Talk:Russian alphabet

The Letter 'El'

I recently moved to Russia and found that the letter Λ was frequently used, though it didn't exist in my dictionary or this wikipedia article. As it turns out, it is commonly used as the 'El' since the standard л is so similar to 'Pe' ( п ). Can this be included in the table somehow? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Seyon (talk • contribs) 14:11, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Transliteration

Please! Lets talk at Talk:Transliteration of Russian into English! Mikkalai 22:34, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Images for characters?

Is there a reason that images are being used for certain characters? Are they not found in Unicode? Thanks. --ChrisRuvolo 14:46, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The Yat is easily represented: Ѣѣ. The Fita also: Ѳѳ. Ksi: Ѯѯ Psi: Ѱѱ Omega: Ѡ ѡ Yus: Ѧѧ big yus: Ѫѫ and variants: Ѩѩ Ѭѭ .. So whats the deal? --ChrisRuvolo 15:33, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• -- they are not present in all fonts, including the default font in the default skin as shown under MS-win and IE. A. Shetsen 03:32, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

That is pretty bogus of MS to not have a properly implemented font. So the lowest common denominator is used? I don't like that.. but I guess that is how things go. --ChrisRuvolo 04:11, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Does anybody know how I could get those fonts so they will show up on my computer? Is there somewhere I could download the Unicode stuff? Devahn58 00:44, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

In Glagolitic

The mnemonic recitation of the letter names is similar to something I heard about the Glagolitic alphabet. Was the recitation retrofitted to Glagolitic or was it carried on to Cyrillic? -- Error 01:30, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Vowels

It is said that vowels е, ё, ю, я are ioted when initial, but they also are ioted then they come after another vowel or after ъ - hard sign and ь - soft sign. --DimaY2K 07:56, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Some questions:

1) Should the IPA symbol for "o" not be "ɔ" rather than just "o"? Cambridge Advanced Learners uses "ɔ" for "chalk".

2) Should the IPA symbol for "э" not be "ɛ" rather than just "e"? Listening to speech sample by natives, I think this sounds more similar.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.186.105.130 (talk) 00:57, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I will use some German examples.

• 1) Just /o/ seems right. Although, it may not be as clear as in German "holen". I can hear the difference between Russian /o/ and English /ɔ/. It's definitely closer to the British in "hot" than in the American.
• 2) Hmm, both are present. The difference is subtle, so it's OK to use just one symbol, It's always /e/ after palatalised consonants. When I studied German, we were taught some examples:

spät - это /ɛ/ but

nehmen - эти /e/ Atitarev (talk) 01:07, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

/o/ is correct for phonemic representation (which is what we want to use here). Otherwise we'd be using diacritics since the most common form is between [ɔ] and [o].

Check out Russian phonology for all the allophones of /e/. It's a mid vowel in some contexts, open-mid in others and phonetically [e] before (not after) palatalized consonants. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:51, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't argue about /o/ being most acceptable. As for your 2nd statement, an open /ɛ/ AFTER a palatalized consonant sounds impossible in Russian, even if the article doesn't say it. The correct statement should between BEFORE or AFTER. I am not adding to the article right now as I don't have the source but here's what the Russian Wikipedia says (I replaced the tag name). Strictly speaking, it's not 100% correct either, because "небо" would be ['nʲebə] (it's only after, not before or between):

• Аллофон, наиболее близкий к /e/ произносится между мягкими согласными: петь /pʲetʲ/

--Atitarev (talk) 02:28, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

ia and я

Was ia only used at the beginning of words or was it retained inside them, too? Where, if so? And what about words such as языкъ, which is ięzyk in polish and thus derives from small yus? 80.146.103.239 (talk) 15:43, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

If this is still important, it's język. The same pattern applies but at the beginning of a word, the Russian "я" has a /j/ sound. Polish may have "j" like in this example. Polish "ą" and "ę" alternate with Cyrillic "я" or "у" in Russian. The iotised Polish can ię and ią (after consonants) or "ję" or "ją" at the beginning of a word. Polish words can be traced to Old Cyrillic "Little Yus" (Ѧ, ѧ) and "Big Yus" (Ѫ, ѫ).

mąż - муж

męża - мужа

pięć - пять

--Atitarev (talk) 04:14, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Moved: New-York in the examples for the use of Decimal I

Нью-Іоркъ /nʲju jork/ "New York" was given in Russian alphabet#Letters eliminated in 1918 as an example for the use of і. However, this is not a good example for two reasons:

1. the spelling of this kind of words was considered controversial (see note 92 from section called "iо, йо, ьо?" in Я.К. Грот "Русское правописаніе", 1885),
2. (related to first) it is not an example of pronunciation being identical to и (rather, it is identical to й in this case).

So, I'm changing the example.--Imz 21:28, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Cyrillic s

The current description of the archaic (in Russian) cyrillic letter 's' says that: The ѕ corresponded to a primitive /dz/ pronunciation, already absent in East Slavic at the start of the historical period, but kept by tradition in certain words until the eighteenth century in secular writing, and in Church Slavonic to the present day.

It would seem worthwile to add that the Macedonian language is the last remaining (living) Slavic language to have retained the 's' to this day.

That X consonant

I believe the consonant which sound is marked as "h as in huge" is actually a gutural R sound, not so much like the softer h sound in English.

You believe wrong. Delicates 14:12, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

You write "like in Bach", but the IPA symbol in Bach would be "ç", not "x". So what *is* the correct pronunciation of X in Russian, please?

It is a voiceless velar fricative, similar to the ch Bach (which is actually uvular, not [ç]). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:53, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Cyrillic in Wikipedia

Please see the new page at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Cyrillic), aimed at

1. Documenting the use of Cyrillic and its transliteration in Wikipedia
2. Discussing potential revision of current practices

—Michael Z. 2005-12-9 20:43 Z

If I want to write a Russian word in a Wikipedia article, using Cyrillic orthography, how do I go about it? I know Russian and I know how to spell the word, but I don't know how to access Cyrillic in this system. JackofOz 09:41, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

If you are working under Windows, try using the Character Map program under Accessories / System Tools. About three pages down for the Arial font you run into Cyrillic characters. Double click on the ones you want to build the word and then copy and paste it from Character Map over to the Wikipedia editor box. You'll get something like this: "АБВГДЕЖЗИЙКЛМНОПРСТУФХЦЧШЩЪЫЬЭЮЯ" and "абвгдежзийклмнопрстуфхцчшщъыьэюя". Good luck! --StuffOfInterest 12:35, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Э оборотное vs. э

In my experience, the letter Э is merely called by its sound (eh)- I have never heard of calling it Э оборотное. It is called by this name in non-Muscovite Russian? Schnabeltier Angriff 19:39, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, i kratkoe is also often just called y. -Iopq 14:11, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

How would you say that then? The same as и? BirdValiant 02:03, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

No. Say "yeast", and then say it again without "-east". It wouldn't make sense to pronounce it as 'i'; would you pronounce a lone english 'w' as 'u'?67.186.247.125 19:43, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean to say that when pronouncing either j or w by themselves, you would basically move your tongue from the schwa position to the i or u positions, respectively? Or maybe from j or w to a schwa. I'm no expert in linguistics, but aren't j and w just movements toward i and u? That's why I thought that j by itself would just be i, since by itself, the tongue wouldn't be moving anywhere to get to its destination, i. I think another way of saying j or w would actually be the movement from a schwa to those consonants, or those consonants to a schwa. In the above example, with the Y in the word yeast, the sound I hear is the movement from a schwa, since that's where my tongue starts from, toward j, then if the rest of the word is pronounced, the tongue is moved down a little towards i. BirdValiant 03:48, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Missing cursive versions

I'm trying to decipher a text written in cursive Russian, but the current article was no help. The Cyrillic alphabet page was more helpful with that, but then it documents only the cursive version of basic Cyrillic letters, not the cursive version of special Russian letters such as " Ы ". I suggest someone knowledgable would add the cursive version of each upper/lower case letter, right below each regular version (there's already room for it anyway). -- 62.147.87.26 07:18, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

There is already a link under "See also"! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.186.105.130 (talk) 01:09, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Encoding

The article should have a section describing the encoding of Russian characters. Historically, tens of different encoding schemes were implemented, and several are still in use. How about a table with various encodings of azbuka? dima 13:18, 10 March 2007 (UTC).

Э

Why is the IPA for Э given in brackets rather than slashes? Is [ɛ] not a phonemic sound?--YellowLeftHand 19:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Brackets and slashes, as far as I remember from the page about IPA, are nearly identical, with slashes referring to a more general pronunciation, while brackets indicate it is very specific (all those little subscript and superscript and other character modifications.) Also, it says "e in met", yet for IPA it shows /e/ which is a long a sound, like in feint, either I'm pronouncing met wrong (doubtful as I speak northwestern american english and it usually removes met vowel sounds in certain circumstances, don't think it would ever add them.) It seems to me what may have happened is someone tried to change it to slashes, didn't know how to get the right IPA character (browsers pretty much make u use copy paste and that is time-consuming) and just put an e in there. Btw-I do hav an account, I'm not logged in because I just havent spent the time to login while on this new version of Safari yet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.144.233.38 (talk) 23:18, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

The "e in met" is the closest equivalent in English. Don't let the transcription fool you. Russian /e/ is often a mid-vowel (similar to met in e.g. RP). While English /e/ is a long vowel, the IPA character doesn't carry an assumption of length with it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:23, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

which variant should be used for the pronunciation of the "old name"

For example, there is ща [ɕtɕa] in the list (not matching the modern standard pronunciation). The case I'm worried about is твердо [ˈtvʲɛ.rdə]: first of all, it doesn't show the regular ё (so, it might be a Church Slavonic tradition or an error of a Wikipedia editor; I do not know how this name was commonly pronounced at the times when it was used in Russia). And another issue is tvʲ/tʲvʲ: since it's a more automatic process than the "е to ё", it was probably pronounced the same way the speaker would pronounce it in his normal Russian (without caring about Church Slavonic); and the Moscow pronunciation of the beginning of 20th century would probably be [tʲvʲ]. I do not know what should be written there, I just want to raise this issue.--Imz (talk) 21:10, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

The way I've been transcribing them phonetically is with modern standard Russian (AFAIK) even for the older terms. A hefty amount of research would need to be done to figure out the older pronunciations, but it's possible to do. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:16, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Are there reasons to keep ща [ɕtɕa] then?--Imz (talk) 22:08, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess not. [ɕɕ] is the better alternative. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:54, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

The obsolete description of "щ" still exists. The combination "Welsh cheese" could be used for the Russian historical pronunciation or Ukrainian, not modern Russian. There is no /ɕtɕ/, only /ɕɕ/. --Anatoli (talk) 03:26, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Some rephrasing suggestions

In the alphabet section: "Ъ - a sign which, placed after a consonant, indicates it is not palatalized" "Ь - a sign which, placed after a consonant, indicates a softened pronunciation"

If my understanding that this two letters play more or less opposite roles, maybe it'd look less confusing and more consistent to use the same way to describe them, for example "it is not palatalized/it is palatalized" or "a hard pronunciation/a soft pronunciation".

In the vowels section: "4. The vowels <е, ё, и, ю, я> indicate a preceding palatal consonant" I believe what it's trying to say is "palatalized" instead of "palatal", as not that many consonants appear to be purely palatal.

Keith Galveston (talk) 07:28, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:39, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Ч, Ж, Ш, and Щ / most appropriate IPA symbols

The current pronunciation is given as "tɕ". Is this really the best match for the "ch" sound in "chip"? Would not "tʃ" be the right sound? If not, can someone help explain the difference, please? Many thanks!

Similarly, while I can follow the English circumscription (like "pleasure", like "shut", like "fresh cheese") and that seems to reflect what I hear, I cannot map this to the IPA symbols. English dictionaries at least use the "simpler" symbols ʒ and ʃ. I may of course be wrong on this, but could someone more knowledgable perhaps added some further comments re pronunciation and the matching IPA symbols? Retroflex fricatives might be a bit challenging for most readers new to this language and/or phonetics, and alveolo-palatal fricative ever more so. Many thanks!

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.186.105.130 (talk) 01:14, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Check out Russian phonology. In Russian, Ч represents the consonant transcribed in the IPA as /tɕ/. The closest equivalent in English is /tʃ/, a distinction most speakers of English can't perceive. You can look at postalveolar consonant, which might explain the difference (though the difference is subtle)

Ж and Ш most closely correspond to the English postalveolar consonants, though they are actually retroflex consonants. Again, the distinction is subtle (especially when you consider the variation amongst retroflex consonants) and sources I've seen either neglect or gloss over the difference and may use /ʒ/ and /ʃ/ simply because it's easier. I think the "sounds like" helps readers unfamiliar with IPA or with retroflex consonants. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:08, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

If I can use an analogy with other languages, Russian /ʒ/ and /ʃ/ are (usually) harder than English, unpalatalised. Russian "ш" sounds more like German "sch" or Chinese "sh", rather than English "sh". However, Russian /tʃ/ is always palatalised (soft), it doesn't sound like a merged "тш" /tʃ/ to Russians but rather a /tɕ/. For that reason, /ʒ/ and /ʃ/ is followed by sound /ɨ/ (ы) (although spelled as жи and ши) but /tɕ/ (ч) is always by /i/ (и). The difference between /tʃ/ and /tɕ/ is not big but /tɕ/ highlights the soft pronunciation of "ч". --Atitarev (talk) 02:40, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your comments, they are extremely helpful. So unmodified ж and ш are alwayws hard and ч is soft? Many thanks again, David. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.186.105.130 (talk) 03:10, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome, yes, correct. --Anatoli (talk) 05:10, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Minor clarification: those letters never vary in their hardness or softness no matter the following vowel. The only exception is that ч may actually be pronounced like ш in certain environments such as as in что. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:47, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Stress indication

I added a new section but I'd like to ask for some help about the easiest method to insert a word stress symbol on Russian words, here in Wikipedia, other Windows applications and text areas on the web. Can anyone help, please?

I have created this Russian lesson (#5) with the word stress in Wikibooks: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Russian/Lesson_5 I had to do a lot of copy/paste. Not very convenient. --Atitarev (talk) 22:33, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

The "names of the letters" section

Can someone help me make sense of this section? The section seems nonsensical to me. --RossF18 (talk) 15:01, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

What's that anglopone pronounciation ?

Hello, by reading this article, I noticed a lot of mistakes about the phonetic :

• First and foremost, л is not pronounced like a latin [l] at all, but like the Italian sound gl [λ] ;
• The letter р is an r that you roll like in Spanish, Italian or in Greek, so it is not [r] but [ɾ] ; —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.57.146.170 (talk) 16:55, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

In sources that I've seen, Russian does not have a palatal lateral. It has a velarized dental lateral and a palatalized alveolar one. This latter one is the most similar to a palatal one, which is probably where the confusion lies.

You should familiarize yourself with the IPA a little more. [r] is the rolled r of Spanish, Italian and Greek. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

[r] is the English sound, which has nothing to see with the Spanish rolled r [ɾ]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yakuzanodon (talk • contribs) 12:31, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Like I said, familiarize yourself with the International Phonetic Alphabet. [r] is the alveolar trill, a sound found in Russian, Spanish, and Italian. The sound of English is often transcribed as /r/ for typographic reasons, but a more accurate phonetic rendering is [ɹ]. See alveolar approximant. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:12, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Before getting used to IPA, you should at least get used to pronounciation itself : "sources that I've seen", I have never heard a Russian man saying л like a roman l. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.57.146.152 (talk) 12:24, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

IPA is a facilitator in understanding pronunciation, so I don't see them as separate. You are correct that Russian л does not denote the sound indicated by the IPA [l], however, this is a typographically expedient way of rendering the pharyngealized [l̪ˤ] of e.g. лоп. Also different from [l] is the [lʲ] of e.g. лицо, similar to [ʎ], but as I said, I haven't seen it described or transcribed as a palatal lateral in any sources. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 13:45, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

/e/ vs. /ɛ/

Throughout this article there are transcriptions that include the phoneme /e/ with an English example that actually has the phoneme /ɛ/. The letter's "Е" transcription, for instance, is "/je/ or / ʲe/" and the English example of that sound is "ye in yet". As far as I'm concerned, the phoneme /e/ doesn't exist in English, at least in the major dialects. It's a bit closer than /ɛ/, like in French "demodé", German "Esel", Portuguese "esse" or Finnish "että". Wisapi (talk) 15:58, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't let the transcription of these two languages fool you. There are numerous allophones of Russian /e/, including close-mid, mid, and open-mid ones. In addition, There's a range amongst English dialects between mid and open-mid realizations of /ɛ/. The English approximations, I think, are close enough for /e/. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:22, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Whether the English approximations are close enough or not for /e/, may be a question of one's mother language influence on phones perception. As a native Portuguese speaker, these are total different phones to me, and if I mix them up, people won't understand me. Conversely, /ɛ/ and /æ/ sound almost identical to me and I had to put I a great effort into learning to differentiate pairs like <bed> and <bad> or <pet> and <pat>. As there is a great number of ESLs using the anglophone Wikipedia who may be able to pronounce the the proper phone effortlessly if instructed right, I'm in favor that the most painstacking transcription be used in phonology articles along with a note that the English example is just a rough approximation when it isn't exactly the same. This may seem a little perfectionist, but if people may profit from it, why not? And if there are inumerous allophones for /e/ extending from [e] to [æ], why not simply noting, "Explicit pronounciation [e], but ranging from [e] to [æ] in allophones"? Wisapi (talk) 02:31, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Because all the pronunciations are approximate to English /ɛ/. Detailed phonetic discussion of the contextual variants should (and does) go at Russian phonology. Approximations are, well, approximate and readers should expect that phonetic details will be glossed over in that way, no? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 03:49, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, as a long time Wikipedia reader —and not editor—, I always thought that the phones for which the example in English was not given as aproximate (compare the entries <Є> and <Ш>) were actually an exact parallel. Only when I would read that it was just a rough example of the sound, would I be concerned in finding more about the phone. Moreover, if had actually read about the language's phonology, which might be very complex in terms of allophones, I would use the tables in the language ortography page as a consultation material and that would be of little value if I could get misled. So if my (mis)experience can give any clue of how readers might react, I deem it reasonable that a new column should be added to concern the actual pronunciation (possibly of the dialect of greatest prestige) and attention be drawn to the mere approximations in English. This would still not encroach in the phonology articles' compass, for it would not offer a greater explanation of the phones nor of phenomena like elision, assimilation, etc. that only occur in more informal registers —just a concise list of correspondences between phones and the language script. Perhaps other alternatives may be equally satisfying; however, I don't think that it would be optimal to just put a sign on the ortography pages' top alerting that every phoneme is to be understood as approximate and that a deeper discussion should be looked after in the phonology page. This would —as I said— undermine the page's value as a consultation material. Wisapi (talk) 13:54, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that's a good idea. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:36, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Glyphs

In Russian, tvvo letters are visibly different from their original scripts. These are Д "de" and Л "el". These are displayed (if italicised vvith the Garamond font) similar to the Alexander font. The characters of these letters in Garamond font are rendered as follovvs: Д (Cyrillic letter "de"), and Л (Cyrillic letter "el"). The letters are similar to the Greek Δ "delta" and Λ "lambda", as the Cyrillic alphabet derived from the Greek alphabet.

My question vvas, can I show the display variations (at least in this page) as a note? so that people are avvare of Cyrillic deriving from Greek? Thnx! :D

序名三「Jyonasan」 ^Talk_Stalk 23:22, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

That might be better placed at Cyrillic alphabet or Early Cyrillic alphabet, since it's not just the Russian variant that this happens in (right?). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 00:46, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Correct. So... VVould I be able to add a note to the letters, at the bottom the note vvill describe my explanation. VVould that be ok? 序名三「Jyonasan」 ^Talk_Stalk 03:01, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I think so. Give it a try and, if it's weird, we can tweak it or talk about it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 05:37, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Correct Transliteration

There is a vvebsite that allovvs you to transliterate to and from the major transliteration (romanisation) systems.

http://www.translit.cc/

I have found a vvebsite, vvhich agrees vvith Russian dictionaries and transliteration tools. But the reason vvhy I also agree vvith it is because (according to my grandfather's Russian books on transliteration), this transliteration systems are more favoured, and complied vvith Russian grammar/spelling.

http://moscow.usembassy.gov/transliteration_e.html

There is another favoured transliteration system: ISO-9 1995 The most frequent problems vvith Russian transliteration are the letters:

е, ё, ж, и, й, х, ц, ч, ш, щ, ъ, ы, ь, э, ю, and я.

There should be a "transliteration compromise" that combines the most used transliteration systems, so transliterised vvords could be accurate. Here is a vvebsite that shovvs all the transliteration systems Compromised! http://www.eki.ee/wgrs/rom1_ru.htm

序名三「Jyonasan」 ^Talk_Stalk 01:42, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Pronounciation

Even though the Russian letter <Ж> sounds like a Voiced retroflex fricative, in many dialects in major cities (especially in Moscow, St. Petersburg, etc.) it is a Voiced postalveolar fricative. Here are the features of a Voiced postalveolar fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is fricative, vvhich means it is produced by constricting air flovv through a narrovv channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is postalveolar vvhich means it is articulated vvith the tip of the tongue betvveen the alveolar ridge and the palate, but closer to the alveolar ridge than for alveolo-palatal consonants.
• Its phonation type is voiced, vvhich means the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, vvhich means air is allovved to escape through the mouth.
• It is a central consonant, vvhich means it is produced by allovving the airstream to flovv over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, vvhich means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

This includes many features in the letter Ж. So, vvhy is the Russian letter Ж classified ONLY in the phonology category of a Voiced retroflex fricative and not also in the category of a Voiced postalveolar fricative? There is a vvebsite that allovvs native speakers from their native countries to pronounce words (letters in this case) in fluent Russian, and here is "Zhe" (transliterised as either <žɛ>/<ʒɛ>, or in the case of a Voiced retroflex fricative: <ʐɛ>):

| Forvo Ж

Here is another vvebsite, shovving all the Russian letters pronounce by Russian natives: http://listen2russian.com/lesson01/a/

Please, If it is possible to consider BOTH VVIDELY KNOVVN DIALECTS OF RUSSIAN (Both vvhich are considered official to the USSR [Soviet Union] novv knovvn as the Russian Federation.) Thank you. :D

序名三「Jyonasan」 ^Talk_Stalk 01:03, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

People generally transcribe it as if it's palatoalveolar. I suspect the retroflexion is not well understood, though it is widely attested. If you find a source that talks about dialectal variation in Russian postalveolar fricatives between retroflex and palatoalveolar pronunciations, that's welcome here and at Russian phonology. I'm skeptical, though; all the sound files you've provided sound fairly retroflex to my ears. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 01:06, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Superscript notes but no references

There are several (unlinked) superscript numerals within the main alphabet chart (e.g. next to the heading "Old Name") but it's not obvious what these notes are referring to. There should be a legend at the bottom of the chart listing the notes. I would do it but not being a regular editor on this page I can't find most of the information. ... discospinster _talk 21:57, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Sha... ch?

"sheer (sometimes followed by chip)" — What does that mean? – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 10:40, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Ha ha. I've fixed it. Clear now? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 12:17, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Much clearer, thank you! – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 22:16, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Letter that looks like an upside-down "V"?

See 1932 Metro map at [1], three word place name that begins with "Akademia"; the third word transliterates as "F?ota". The ? is the letter that looks like an upside down V. So what's that letter and how is it pronounced? — Rickyrab. ^{Yada yada yada} 13:54, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

El (Cyrillic)--109.205.248.61 (talk) 16:41, 16 November 2011 (UTC)