Vowel reduction in Russian


In the pronunciation of the Russian language, several ways of vowel reduction are distinguished between the standard language and dialects. Russian orthography 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 in Standard Russian. Vowels tend to merge when they are unstressed. The vowels and have the same unstressed allophones 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, such as that of the high vowels, which become near-close. Thus, игра́ть is pronounced , and узна́ть is pronounced.

General description

The five Russian vowels in unstressed position show two levels of reduction:
  1. The first-degree reduction in the first pretonic position.
  2. The second-degree reduction in positions other than the first pretonic position.
The allophonic 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:
  1. After the hard consonants.
  2. After the hard retroflex sibilants and.
  3. After the soft consonants and semi-vowel.
The unstressed vowels also may be grouped in series that reflect similar patterns of reduction:
  1. High and .
  2. Non-high, and .
  3. Back and .
  4. Front and .
  5. Back high .

    High vowels

Two high vowels and are usually thought to undergo no reduction. However, on the phonetic level, they show allophonic centralization, particularly under the influence of preceding or following consonants.
The unstressed high back vowel is either or .
The unstressed high front vowel is either or or or . Nevertheless, in rapid colloquial speech they both may be reduced to schwa, for example, до́брым versus до́бром . 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 де́лают versus де́лает . Both may surface as or.

Back vowels

Other than in Northern Russian dialects, 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 consonants, the standard phonological rules prescribe a two-level reduction. The stressed vowel is normally the longest and the only place that permits the. In the syllable immediately before the stress and in absolute word-initial position, both reduce to . In all other locations, and are reduced further to a short. For example, потоло́к , паро́м , о́блако , трава́ . In practice, the second reduction has a gradient character: if the vowel in question is pronounced for enough time, 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: сапоги́, vs. , потоло́к , де́сять .
  • When,,, or is written in a word, it indicates so сообража́ть is pronounced.
  • With prepositions, the processes occur even across word boundaries, as in под мо́рем , на оборо́те . That does not occur with other parts of speech.
  • Unstressed and merge with after and palatalised consonants. For examples: ёж vs. ежи́ , осётр vs. осетры́ , ядро́ vs. я́дра , ря́д vs. ряды́ . Likewise, unstressed also merge into after postalveolars: for examples, жена́ 'wife' vs. жёны 'wives', чёлн vs. челны́ , шёлк vs. шелка́ , щека́ vs. щёки , etc.
There are a number of exceptions to the above comments regarding the akanye:
  • Unstressed is not always reduced in borrowing from foreign languages: ра́дио . The common pattern for that exception is the final unstressed о being preceded by another vowel. Compare with мо́но, фо́то whose final unstressed о is reduced to.
  • Speakers with old Moscow dialect reflexes pronounce unstressed as after retroflex consonants and and thereby imitate the reduction of. For other speakers, that pronunciation generally applies only to жале́ть , к сожале́нию and to oblique cases of ло́шадь , such as лошаде́й.
  • replaces after in the oblique cases of some numerals: два́дцать .
  • Across certain word-final suffixes, the reductions do not completely apply:
  • * In certain suffixes, after palatalised consonants and, and can be distinguished from and from each other: по́ле is different from по́ля , and the final sounds differ from the realisation of in that position.. In Moscow pronunciation of the first half of the 20th century, по́ле and по́ля were both pronounced, but the prepositional case was pronounced ; this can be explained by different underlying phonemes in the ending. Nowadays, по́ле 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. се́рдце ; де́ревце vs. its synonym деревцо́ , etc.

    Front vowels

The main feature of front vowel reduction is ikanye, the merger of unstressed with. Because has several allophones, unstressed is pronounced as one of those allophones, rather than the close front unrounded vowel. For examples, се́мя vs. семена́ , че́реп vs. черепа́ , цена́ vs це́ны , etc.
In registers without the merger, 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, прида́ть contrasts with преда́ть ; 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 .
This pronunciation is observed in Belarusian and in most Southern Russian dialects, as is expressed in a quip :
That example also demonstrates other features of Southern dialects: palatalised final in the third-person forms of verbs, for and for 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:
  • "ferry",
  • "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 recommended spelling those words with , but his recommendations were not followed by all editors. The Ushakov Dictionary gives паро́м, корова́й and карава́й. Finally the spelling of those words with was set by the 1956 orthographic codification. That is, in cases of doubt, codifiers of 1956 based their choice not on etymological conformity but on the spread of usage.
  • "witness".
That spelling has a long history and is based on a folk etymology basing the word on ви́деть instead of ве́дать, as seen in Old Church Slavonic etymon .
In the closely related Belarusian, the original has merged with, like in Standard Russian, but the reduced pronunciation is reflected in the spelling.