Editing Osage language (section)

===Historical phonology===

The historically [[aspirated consonant|aspirated]] series *pʰ *tʰ *kʰ is seldom realized with aspiration today. Before back vowels they are {{IPA|[px tx kx]}}, and before front vowels {{IPA|[pʃ tsʰ kʃ]}} (written ''pš ch kš''). Some speakers from Hominy assimilate ''tx'' to {{IPA|[tkx]}} or {{IPA|[kx]}}.

''Đ, n, r'' all derive from historic *r, and ''l'' from *kr and *xr. The latter is a recent phenomenon; in the 1930s words with modern ''l'' were transcribed ''xth'' and ''gth''. Historically *r became ''ð'' before oral vowels and ''n'' before nasal vowels, but since the nasalization has often been lost, there are minimal pairs and {{IPA|/l, n/}} are now separate phonemes. Nonetheless, intervocalic ''ð'' is optionally pronounced {{IPA|[n]}} in many words. It is also sometimes strongly palatalized intervocalically, to the point of becoming {{IPA|[j]}}.

In words with ''l'', this is sometimes pronounced {{IPA|[hl]}} or {{IPA|[dl]}}. The former derives from historic *xl, the latter from *kð and *gð; these sequences have largely merged with simple *l. This is productive; ''ð'' in verbs may become ''l'' when prefixed with ''k''.

The ''r'' is apparently an approximant like English {{IPA|[ɹ]}}. ''Br'' is most common in first-person forms of verbs beginning with ''ð'', where the {{gcl|1sg}} agent prefix ''w(a)-'' assimilates to {{IPA|[b]}} before the ''ð'', and indeed this was written ''bth'' in the 1930s. However, in rarer cases the origin of ''br'' is opaque.