Lower Sorbian phonology

The phonology of Lower Sorbian has been greatly influenced by contact with German, especially in Cottbus and larger towns. For example, German-influenced pronunciation tends to have a voiced uvular fricative instead of the alveolar trill. In villages and rural areas German influence is less marked, and the pronunciation is more "typically Slavic".

Consonants

 * are bilabial, whereas are labiodental.
 * are alveolar, whereas are dental.
 * are retroflex in all of the Lower Sorbian–speaking area. This is unlike most Upper Sorbian dialects, in which these are palato-alveolar.
 * is voiceless, unlike Upper Sorbian, where it is voiced.

Final devoicing and assimilation
Lower Sorbian has both final devoicing and regressive voicing assimilation:
 * dub "oak" is pronounced
 * susedka "(female) neighbor" is pronounced
 * licba "number" is pronounced

The retroflex fricative is assimilated to  before :
 * šćit "protection" is pronounced

Vowels
The vowel inventory of Lower Sorbian is exactly the same as that of Upper Sorbian. It is also very similar to the vowel inventory of Slovene.


 * is retracted to after hard consonants.
 * are diphthongized to in slow speech.
 * The and  distinctions are weakened or lost in unstressed syllables.
 * is phonetically central.

Stress
Stress in Lower Sorbian normally falls on the first syllable of the word:
 * Łužyca "Lusatia"
 * pśijaśel "friend"
 * Chóśebuz "Cottbus"

In loanwords, stress may fall on any of the last three syllables:
 * internat "boarding school"
 * kontrola "control"
 * september "September"
 * policija "police"
 * organizacija "organization"

Most one-syllable prepositions attract the stress to themselves when they precede a noun or pronoun of one or two syllables:
 * na dwórje "on the courtyard"
 * pśi mnjo "near me"
 * do města "into the city" (note that the  of město  becomes  when unstressed)

However, nouns of three or more syllables retain their stress:
 * pśed wucabnikom "in front of the teacher"
 * na drogowanju "on a journey"