alphabet, but includes some additional letters with diacritics. The orthography is mostly phonetic, or rather phonemic—the written letters (or combinations of them) correspond in a consistent manner to the phonemes of spoken Silesian.
Steuer's alphabet
The first major and widely adopted writing system for Silesians was created by doctor Feliks 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 for voicing 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>.
Ślabikŏrz
Ślabikŏrzowy szrajbōnek was adopted by Pro 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.
Vowels are largely pronounced as they are written. <Ŏŏ> can vary from /ɔu~ɔ/, where /ɔu/ is largely pronounced in Opole 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 regularly voiced 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.
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 example erzac (from German Ersatz)
Palatal and palatalized consonants
The spelling rule for the alveolo-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⟩ in siwy ("grey-haired"), the ⟨si⟩ in siarka ("sulphur") and the ⟨ś⟩ in świynty ("holy") all represent the sound /ɕ/.
Sound
Word-finally or before a consonant
Before a vowel other than ⟨i⟩
Before ⟨i⟩
/t͡ɕ/
ć
ci
c
/d͡ʑ/
dź
dzi
dz
/ɕ/
ś
si
s
/ʑ/
ź
zi
z
/ɲ/
ń
ni
n
Other points
The letter ⟨u⟩ represents /ł/ in the digraphs ⟨au⟩ and ⟨eu⟩ in loanwords, for example autor, Europa; but not in native words, like nauka, pronounced na'(w)uka.
Writing words with or without a space
It is prescribed to write prepositional, adverbal, numeral, particle, conjunctional, and pronominal phrases with a space.[3]
bele co, not beleco
w porzōndku, not wporzōndku
Some fully lexicalized prepositional phrases serving as adverbs or conjunctions are prescribed to be written together.[3]
bezto, "that is why; therefor"
doprŏwdy, "really"
Punctuation
It is prescribed to use the same punctuation rules as in Polish orthography, namely:[4]
