Russian Vowel Reduction
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In the
pronunciation Pronunciation is the way in which a word or a language is spoken. To This may refer to generally agreed-upon sequences of sounds used in speaking a given word or all language in a specific dialect—"correct" or "standard" pronunciation—or si ...
of the
Russian language Russian is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is ...
, several ways of
vowel reduction In phonetics, vowel reduction is any of various changes in the acoustic ''quality'' of vowels as a result of changes in stress, sonority, duration, loudness, articulation, or position in the word (e.g. for the Muscogee language), and which ar ...
(and its absence) are distinguished between the
standard language A standard language (or standard variety, standard dialect, standardized dialect or simply standard) is any language variety that has undergone substantial codification in its grammar, lexicon, writing system, or other features and that stands ...
and
dialects A dialect is a variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standardized varieties as well as vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardized varieties, such as those used in developing countries or iso ...
.
Russian orthography Russian orthography () is an orthography, orthographic tradition formally considered to encompass spelling ( rus, орфогра́фия, r=orfografiya, p=ɐrfɐˈɡrafʲɪjə) and punctuation ( rus, пунктуа́ция, r=punktuatsiya, p=p ...
most often does not reflect vowel reduction, which can confuse foreign-language learners, but some spelling reforms have changed some words. There are five vowel
phonemes A phoneme () is any set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages con ...
in Standard Russian. Vowels tend to merge when they are
unstressed In linguistics, and particularly phonology, stress or accent is the relative emphasis or prominence given to a certain syllable in a word or to a certain word in a phrase or sentence. That emphasis is typically caused by such properties as i ...
. The vowels and have the same unstressed
allophones In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is one of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plosi ...
for a number of dialects and reduce to an unclear schwa . Unstressed may become more central and merge with . Under some circumstances, , , and may all merge. The fifth vowel, , may also be centralized but does not typically merge with any of the other vowels. Other types of reduction are
phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...
, such as that of the high vowels ( and ), which become near-close. Thus, ('to play') is pronounced , and ('to recognize') is pronounced .


General description

The five Russian vowels in unstressed position show two levels of reduction: # The first-degree reduction in the first pretonic position (immediately before the stress). # The second-degree reduction in positions other than the first pretonic position. The
allophonic In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is one of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plosi ...
result of the reduction is also heavily dependent on the quality or the nonexistence of the preceding consonant. Thus, the reduction is further grouped into three types according to the environment: # After the hard (non- palatalized or
velarized Velarization merican spelling/small> or velarisation ritish spelling/sup> is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant. In the International Pho ...
) consonants (including always hard ). # After the hard
retroflex A retroflex () or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consona ...
sibilants and . # After the soft ( palatalized) consonants (including the soft and ) and semi-vowel . The unstressed vowels also may be grouped in series that reflect similar patterns of reduction: # High and (never reduced). # Non-high , and (always reduced). # Back and (both exhibit ''akanye''). # Front and (both exhibit ''ikanye''). # Back high (never reduced).


High vowels

Two high vowels and are usually thought to undergo no reduction. However, on the phonetic level, they show allophonic
centralization Centralisation or centralization (American English) is the process by which the activities of an organisation, particularly those regarding planning, decision-making, and framing strategies and policies, become concentrated within a particular ...
, particularly under the influence of preceding or following consonants. The unstressed high back vowel is either (after hard consonants, written ) or (after soft consonants, written , except , ). The unstressed high front vowel is either or (after soft consonants, written ) or or (after hard consonants, written , except , ). Nevertheless, in rapid colloquial speech they both may be reduced to schwa , for example, ('kind',
instrumental case In grammar, the instrumental case ( abbreviated or ) is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the ''instrument'' or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action. The noun may be either a physical object or ...
, singular masculine neuter) versus ('kind',
prepositional case In grammar, the prepositional case (abbreviated ) and the postpositional case (abbreviated ) - generalised as ''adpositional cases'' - are grammatical cases that respectively mark the object of a preposition and a postposition. This term can be u ...
, singular masculine neuter). The case ending //-im// in the former case may surface as like the case ending //-om//, which thus leads to the merger of and , or as ('they do') versus ('he/it does'). Both may surface as or .


Back vowels

Other than in
Northern Russian dialects The northern Russian dialects make up one of the main groups of the Russian dialects. Territory Russian dialects and territorial varieties are divided in two conceptual chronological and geographic categories: Kamusella, Tomasz. (2018). Russian ...
, Russian-speakers have a strong tendency to merge unstressed and . The phenomenon is called ''akanye'' (), and some scholars postulate an early tendency towards it in the earliest known textual evidence of confusion between written "a" and "o" in a manuscript that was copied in Moscow in 1339. ''Akanye'' contrasts with ''okanye'' () pronunciations in Standard Russian as follows: * After hard (non- palatalised) consonants, the standard phonological rules prescribe a two-level reduction. The stressed vowel is normally the longest and the only place (with certain exceptions) that permits the . In the syllable immediately before the stress and in absolute word-initial position, both reduce to (sometimes also transcribed as ). In all other locations, and are reduced further to a short . For example, ('ceiling'), ('ferry'), ('cloud'), ('grass'). In practice, the second reduction has a gradient character: if the vowel in question is pronounced for enough time (such as by hyperarticulation), it may be pronounced as . Shorter durations have the effect of gradually transforming into schwa. Recently, it has been argued that the change of sound quality during the second-degree reduction is merely an artifact of duration-dependent "phonetic undershoot", when the speaker intends to pronounce , but the limited time reduces the likelihood of the tongue being able to arrive at the intended vowel target. * In fast speech, reduction ultimately may result in the vowel being dropped altogether, with the preceding consonant slightly lengthened or turned into a
syllabic consonant A syllabic consonant or vocalic consonant is a consonant that forms the nucleus of a syllable on its own, like the ''m'', ''n'' and ''l'' in some pronunciations of the English words ''rhythm'', ''button'' and ''awful'', respectively. To represe ...
: , vs. ('boots'), ('ceiling'), ('ten'). * When , , , or is written in a word, it indicates so ('to realise') is pronounced . * With prepositions, the processes occur even across word boundaries, as in ('under the sea'), ('on the reverse side', 'overleaf'). That does not occur with other parts of speech. * Unstressed and merge with (and usually also with , see below ''yekanye'' and ''ikanye'') after and palatalised consonants ( is written as in those positions). For examples: ('hedgehog') vs. ('hedgehogs'), ('sturgeon') vs. ('sturgeons'), ('kernel, core, nucleus, etc.') vs. ('kernels, cores, nuclei, etc.'), ('row') vs. ('rows'). Likewise, unstressed (written as ) also merge into after
postalveolar Postalveolar (post-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the ''back'' of the alveolar ridge. Articulation is farther back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but n ...
s: for examples, 'wife' vs. 'wives', ('dugout boat') vs. ('dugout boats'), ('silk') vs. ('silks'), ('cheek, jowl, jaw') vs. ('cheeks, jowls, jaws'), etc. There are a number of exceptions to the above comments regarding the ''akanye'': * Unstressed is not always reduced in borrowing from foreign languages: ('radio'). The common pattern for that exception is the final unstressed being preceded by another vowel (, , ). Compare with , whose final unstressed is reduced to . * Speakers with old
Moscow dialect The Moscow dialect or Moscow accent ( rus, Московское произношение, Moskovskoye proiznosheniye, mɐˈskofskəjə prəɪznɐˈʂenʲɪɪ), sometimes Central Russian, is the spoken Russian language variety used in Moscow – o ...
reflexes pronounce unstressed as after retroflex consonants and and thereby imitate the reduction of . For other speakers, that pronunciation generally applies only to ('to regret'), ('unfortunately') and to oblique cases of ('horse'), such as . * replaces after in the oblique cases of some
numerals A numeral is a figure (symbol), word, or group of figures (symbols) or words denoting a number. It may refer to: * Numeral system used in mathematics * Numeral (linguistics), a part of speech denoting numbers (e.g. ''one'' and ''first'' in English ...
: ('twenty'). * Across certain word-final suffixes, the reductions do not completely apply: ** In certain suffixes, after palatalised consonants and , and (which is written as ) can be distinguished from and from each other: ('field' nominative singular neuter) is different from ('field' singular genitive), and the final sounds differ from the realisation of in that position.. In Moscow pronunciation of the first half of the 20th century, (nominative) and (genitive) were both pronounced , but the prepositional case ( 'in the field') was pronounced ; this can be explained by different underlying phonemes in the ending ( in the nominative bit in the prepositional).See
Ushakov Dictionary The ''Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language'', also called just ''Ushakov's Dictionary'', is one of the major dictionaries of the Russian language. Edited by the philologist and lexicographer Dmitry Ushakov Dmitry Nikolayevich Usha ...
, vol. 1 (1935), column XXXII.
Nowadays, is usually pronounced identically in the nominative and prepositional cases under the influence of spelling. ** Unstressed in suffix does not merge with and is reduced to instead of : e.g. ('heart'); ('sapling, small tree') vs. its synonym (with stressed
written Writing is the act of creating a persistent representation of language. A writing system includes a particular set of symbols called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which they encode a particular spoken language. Every written language ...
as ), etc.


Front vowels

The main feature of
front vowel A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned approximately as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction th ...
reduction is ''ikanye'' (), the merger of unstressed with . Because has several allophones (depending on both stress and proximity to palatalised consonants), unstressed is pronounced as one of those allophones, rather than the
close front unrounded vowel The close front unrounded vowel, or high front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound that occurs in most spoken languages, represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet by the symbol i. It is similar to the vowel sound in the Englis ...
. For examples, ('seed') vs. ('seeds'), че́реп ('skull') vs. черепа́ ('skulls'), ('price') vs ('prices'), etc. In registers without the merger (''yekanye'' or ), unstressed is more retracted. Even then, however, the distinction between unstressed and unstressed is most clearly heard in the syllable immediately before the stress. Thus, ('to add to') contrasts with ('to betray'); they are pronounced and respectively. In registers with ''ikanye'', they are pronounced identically. The ''yekanye'' pronunciation is coupled with a stronger tendency for both unstressed and , which are pronounced the same as after and palatalised consonants. In registers with ''ikanye'', unstressed , , , and after and palatalised consonants are merged into a single sound. Speakers may switch between both pronunciations because of various factors, the most important factor likely being the speed of pronunciation.


Yakanye

''Yakanye'' () is the pronunciation of unstressed and after palatalised consonants preceding a stressed syllable as , rather than ( is pronounced , not ). This pronunciation is observed in
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and in most
Southern Russian dialects Southern Russian is one of the main groups of Russian dialects. Territory * The territory of the ''primary formation'' (i.e. that consists of "Old" Russia of the 16th century before Eastern conquests by Ivan IV) is entirely 11 modern regions ...
, as is expressed in a quip (with liberal ''yakanye''): : That example also demonstrates other features of Southern dialects: palatalised final in the third-person forms of verbs, for and for (in some places) and , clear unstressed for or .


Spelling

Generally, vowel reduction is not reflected in the Russian spelling. However, in some words, the spelling has been changed based on vowel reduction and so some words are spelled despite their
etymology Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...
: * (instead of , meaning 'ferry'), * (instead of , meaning a special type of bread). Spelling those words with was already common in the 18th century, but it co-existed with the spelling with , conforming to etymology of those words. Dictionaries often gave both spellings. In the second half of the 19th century,
Yakov Grot Yakov Karlovich Grot (; – ) was a Russian philologist of German extraction who worked at the University of Helsinki. Grot was a graduate of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. In his lifetime, he gained fame for his translations of German and S ...
recommended spelling those words with (conforming to their etymology), but his recommendations were not followed by all editors. The
Ushakov Dictionary The ''Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language'', also called just ''Ushakov's Dictionary'', is one of the major dictionaries of the Russian language. Edited by the philologist and lexicographer Dmitry Ushakov Dmitry Nikolayevich Usha ...
(1935–1940) gives , and . Finally the spelling of those words with was set by the 1956 orthographic codification (orthographic rules and spelling dictionary). That is, in cases of doubt, codifiers of 1956 based their choice not on etymological conformity but on the spread of usage. * (instead of , meaning 'witness'). That spelling has a long history and is based on a
folk etymology Folk etymology – also known as (generative) popular etymology, analogical reformation, (morphological) reanalysis and etymological reinterpretation – is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a mo ...
basing the word on (to see,) instead of (to know). In the closely related Belarusian, the original has merged with , like in Standard Russian, but the reduced pronunciation is reflected in the spelling.


See also

*
Russian phonology This article discusses the phonology, phonological system of standard language, standard Russian language, Russian based on the Moscow dialect (unless otherwise noted). For an overview of dialects in the Russian language, see Russian dialects. Mo ...


Notes


References

* * * * * * *


Further reading

* * *


External links


The Language of the Russian Village
(A dialect atlas for use in Russian junior high school. Maps 12 and 13 shows the extent of vowel reduction in Russian dialects.) {{DEFAULTSORT:Vowel Reduction In Russian Russian language Vowels Slavic phonological features