Consonantism of Plautdietsch, the language of the German Mennonites of Siberia: the problem of identifying labial phonemes

This work aims at identifying and describing the articulatory characteristics of the labial-labial and labial-dental consonant phonemes of the language of the Mennonite Germans of Siberia by distributive analysis and magnetic resonance imaging. The language of German Mennonites, referred to as Plautdietsch (self-designation Plotdich), or Mennonitenplatt, has a complex mixed character due to the history of its speakers. Through the centuries changing their place of residence, Mennonites, representatives of a special ethno-confessional community, now live in various countries of North and South America, European countries, and Russia. Of particular interest is the phonetic appearance of this language. For the first time, the description of its phonemic composition is carried out using the methods of experimental phonetics. The research material was collected from two native speakers (Neudachino, Novosibirsk region). Twenty tomograms were described and analyzed using the methodology of the Laboratory of Experimental Phonetic Research named after V. M. Nadelyaev, Institute of Philology, SB RAS. The tomography program comprised eleven word forms, with the target sound in the initial and final positions. The paper provides language material, with series of words in different phonetic contexts, a summary distribution table, and three tables describing the tomograms. Following N. S. Trubetskoy’s rules of phoneme selection, sound analysis identified five labial phonemes: noisy labial-labial mouth-bowed / p/ and / b/, noisy labial-dental mouth-slotted /v/ and /f/ and sonorous nasal-bowed /m/. Also, the analysis of MRI images determined the constitutive-differential features characteristic of the phonetic subsystem of labial consonantism of Plautdietsch.