The charts below show the way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) represents Russian pronunciations in Wikipedia articles.
See Russian phonology for a more thorough look at the sounds of Russian. For a list of common pronunciation errors, see Anglophone pronunciation of foreign languages § Russian. See Russian alphabet for help converting spelling to pronunciation.
Russian distinguishes hard (unpalatalized or plain) and soft (palatalized) consonants. Soft consonants, most of which are denoted by a superscript j, ⟨ʲ⟩, are pronounced with the body of the tongue raised toward the hard palate, like the articulation of the y sound in yes. /j, ɕː, tɕ/ are always soft, whereas /ʂ, ts, ʐ/ are always hard.
| Consonants | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hard | Soft | |||||
| IPA | Examples | English approximation | IPA | Examples | English approximation | |
| b | boot | bʲ | beautiful | |||
| d | do | dʲ | dew (UK) | |||
| f | fool | fʲ | few | |||
| ɡ | goo | ɡʲ | argue | |||
| N/A | j | yes, York, you, yard, boy | ||||
| k | scar | kʲ | skew | |||
| l | pill | lʲ | lean | |||
| m | moot | mʲ | mute | |||
| n | noon | nʲ | newt (for some dialects) | |||
| p | span | pʲ | spew | |||
| r | flapped or trilled r, like in Spanish | rʲ | flapped or trilled r, like in Spanish | |||
| s | soup | sʲ | assume (for some dialects) | |||
| ʂ | rush | ɕː | wish sheep | |||
| t | stand | tʲ | stew (UK; for some dialects) | |||
| ts[11] | cats | tɕ[11] | chip | |||
| v | voodoo | vʲ | view | |||
| x | loch (Scottish) | xʲ | huge (for some dialects) | |||
| z | zoo | zʲ | presume (for some dialects) | |||
| ʐ | rouge | ʑː | prestige genre | |||
| Stressed vowels | ||||||
| [-soft] | [+soft] | |||||
| IPA | Examples | English approximation | IPA | Examples | English approximation | |
| a | father | æ | pat (US) | |||
| ɛ | met | e | penny | |||
| ɨ | roses (for some dialects) | i | meet | |||
| o | chore | ɵ | bird (non-rhotic) | |||
| u | boot | ʉ | choose | |||
| Unstressed vowels | ||||||
| [-soft] | [+soft] | |||||
| IPA | Examples | English approximation | IPA | Examples | English approximation | |
| ɐ | bud | N/A | ||||
| ə | about | ə | lasagna | |||
| ɨ | roses (for some dialects) | ɪ | bit | |||
| ʊ | put | ʉ | youth | |||
| ɛ | тетра́эдр; поэте́сса[17] | met | N/A | |||
| o | chore | ɵ | ма́чо; сёрфинги́ст[18] | bird (non-rhotic) | ||
| Suprasegmental | ||||||
| IPA | Example | Explanation | ||||
| ˈ | Stress mark, placed before the stressed syllable | |||||
| ː | Consonant length mark, placed after the geminated consonant | |||||
NotesEdit
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Consonants in consonant clusters are assimilated in voicing if the final consonant in the sequence is an obstruent (except [v, vʲ]). All consonants become voiceless if the final consonant is voiceless or voiced if the final consonant is voiced (Halle 1959:31).
- ^ a b c d e f g h i The voiced obstruents /b, bʲ, d, dʲ, ɡ, v, vʲ, z, zʲ, ʐ/ are devoiced word-finally unless the next word begins with a voiced obstruent (Halle 1959:22).
- ^ a b c ⟨г⟩ is usually pronounced [ɣ] or [x] in some religious words and colloquial derivatives from them, such as Го́споди and Бог, and in the interjections ага́, ого́, го́споди, ей-бо́гу, and also in бухга́лтер [bʊˈɣaltʲɪr] (Timberlake 2004:23). /ɡ/ devoices and lenites to [x] before voiceless obstruents (dissimilation) in the word roots -мягк- or -мягч-, -легк- or -легч-, -тягч-, and also in the old-fashioned pronunciation of -ногт-, -когт-, кто. Speakers of the Southern Russian dialects may pronounce ⟨г⟩ as [ɣ] (soft [ɣʲ], devoiced [x] and [xʲ]) throughout.
- ^ a b Intervocalic ⟨г⟩ represents /v/ in certain words ( сего́дня, сего́дняшний, итого́ ), and in the genitive suffix -ого/-его (Timberlake 2004:23).
- ^ The soft vowel letters ⟨е, ë, ю, я⟩ represent iotated vowels /je, jo, ju, ja/, except when following a consonant. When these vowels are unstressed (save for ⟨ë⟩, which is always stressed) and follow another vowel letter, the /j/ may not be present. The letter ⟨и⟩ produces iotated sound /ji/ only after ь.
- ^ /l/ is often strongly pharyngealized [ɫ], but that feature is not distinctive (Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996:187-188).
- ^ Alveo-palatal consonants are subjected to regressive assimilative palatalization; i.e. they tend to become palatalized in front of other phones with the same place of articulation.
- ^ Most speakers pronounce ⟨ч⟩ in the pronoun что and its derivatives as [ʂ]. All other occurrences of чт cluster stay as affricate and stop.
- ^ ⟨щ⟩ is sometimes pronounced as [ɕː] or [ɕɕ] and sometimes as [ɕtɕ], but no speakers contrast the two pronunciations. It is generally includes the other spellings of the sound, but the word счи́тывать sometimes has [ɕtɕ] because of the morpheme boundary between the prefix ⟨с-⟩ and the root ⟨-чит-⟩.
- ^ a b c d e [ts], [tɕ], [ɕː], [x], have voiced allophones, [dz], [dʑ], [ʑː], [ɣ] respectively, before voiced stop consonants. Examples: плацда́рм, начди́в, дочь бы, вещдо́к, трёхдне́вный.
- ^ a b The affricates [ts] and [tɕ] are sometimes written with ligature ties: [t͡s] and [t͡ɕ]. Ties are not used in transcriptions on Wikipedia (except in phonology articles) because they may not display correctly in all browsers.
- ^ Geminated [ʐː] is pronounced as soft [ʑː], the voiced counterpart to [ɕː], in a few lexical items (such as дрожжи or заезжать) by conservative Moscow speakers; such realization is now somewhat obsolete (Yanushevskaya & Bunčić (2015:224)).
- ^ a b c d e Vowels are fronted and/or raised in the context of palatalized consonants: /a/ and /u/ become [æ] and [ʉ], respectively between palatalized consonants, /e/ is realized as [e] before and between palatalized consonants and /o/ becomes [ɵ] after and between palatalized consonants.
- ^ Word-initial and pretonic (before the stress) /a/ and /o/, as well as when in a sequence.
- ^ Only in certain word-final morphemes (Timberlake 2004:48-51).
- ^ Unstressed /a/ is pronounced as [ɪ] after ⟨ч⟩ and ⟨щ⟩ except when word-final.[citation needed]
- ^ a b In the careful style of pronunciation unstressed /e/ and /o/ in foreign words may be pronounced with little or no reduction.
- ^ Unstressed [ɵ] only occurs in foreign words.
ReferencesEdit
- Cubberley, Paul (2002), "The phonology of Modern Russian", Russian: A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge University Press
- Halle, Morris (1959), Sound Pattern of Russian, MIT Press
- Jones, Daniel; Ward, Dennis (1969), The Phonetics of Russian, Cambridge University Press
- Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19814-8.
- Timberlake, Alan (2004), "Sounds", A Reference Grammar of Russian, Cambridge University Press
- Yanushevskaya, Irena; Bunčić, Daniel (2015), "Russian" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 45 (2): 221–228, doi:10.1017/S0025100314000395