iotified vowel
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In
Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the ...
, iotation (, ) is a form of palatalization that occurs when a consonant comes into contact with a palatal approximant from the succeeding phoneme. The is represented by
iota Iota (; uppercase: Ι, lowercase: ι; ) is the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Yodh. Letters that arose from this letter include the Latin I and J, the Cyrillic І (І, і), Yi (Ї, ї), and ...
(ι) in the
Cyrillic alphabet , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = Gr ...
and the
Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as w ...
on which it is based. For example, ''ni'' in
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
''onion'' has the sound of iotated ''n''. Iotation is a phenomenon distinct from Slavic first palatalization in which only the front vowels are involved, but the final result is similar.


Sound change

Iotation occurs when a labial (, ), dental (, , ) or velar (, , ) consonant comes into contact with an ''iotified vowel'', i.e. one preceded by a palatal glide . As a result, the consonant becomes partially or completely palatalized. In many Slavic languages, iotated consonants are called "soft" and the process of iotation is called "softening". Iotation can result in a partial palatalization so the centre of the tongue is raised during and after the articulation of the consonant. There can also be a complete sound change to a
palatal The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...
or
alveolo-palatal consonant In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants, sometimes synonymous with pre-palatal consonants, are intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants, or which have simultaneous alveolar and palatal articul ...
. This table summarizes the typical outcomes in the modern Slavic languages: According to most scholars, the period of iotation started approximately in the 5th century, in the era of
Proto-Slavic Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium B.C. through the 6th ...
, and it lasted for several centuries, probably into the late Common Slavic dialect differentiation. Here are examples from the early stage: * Proto-Slavic *' > Russian, Ukrainian, Macedonian, Bulgarian , Czech ', Serbo-Croatian '


Orthography


Iotified vowels

In Slavic languages, iotified vowels are preceded by a palatal approximant before a
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
, at the beginning of a word, or between two vowels in the middle of a word, creating a diphthongoid, a partial diphthong. In the
Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as w ...
, the consonant is represented by
iota Iota (; uppercase: Ι, lowercase: ι; ) is the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Yodh. Letters that arose from this letter include the Latin I and J, the Cyrillic І (І, і), Yi (Ї, ї), and ...
(ι). For example, the
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
''apple'' is cognate to
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
''яблоко (jabloko)'': both come from
Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...
stem *ābol-. As a result of the phenomenon, no native Slavic root starts with an or an but only with a and ; although other vowels are possible. As it was invented for the writing of Slavic languages, the original
Cyrillic alphabet , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = Gr ...
has relatively complex ways for representing iotation by devoting an entire class of letters to deal with the issue. There are letters which represent iotified vowels; the same letters also palatalize preceding consonants (with or without self-iotation), which is why iotation and palatalization are often mixed up. There are also two special letters (''soft sign'' Ь and ''hard sign'' Ъ) that also induce iotation; in addition, Ь palatalizes preceding
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...
, allowing combinations of both palatalized (soft) and plain (hard) consonants with . Originally, these letters produced short vowels and . The exact use depends on the language. The adjective for a phone which undergoes iotation is ''iotated''. The adjective for a
letter Letter, letters, or literature may refer to: Characters typeface * Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet. * Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...
formed as a
ligature Ligature may refer to: * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture used to shut off a blood vessel or other anatomical structure ** Ligature (orthodontic), used in dentistry * Ligature (music), an element of musical notation used especially in the me ...
of the
Early Cyrillic I The dotted i (І і; italics: '), also called decimal i (и десятеричное, after its former numeric value), is a letter of the Cyrillic script. It commonly represents the close front unrounded vowel , like the pronunciation o ...
(І) and another letter, used to represent iotation, is ''iotified''.. The use of an iotified letter does not necessarily denote iotation. Even an iotified letter following a consonant letter is not iotated in most orthographies, but iotified letters imply iotated pronunciation after vowels, soft and
hard Hard may refer to: * Hardness, resistance of physical materials to deformation or fracture * Hard water, water with high mineral content Arts and entertainment * ''Hard'' (TV series), a French TV series * Hard (band), a Hungarian hard rock supe ...
signs as well as in isolation. In the Cyrillic alphabet, some letter forms are iotified, formed as a
ligature Ligature may refer to: * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture used to shut off a blood vessel or other anatomical structure ** Ligature (orthodontic), used in dentistry * Ligature (music), an element of musical notation used especially in the me ...
of
Early Cyrillic I The dotted i (І і; italics: '), also called decimal i (и десятеричное, after its former numeric value), is a letter of the Cyrillic script. It commonly represents the close front unrounded vowel , like the pronunciation o ...
(І) and a vowel. In old inscriptions, other iotified letters, even consonants, could be found, but they are not in the regular alphabet. There are more letters that serve the same function, but their glyphs are not made in the same way.


Iotated consonants

Iotated consonants occur as result of iotation. They are represented in IPA with superscript ''j'' after it and in
X-SAMPA The Extended Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet (X-SAMPA) is a variant of SAMPA developed in 1995 by John C. Wells, professor of phonetics at University College London. It is designed to unify the individual language SAMPA alphabets, a ...
with apostrophe after it so the pronunciation of iotated ''n'' could be represented as or []. When Vuk Karadžić reformed the Serbian language, he created new letters to represent iotated consonants. Macedonian language, Macedonian uses two of them, but has its own versions for iotated ''t'' and ''d'' (resembling the letters Г and К instead of Т and Д):


See also

*
Cyrillic alphabet , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = Gr ...
*
Cyrillic ligatures , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = Gr ...
*
Iotacism Iotacism ( el, ιωτακισμός, ''iotakismos'') or itacism is the process of vowel shift by which a number of vowels and diphthongs converged towards the pronunciation in post-classical Greek and Modern Greek. The term "iotacism" refers t ...
* Palatalization, the historical-linguistic sound change *
Soft sign The soft sign (Ь, ь, italics ) also known as the front yer, front jer, or er malak (lit. "small er") is a letter of the Cyrillic script. In Old Church Slavonic, it represented a short (or "reduced") front vowel. As with its companion, the b ...


References


Bibliography

* * {{refend Assimilation (linguistics) Cyrillic script