Belarusian phonology

The phonological system of the modern Belarusian language consists of at least 44 phonemes: 5 vowels and 39 consonants. Consonants may also be geminated. There is not absolute agreement on the number of phonemes, so that rarer or contextually variant sounds are included by some scholars.^{[citation needed]}

Many consonants may form pairs that differ only in palatalization (called hard vs soft consonants, the latter being represented in the IPA with the symbol ⟨ʲ⟩). In some of such pairs, the place of articulation is additionally changed (see distinctive features below). There are also unpaired consonants that have no correlary in palatalization.

Distinctive features

As an East Slavic language, Belarusian differs from closely related languages in a number of ways:

• Akannye (Belarusian: аканне) – the pronunciation of unstressed /o/ and /a/ as clear open front unrounded vowel [a]. Unlike Russian akanye, [a] also appears after /j/. However, there is no emphasised separation after the /j/ in the pronunciation of the iotified /ja/, /jo/, /je/ and /ji/.
• Dzyekanye (Belarusian: дзеканне) – the pronunciation of Old East Slavic /dʲ/ as a soft affricate [dzʲ].
• Tsyekannye (Belarusian: цеканне) – the pronunciation of Old East Slavic /tʲ/ as a soft affricate [tsʲ].
• Strong palatalization of /sʲ/ and /zʲ/.
• Postalveolar consonants are all hard (laminal retroflex) while Russian and Ukrainian have both hard and soft postalveolars.
• /rʲ/ has hardened and merged with /r/.
• Both [j] and [w] are considered semi-vowels or glides. Also reflected in the formal names of these phonemes: respectively, "non-syllabic I" and "non-syllabic U" (Belarusian: нескладовы).

Vowels

Belarusian script	IPA	Description	Belarusian example
i	/i/	close front unrounded	лiст ('leaf')
э	/ɛ/	open-mid front unrounded	гэты ('this one')
ы	[ɨ]	close central unrounded	мыш ('mouse')
a	/a/	open central unrounded	кат ('executioner')
у	/u/	close back rounded	шум ('noise')
о	/ɔ/	open-mid back rounded	кот ('cat')

As with Russian, [ɨ] is not a separate phoneme, but an allophone of /i/ occurring after non-palatalized consonants.

Consonants

The consonants of Belarusian are as follows:

	Labial		Dental/Alveolar		Post- alveolar	Velar
	hard	soft	hard	soft		soft	hard
Nasal	m	mʲ	n̪	n̪ʲ
Plosive	p b	pʲ bʲ	t̪ d̪			kʲ ɡʲ	k ɡ
Affricate			t̪s̪ d̪z̪	t̪s̪ʲ d̪z̪ʲ	tʃ dʒ
Fricative	f v	fʲ vʲ	s z	sʲ zʲ	ʃ ʒ	xʲ ɣʲ	x ɣ
Trill			r
Approximant			l̪	l̪ʲ		j	(w)

Similar to Dutch, the rare phonemes /ɡ/ and /ɡʲ/ are present only in several borrowed words, e.g. ганак [ˈɡanak], however, other borrowed words may still have the fricative pronunciation геаграфія [ɣʲeaˈɣrafʲija] ('geography').

As a syllable coda, /v/ is pronounced [w] ([u̯], forming diphthongs) and is spelled <ў>. There are also alternations between /l/ and this post-vocalic /v/; though restricted to the past tense of verbs, [w] may derive etymologically from /l/ as with воўк [vɔwk] ('wolf'), which comes from Proto-Slavic *vьlkъ (as with Dutch goud "gold").

The geminated variations are transcribed as follows:

• падарожжа [padaˈroʒʒa]
• ззяць [zʲzʲatsʲ]
• стагоддзе [staˈɣoddzʲe]
• каханне [kaˈxanʲnʲe]
• рассячы [rasʲˈsʲatʃɨ]
• ліхалецце [lʲixaˈlʲettsʲe]
• сярэднявечча [sʲarɛdnʲaˈvʲettʃa].

Sources

• Беларуская граматыка. У 2-х ч. / АН БССР, Ін-т мовазнаўства імя Я. Коласа; [Рэд. М. В. Бірыла, П. П. Шуба]. – Мн. : Навука і тэхніка, 1985.
• Беларуская мова: Вучэб. дапам. / Э. Д. Блінава, Н. В. Гаўрош, М. Ц. Кавалёва і інш.; Пад рэд. М. С. Яўневіча. — Мн. : Выш. школа, 1991. ISBN 5-339-00539-9.
• Mayo, Peter (2002), "Belorussian", in Comrie, Bernard; Corbett, G. G., The Slavonic Languages, London: Routledge, pp. 887–946, ISBN 0415280788, http://books.google.com/books?id=uRF9Yiso1OIC&pg=PA887 
• Padluzhny, Ped (1989.), Фанетыка беларускай літатурнай мовы / І. Р. Бурлыка, Л. Ц. Выгонная, Г. В. Лосік, А. І. Падлужны; Рэд. А. І. Падлужны. — Мн.:Навука і тэхніка,, pp. 335, ISBN 5-343-00292-7 
• Sussex, Roland; Cubberly, Paul (2006), The Slavic Languages, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521223156