The phonology of Old Saxon mirrors that of the other ancient Germanic languages, and also, to a lesser extent, that of modern West Germanic languages such as English, Dutch, Frisian, German, and Low German.
Consonants[]
The table below lists the consonantal phonemes of Old Saxon.
| Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | c | k | |
| voiced | b | d | ɟ | ɡ | ||
| Fricative | sibilant | s̺ (z) | ||||
| non-sibilant | f (v) | θ (ð) | ɣ (x) | h | ||
| Approximant | ʋ | l | j | w | ||
| Rhotic | r | |||||
Vowels[]
| Front | Back | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | rounded | unrounded | rounded | |||||
| short | long | short | long | short | long | short | long | |
| Close | ɪ | iː | (ʏ) | (yː) | ɯ | ɯː | ʊ | uː |
| Close-mid | (e) | eː | ø | (øː) | ɤ | (ɤː) | (o) | oː |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɛː | (œ) | (œː) | (ʌ) | (ʌː) | ɔ | ɔː |
| Near-open | (æ) | (æː) | ||||||
| Open | a | aː | ɑ | ɑː | (ɒ) | (ɒː) | ||