Venetic:Phonology

Consonants
There were approximately sixteen consonants in Venetic, with four places of articulation--labial, dental, velar, and labiovelar--and voiced and unvoiced allophones in the plosives. All fricatives are voiceless and all liquids are voiced.

CEWAL gives the following examples of Venetic consonants: (Note that the periods represent the syllabic punctuation)
 * per. ("through") /p/
 * te.r.monio.s. ("of the boundaries") /t/
 * ke ("and") /k/
 * .e.kwo.n. ("horse") /kw/
 * bu.k.ka ("Bukka") /b/
 * de.i.wo.s. ("god") /d/
 * .e.go ("I") /g/
 * vha.g.s.to ("he made") /vh/=/f/
 * donasan ("they gave") /s/
 * ho.s.tihawo.s. ("Hostihavos") /h/
 * murtuvoi ("dead") /m/
 * dono.m. ("gift") /n/
 * lo.u.derobo.s. ("children") /l/
 * re.i.tiia.n. ("Reita") /r/
 * yorobo.s. ("?") /y/
 * vo.l.tiiomno.i. ("Voltiomnos") /w/

There was an additional letter, (san), which may have represented a dental affricate /ts/ or perhaps a palatal fricate /sh/. However, the precise value is unknown.

Vowels
Venetic had at least five vowel sounds of varying quantity. Although the script did not distinguish between short and long vowel length, quantity may have been retained nonetheless.

In addition to these pure vowels, these were also six diphthongs:
 * de.i.vo.s. /ei/
 * te.u.ta /eu/
 * bro.i.joko.s. /oi/
 * vhouge /ou/
 * .a..i.su.n /ai/
 * augar /au/

/eu/ was the most rare of the above, only occurring several times in a restricted area. In addition, it only occurred more recently, perhaps pointing to contact with non Venetic-speakers or an ou > eu sound change.

Phonological Changes
Venetic sound changes were centered around the reduction of vowels before word-final /s/. For instance, in prehistoric times, /o/ disappeared, causing the suffix -C-yos (C=consonant) to become C-is. For example, ve.n.noni.s. likely descended from *vennonyos. by the historic period, the /i/ also dropped away, yielding a word-final consonant cluster. Thus, .e.ge.s.t.s. < *egestis < *egestyos.

/h/ disappeared altogether between 350 and 300 B.C., although this loss started much earlier and is one of the earliest known phonological changes in Venetic.

Later Developments
By the end of the Venetic period, further changes were brought about on account of the language being written in Latin script. There is inconsistent monophthongization, such as ou > o (/o:/) and ei > e (e:). In addition, the distinction between sigma and san (the silibant of unknown value) was removed due to the limits of the Latin script.