EN
The aim of this paper is to give a preliminary phonological and phonetic description of the vowel system of the contemporary Zaborian dialect of Kashubian. The analysis is based on the pronunciation of 150 words by four speakers of this dialect. All oral vowel phonemes reported in the older descriptions – /i, u, a, e, ɛ, o, ɔ, ɵ, ʌ/ – have been retained, possibly with some restrictions to /ɵ/ in some parts of the dialectal area. Conversely, the nasal vowels were lost (depending on the position, they split into /VN/ or became denasalized). From the phonetic point of view, there are some recent changes to report, e.g. (1) the loss of fronted and diphthongal variants of /u, ɔ/, (2) the loss of [e] as main allophone of /e/ and its pronunciation as [ɘ̟], and (3) a relatively lax pronunciation of /ɛ, ɔ/. All these changes are likely to be the result of the Polish influence. The phoneme /ɵ/ has a regular length, unlike its counterparts in other Kashubian dialects. Generally, the vowel system of Zaborian does not show any internal dynamics, in contrast to the systems of Central and North Kashubian.