Russian phonology

Main article: Russian language

This article discusses the phonological system of standard Russian based on the Moscow dialect (unless otherwise noted). For discussion of other dialects, see Russian dialects. Russian possesses five vowels and consonants which typically come in pairs of hard / plain (твёрдый [ˈtvʲo.rdɨj]) and soft / palatalized (мягкий [ˈmʲæ.xʲkʲɪj]).

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	(ɨ)	u
Mid	e	(ə)	o
Open		a

The most popular view among linguists and grammarians is that Russian possesses five vowel phonemes in stressed syllables; this interpretation is assumed in this article. A minority view regards the sounds [i] (which is usually rendered by the Russian letter ⟨и⟩) and [ɨ] (usually rendered by ⟨ы⟩) as distinct phonemes. These two vowels sound quite different, and Russians can pronounce both sounds in isolation (for example, as the names of respective letters . Soviet school pedagogy assumed that they are different vowels (however avoiding the term phoneme). .

In Proto-Slavic times, *i and *ɨ were clearly separate phonemes, with the former deriving from Balto-Slavic (and late PIE) /iː/ and /ei/, and the latter deriving from Balto-Slavic (and late PIE) /uː/. The five-vowel analysis rests on the complementary distribution of [ɨ] and [i] in modern Russian, with the former occurring after hard (non-palatalized) consonants and [i] elsewhere, showing them to be allophones of a single phoneme /i/.

Allophony

Russian vowels are subject to considerable allophony, subject to both stress and the palatalization of neighboring consonants. In most unstressed positions, in fact, only three phonemes are distinguished after hard consonants, and only two after soft consonants. Unstressed /a/ and /o/ merge (a phenomenon known as akan'je); unstressed /e/ and /i/ merge (ikan'je); and all four unstressed vowels merge after soft consonants, except in absolute final position in a word. None of these mergers are represented in writing.

Front vowels

When a preceding consonant is hard, /i/ is retracted to [ɨ]. Formant studies in Padgett (2001) demonstrate that [ɨ] is better characterized as slightly diphthongized from the velarization of the preceding consonant, implying that a phonological pattern of using velarization to enhance perceptual distinctiveness between hard and soft consonants is strongest before /i/. When unstressed, /i/ becomes near-close; that is, [ɨ̞] following a hard consonant and [ɪ] in most other environments. Between soft consonants, both stressed and unstressed /i/ are raised, as in пить [pʲi̝tʲ] ('to drink') and маленький [ˈmalʲɪ̝nʲkʲɪj] ('small'). When preceded and followed by coronal or dorsal consonants, [ɨ] is fronted to [ɨ̟]. After a labial + /l/ cluster, [ɨ] is retracted, as in плыть [plɨ̠tʲ] ('to float'); it is also slightly diphthongized to [ɯ̟ɨ̟].

In native words, /e/ only follows unpaired (i.e. the retroflexes and /t͡s/) and soft consonants. After soft consonants (but not before), it is a mid vowel ([e̞] or [ɛ̝]), while a following soft consonant raises it to [e]. Another allophone, an open-mid [ɛ] occurs word-initially and never before or after soft consonants (hereafter [ɛ̝] is represented without the diacritic for simplicity). Preceding hard consonants retract /e/ to [ɛ̠] and [e̠] so that жест ('gesture') and цель ('target') are pronounced [ʐɛ̠st] and [t͡se̠lʲ] respectively.

In words borrowed from other languages, /e/ rarely follows soft consonants; this foreign pronunciation often persists in Russian for many years until the word is more fully adopted into Russian. For instance, шофёр (from French chauffeur) was pronounced [ʂoˈfɛr] in the early twentieth century but is now pronounced [ʂɐˈfʲor]. On the other hand, the pronunciations of words such as отель [ɐˈtɛlʲ] ('hotel') retain the hard consonants despite a long presence in the language.

Back vowels

Between soft consonants, /a/ becomes [æ], as in пять [pʲætʲ] ('five'). When not following a soft consonant, /a/ is retracted to [ɑ̟] before /l/ as in палка [ˈpɑ̟lkə] ('stick').

For most speakers, /o/ is a mid vowel but it can be more open for some speakers. Between soft consonants or simply following one, /o/ is centralized to [ɵ̞] as in тётя [ˈtʲɵ.tʲə] ('aunt').

As with the other back vowels, /u/ is centralized between soft consonants, as in чуть [t͡ɕʉtʲ] ('narrowly'). When unstressed, /u/ becomes near-close.

Vowel reduction

Main article: Vowel reduction in Russian

Unstressed vowels tend to merge. /o/ and /a/ generally have the same unstressed allophones and unstressed /e/ becomes /i/ (picking up its unstressed allophones). Russian orthography (as opposed to that of closely related Belarusian) does not reflect vowel reduction.

The realization of unstressed /o/ and /a/ goes as follows:

• After hard consonants, both reduce to [ə] or [ɐ]; [ɐ] appears in the syllable immediately before the stress and in absolute word-initial position. Examples: паром [pɐˈrom] ('ferry'), облако [ˈobləkə] ('cloud'), трава [trɐˈva] ('grass').
  • When ⟨aa⟩, ⟨ao⟩, ⟨oa⟩, or ⟨oo⟩ is written in a word, it indicates [ɐ.ɐ] so that соображать ('to use common sense/to reason'), is pronounced [sɐ.ɐ.brɐˈʐatʲ].
• Both /o/ and /a/ merge with /i/ after soft consonants and /j/ (/o/ is written as ⟨e⟩ in these positions). This occurs for /o/ after retroflex consonants as well. Examples: жена [ʐɨ̞ˈna] ('wife'), язык [jɪˈzɨk] ('tongue').
• These processes occur even across word boundaries as in под морем [pɐˈd‿morʲɪm] ('under the sea').

Across certain word-final suffixes, the reductions do not completely apply. In certain suffixes, after soft consonants and /j/, /a/ and /o/ (which is written as ⟨e⟩) can be distinguished from /i/ and from each other: по́ле (ˈpo̞.lʲɪ) ('field' nom. sg. neut.) is different from по́ля ('field' sg. gen.), and these final sounds differ from the realization of /i/ in such position.

There are a number of exceptions to the above comments on reduction of unstressed vowels.

• Firstly, /o/ is not always reduced in foreign borrowings, e.g. радио, [ˈra.dʲɪ.o] ('radio').
• Secondly, there are at least two word roots for whose derivatives some speakers pronounce /a/ as [ɨ] after retroflex consonants (/ʐ/ and /ʂ/: жал- 'regret' and лошадь 'horse'. This pronunciation applies to жале́ть [ʐɨˈlʲetʲ] ('to regret'), к сожалéнию [ksə.ʐɨˈlʲe.nʲɪ.ju] ('unfortunately'), and plural oblique cases of лошадь ('horse'), such as лошаде́й, [lə.ʂɨˈdʲej] (pl. gen. and acc.).
• Thirdly, /i/ replaces /a/ after /t͡s/ in the oblique cases of some numerals, e.g. двадцати, [dvə.t͡sɨˈtʲi] ('twenty').
• In loanwords, unstressed /e/ does not merge with /i/ in initial position or after vowels, so word pairs like эмигрант/иммигрант or эмитировать/имитировать differ in pronunciation.

In addition to this, the unstressed high vowels /i/ and /u/ become lax (or near-close) as in ютиться [jʉ̞ˈtʲit͡sə] ('to huddle'), этап [ɪˈtap] ('stage'), дышать [dɨ̞ˈʂatʲ] ('to breathe'), and мужчина [mʊˈɕɕinə] ('man').

In weakly stressed positions, vowels may become voiceless between two voiceless consonants: выставка [ˈvɨstə̥fkə] ('exhibition'), потому что [pə̥tɐˈmu ʂtə] ('because'). This may also happen in cases where only the following consonant is voiceless: череп [t͡ɕerʲɪ̥p] ('skull').

Diphthongs

Russian diphthongs all end in a non-syllabic [i̯], which can be considered an allophone of /j/, the only semivowel in Russian. In all contexts other than after a vowel, /j/ is considered an approximant consonant. Phonological descriptions of /j/ may also classify it as a consonant even in the coda. In such descriptions, Russian has no diphthongs.

The first part of diphthongs are subject to the same allophony as their constituent vowels. Examples of words with diphthongs: яйцо [jɪjˈt͡so] ('egg'), ей [jej] ('her' dat.), действенный [ˈdʲejstvʲɪnnɨj] ('effective'). /ij/ (written ⟨ий⟩ or ⟨ый⟩) is a common adjectival affix where it is often unstressed; at normal conversational speed, such unstressed endings may be monophthongized to [ɪ̟].

Consonants

⟨ʲ⟩ denotes palatalization, meaning the center of the tongue is raised during and after the articulation of the consonant.

Consonant phonemes of Russian

	Labial		Dental & Alveolar		Post- alveolar/ Palatal		Velar
	hard	soft	hard	soft	hard	soft	hard	soft
Nasal	m	mʲ	n	nʲ
Plosive	p   b	pʲ   bʲ	t   d	tʲ   dʲ			k   ɡ	kʲ   ɡʲ
Affricate			t͡s	(t͡sʲ)		t͡ɕ
Fricative	f   v	fʲ   vʲ	s   z	sʲ   zʲ	ʂ   ʐ	ɕː   ʑː	x	xʲ
Trill			r	rʲ
Approximant			l	lʲ		j

Notes:

• Most consonants phonemes come in hard/soft pairs (exceptions are listed below). There is a marked tendency of Russian hard consonants to be velarized, though this is a subject of some academic dispute. Velarization is clearest before the front vowels /e/ and /i/.
  • /ʐ/ and /ʂ/ are always hard (even if spelling contains a "softening" letter after them, as in жена, шёлк, жить, мышь etc.). Their soft counterparts are limited to a few loanwords (e.g. жюри, пшют, фишю, шютте) and several foreign proper names, mostly of French or Lithuanian origin (e.g. Гёльджюк, "Жён Африк", Жюль Верн, Герхард Шюрер, Шяуляй, Шяшувис). Native Russian words and most loanwords contain hard /ʐ/ and /ʂ/ despite similar or identical spelling: e.g. жён (gen. pl. from жена), ажюстировать, парашют, шюцкор. More widespread are the long phonemes /ʑː/ and /ɕː/, which do not pattern in the same ways that other hard/soft pairs do.
  • /t͡s/ is generally listed among the always-hard consonants, however certain foreign proper names, including those of Polish, Ukrainian, or Lithuanian origin (e.g. Цюрих, Цюрупа, Пацюк, Цявловский), as well as loanwords (e.g., хуацяо, from Chinese) contain a soft [t͡sʲ]. The phonemicity of a soft /t͡sʲ/ is supported by occasional neologisms that come from native word-building processes (e.g. фрицёнок, шпицята).
  • /t͡ɕ/ and /j/ are always soft.
  • /ɕː/ is also always soft. A formerly common pronunciation of /ɕ/+/t͡ɕ/ indicates the sound may be two underlying phonemes: /ʂ/ and /t͡ɕ/, thus /ɕː/ can be considered as a marginal phoneme. In today's most widespread pronunciation, [ɕt͡ɕ] appears (instead of [ɕː]) for orthographical -зч-/-сч- where ч- starts a words's root, and -з/-с belongs to a preposition or a "clearly distinguisheable" prefix (e.g. без часов [bʲɪɕt͡ɕɪˈsof], 'without a clock'; расчертить [rɐɕt͡ɕɪr'tʲitʲ], 'to rule'); in all other cases /ɕː/ is used (щётка, грузчик, переписчик, счастье, мужчина, исщипать, расщепить etc.)
  • /ʑː/ was always soft few decades ago; now it is generally replaced with a geminated hard /ʐː/ (or with spelling-motivated /ʐd(ʲ)/ in the case of the root -дожд-: дождя, дожди, дождик, дождливый etc.). The status of /ʑː/ as a phoneme is also marginal since it may derive from an underlying /zʐ/ or /sʐ/. For more information, see alveolo-palatal consonant and retroflex consonant.
• /ʐ/ is similar to the ⟨g⟩ in genre, but the tongue is curled back (as with the /r/ = [ɻ] of American English) rather than domed. /ʂ/ differs from this only by being voiceless.
• Hard /t/ /d/ /n/ /l/ and soft /rʲ/ are both dental [t̪] [d̪] [n̪] [l̪] [r̪ʲ] and apical [t̺] [d̺] [n̺] [l̺] [r̺ʲ] while soft /tʲ/ /dʲ/ /nʲ/ and /lʲ/ are alveolar and laminal [t̻ʲ^sʲ] [d̻ʲ^zʲ] [nʲ̻] [lʲ̻]. Note that, for /tʲ/ and /dʲ/, the tongue is raised enough to produce slight frication. Hard /l/ is typically pharyngealized ([ɫ], "dark l").
• /s/ and /z/ are laminal and dental (or dento-alveolar) while /t͡s/ is alveolar and apical.
• Hard /r/ is postalveolar: [r̠].
• A marginal phoneme /ɣ/ occurs instead of /g/ in certain interjections: ага, ого, угу, эге, о-го-го, э-ге-ге, гоп. (Thus, there exists a minimal pair of homographs: ага [ɐ'ɣa] 'aha!' vs ага [ɐ'ga] 'agha'). The same sound [ɣ] can be found in бухгалтер (orthographically <хг>; however in цейхгауз, <хг> -> [x]), optionally in габитус and in a few other loanwords. Also optionally (and less frequently than a century ago) [ɣ] can be used instead of [g] in certain religious words (a phenomenon influenced by Church Slavonic pronunciation): Бога, Богу... (declension forms of Бог 'God'), Господь 'Lord' (especially in the exclamation Господи! 'Oh Lord!'), благой 'good'.
• Some linguists (like I. G. Dobrodomov and his school) postulate the existence of a phonemic glottal stop /ʔ/. This marginal phoneme can be found, for example, in the word не-а [nʲeʔ]. Claimed minimal pairs for this phoneme include суженный [ˈsʔuʐɨnɨj] 'narrowed' (a participle from сузить 'to narrow', with prefix с- and root -уз-, cf. узкий 'narrow') vs суженый [ˈsuʐɨnɨj] 'betrothed' (originally a participle from судить 'to judge', now an adjective; the root is суд 'court') and с Аней [ˈsʔanʲɪj] 'with Ann' vs Саней [ˈsanʲɪj] '(by) Alex'.

There is some dispute over the phonemicity of soft velar consonants. Typically, the soft/hard distinction is allophonic for velar consonants: they become soft before front vowels, as in короткий [kɐˈrotkʲɪj] ('short'), unless there is a word boundary, in which case they are hard (e.g. к Ивану [k ‿ɨvanu] 'to Ivan'). Hard variants occur everywhere else. Exceptions are represented mostly by:

• Loanwords:
  • Soft: гёзы, гюрза, гяур, секьюрити, кюре, кяриз, санкхья, хянга;
  • Hard: кок-сагыз, гэльский, акын, кеб, хэппенинг.
• Proper nouns of foreign origin:
  • Soft: Алигьери, Гёте, Гюнтер, Гянджа, Джокьякарта, Кёнигсберг, Кюрасао, Кяхта, Хьюстон, Хёндэ, Хюбнер, Пюхяярви;
  • Hard: Мангышлак, Гэри, Кызылкум, Кэмп-Дэвид, Архыз, Хуанхэ.

The rare native examples are fairly new, as most them were coined in the last century:

• Soft: forms of the verb ткать (ткёшь, ткёт etc., and derivatives like соткёшься); occasionalisms of the type догёнок/догята, герцогёнок/герцогята; and adverbial participles of the type берегя, стерегя, стригя, жгя, пекя, секя, ткя (it is disputed whether these are part of the standard language or just informal colloquialisms);
• Hard: the name гэ of letter <г>, acronyms and derived words (кагебешник, днепрогэсовский), a few interjections (гы, кыш, хэй), some onomatopoeic words (гыгыкать), and colloquial forms of certain patronyms: Олегыч, Маркыч, Аристархыч (where -ыч is a contraction of standard language's patronymical suffix -ович rather than a continuation of ancient -ич).

In the mid-twentieth century, a small number of reductionist approaches made by structuralists put forth that palatalized consonants occur as the result of a phonological processes involving /j/ (or palatalization as a phoneme in itself), so that there were no underlying palatalized consonants. Despite such proposals, linguists have long agreed that the underlying structure of Russian is closer to that of its acoustic properties, namely that soft consonants are separate phonemes in their own right.

Phonological processes

Voiced consonants (/b/, /bʲ/, /d/, /dʲ/ /ɡ/, /v/, /vʲ/, /z/, /zʲ/, /ʐ/, and /ʑː/) are devoiced word-finally unless the next word begins with a voiced obstruent. /ɡ/, in addition to becoming voiceless, also lenites to [x] in some words, such as бог [ˈbox].

Russian features a general retrograde assimilation of voicing and palatalization. In longer clusters, this means that multiple consonants may be soft despite their underlyingly (and orthographically) being hard. The process of voicing assimilation applies across word-boundaries when there is no pause between words.

Voicing

Within a morpheme, voicing is not distinctive before obstruents (except for /v/, and /vʲ/ when followed by a vowel or sonorant). The voicing or devoicing is determined by that of the final obstruent in the sequence: просьба [ˈprozʲbə] ('request'), водка [ˈvotkə] ('vodka'). In foreign borrowings, this isn't always the case for /f(ʲ)/, as in Адольф Гитлер [ɐˈdolʲf ˈɡʲitlʲɪr] ('Adolf Hitler') and граф болеет [ɡraf bɐˈlʲeɪt] ('the count is ill'). /v/ and /vʲ/ are unusual in that they seem transparent to voicing assimilation; in the syllable onset, both voiced and voiceless consonants may appear before /v(ʲ)/:

• тварь [tvarʲ] ('the creature')
• два [dva] ('two')
• световой [s(ʲ)vʲɪtɐˈvoj] ('luminous')
• звезда [z(ʲ)vʲɪˈzda] ('star')

When /v(ʲ)/ precedes and follows obstruents, the voicing of the cluster is governed by that of the final segment (per the rule above) so that voiceless obstruents that precede /v(ʲ)/ are voiced if /v(ʲ)/ is followed by a voiced obstruent (e.g. к вдове [ɡ vdɐˈvʲɛ] 'to the widow') while a voiceless obstruent will devoice all segments (e.g. без впуска [bʲɪs ˈfpuskə] 'without an admission').

/t͡ɕ/, /t͡s/, and /x/ have voiced allophones before voiced obstruents, as in дочь бы [ˈdod͡ʑ bɨ] ('a daughter would') and плацдарм [plɐd͡zˈdarm] ('bridge-head').

Other than /mʲ/ and /nʲ/, nasals and liquids devoice between voiceless consonants or a voiceless consonant and a pause: контрфорс [ˌkontr̥ˈfors] ('buttress').

Palatalization

Before /j/, paired consonants are normally soft as in пью [pʲju] 'I drink' and пьеса [ˈpʲjɛ.sə] 'theatrical play'. However the last consonant of prefixes and parts of compound words generally remains hard in the standard language: отъезд [ɐˈtjɛst] 'departure', Минюст [ˌmʲiˈnjust] 'Min[istry of] Just[ice]'; and only when prefix ends in /s/ or /z/, there exists an optional softening: съездить [ˈs(ʲ)je.zʲdʲɪtʲ] ('to go/travel').

Paired consonants preceding /e/ are also soft; although there are exceptions from loanwords, alternations across morpheme boundaries are the norm. The following examples show the different types of alternations:

• дом [dom] 'house' nominative) vs. до́ме [ˈdomʲɪ] 'house' prepositional)
• крова́вый [krɐˈvavɨj] 'bloody' vs. крова́веть [krɐˈvavʲɪtʲ] 'to be soaked with blood'
• отве́т [ɐˈtvʲɛt] 'answer' vs. отве́тить [ɐˈtvʲetʲɪtʲ] 'to answer'
• несу́ [nʲɪˈsu] '(I) carry' vs. несёт [nʲɪˈsʲot] 'carries'
• жена́ [ʐɨˈna] 'wife' vs. же́нин [ˈʐɛnʲɪn] 'wife's'
• коро́ва [kɐˈrovə] 'cow' vs. коро́вий [kɐˈrovʲɪj] 'bovine'
• прям [prʲam] '(is) straight' vs. прямизна́ [prʲɪmʲɪˈzna] 'straightness'
• вор [vor] 'thief') vs. вори́шка [vɐˈrʲiʂkə] 'little thief (pejorative)'
• написа́л [nəpʲɪˈsal] 'he wrote) vs. написа́ли [nəpʲɪˈsalʲɪ] 'they wrote'
• горбу́н [ɡɐrˈbun] 'hunchback' vs. горбу́нья [ɡɐrˈbunʲjə] 'female hunchback'
• высо́к [vɨˈsok] '(is) high' vs. высь [vɨsʲ] 'height'

Before hard dental consonants, /r/, /rʲ/, labial and dental consonants are hard: орла [ɐrˈla] ('eagle' gen. sg).

Before soft labial and dental consonants or /lʲ/, dental consonants (other than /t͡s/) are soft (In literary pronunciation this is more complicated and, for example, dental continuants are hard before soft labial consonants across a prefix or presupposition boundary.)

Velar consonants are soft when preceding /i/; within words, this means that velar consonants are never followed by [ɨ].

/x/ assimilates the palatalization of the following velar consonant лёгких [ˈlʲɵxʲkʲɪx] ('lungs' gen. pl.).

Palatalization assimilation of labial consonants before labial consonants is in free variation with nonassimilation, that is бомбить ('to bomb') is either [bɐmˈbʲitʲ] or [bɐmʲˈbʲitʲ] depending on the individual speaker.

When hard /n/ precedes its soft equivalent, it is also soft (see gemination). This is slightly less common across affix boundaries.

In addition to this, dental stridents conform to the place of articulation (not just the palatalization) of following postalveolars: с частью [ˈɕːasʲtʲju] ('with a part'). In careful speech, this does not occur across word boundaries.

Russian has the rare feature of nasals not typically being assimilated in place of articulation. Both /n/ and /nʲ/ appear before retroflex consonants: деньжонки [dʲɪnʲˈʐonkʲɪ] ('money' (scornful)) and ханжой [xɐnˈʐoj] ('hypocrite' instr.). In the same context, other coronal consonants are always hard. A partial exception to this is the velar nasal, which occurs as an allophone before velar consonants in some words (функция [ˈfuŋk.t͡sɨjə] 'function'), but not in most other words like банк [bank] ('bank').

Consonant clusters

As a Slavic language, Russian has fewer phonotactic restrictions on consonants than many other languages, allowing for clusters that would be difficult for English speakers; this is especially so at the beginning of a syllable, where Russian speakers make no sonority distinctions between fricatives and stops. These reduced restrictions begin at the morphological level; outside of two morphemes that contain clusters of four consonants: встрет-/встреч- 'meet' (|fstrʲ|), and чёрств-/черств- 'stale' (|rstv(ʲ)|), individual native Russian morphemes have a maximum of three-consonant sequences:

3-Segment clusters

	Russian	IPA	Translation
CCL	скрип	[skrʲip]	squeak
CCC*	ствол	[stvol]	(tree) trunk
LCL	верблюд	[vʲɪrˈblʲut]	camel
LCC	толстый	[ˈtolstɨj]	thick

For speakers who pronounce [ɕt͡ɕ] instead of [ɕː], words like общий ('common') also constitute clusters of this type.

2-Segment clusters

	Russian	IPA	Translation
CC	кость	[kosʲtʲ]	bone
LC	ртуть	[rtutʲ]	mercury
CL	слепой	[sʲlʲɪˈpoj]	blind
LL	горло	[ˈɡorlə]	throat
CJ	дьяк	[dʲjak]	dyak
LJ	рьяный	[ˈrʲjanɨj]	zealous

If /j/ is considered a consonant in the coda position, then words like айва ('quince') contain semivowel+consonant clusters.

While clustering also occurs with affixation, the four-consonant limitation persists in the syllable onset. The source of many of these clusters are lexical words that begin with the prefix вз-/вс- ([vz-]/[fs-]); all possible combinations [vz] + [b/d/g] + [r/l] (voiced) and [fs] + [p/t/k/x] +[r/l] (voiceless), at least in occasional word usage:

4-Segment clusters

Russian	IPA	Translation
взблеск	['vzblʲesk]	flash
(ему) взбрело (в голову)	[vzbrʲɪˈlo]	(he) took it (into his head)
взгляд	[ˈvzglʲat]	gaze
взгромоздиться	[vzgrəmɐ'zʲdʲit͡sə]	to perch
вздлить (occasionalism)	['vzdlʲitʲ]	to prolongate
вздрогнуть	[ˈvzdroɡnutʲ]	to flinch
всклокоченный	[fsklɐ'kot͡ɕɪnɨj]	disheveled
вскрыть	['fskrɨtʲ]	to open, to reveal
всплеск	['fsplʲɛsk]	splash
вспрыгнуть	['fsprɨgnutʲ]	to jump up
встлеть (occasionalism)	['fstlʲetʲ]	to begin to smolder/putrefy/decay
встречать	[fstrʲɪˈt͡ɕætʲ]	to meet
всхлип	['fsxlip]	whimper
всхрапывать	['fsxrapɨvətʲ]	to snort

Furthermore, because prepositions in Russian act like clitics, the syntactic phrase of a preposition and a following word constitutes a phonological word that acts like a single grammatical word. Thus, three prepositions (к, с, and в), which consist of a single consonant, contribute to phonological words with up to five consonant clusters in the syllable onset (e.g., к взгляду [ˈkvzglʲadu] 'to (the) gaze'). In the syllable coda, suffixes that contain no vowels may increase the final consonant cluster of a syllable (e.g. Ноябрьск 'city of Noyabrsk' |no'jabrʲ|+|sk| > [nɐ'jabrʲsk]), theoretically up to 7 consonants: монстрств ['monstrstf] 'of monsterships'. There is usually an audible release between these consecutive consonants at word boundaries, the major exception being clusters of homorganic consonants.

Clusters of three or more consonants are frequently simplified, usually through deletion of one of them (syncope). The syncope is more common in casual pronunciation.

Normative simplification primarily includes merging of identical or similar consonants. For example, /sɕː/ is pronounced [ɕː], as in расщелина 'cleft'. There are also a few isolated patterns of apparent cluster reduction (an evidence of mismatch between pronunciation and morphology-based or just traditional orthography). For example, dental plosives are dropped between a dental continuant and a dental nasal or lateral: лестный [ˈlʲɛsnɨj] 'flattering'. Other examples include:

• /vstv/ > [stv]: чувство 'feeling' [ˈtɕustvə], not [ˈtɕuvstvə] or [ˈtɕufstvə].
• /lnt͡s/ > [nt͡s]: солнце 'sun' [ˈsont͡sə], not [ˈsolnt͡sə].
• /rdt͡s/ > [rt͡s]: сердце 'heart' [ˈsʲert͡sə], not [ˈsʲerdt͡sə] or [ˈsʲertt͡sə].
• /rdt͡ɕ/ > [rt͡ɕ]: сердчишко 'heart (diminutive)' [sʲɪr't͡ɕiʂkə], not [sʲɪrdt͡ɕiʂkə] or [sʲɪrtt͡ɕiʂkə].

In certain cases, modern pronunciation restores dropped consonants under the influence of written form:

• /ndsk/, /ntsk/: шотландский 'Scottish' [ʂɐtˈlanskʲɪj] in an older standard (and in casual speech), [ʂɐtˈlant͡s^skʲɪj] in modern standard language.
• /stsk/: марксистский 'Marxist (adj.)' [mɐr'ksʲisskʲɪj] in an older standard (more reduced in casual speech: [mɐr'ksʲiskʲɪj]), [mɐr'ksʲist͡s^skʲɪj] in modern official style speech.

The simplifications of consonant clusters are done selectively; bookish-style words and proper nouns are typically pronounced with all consonants even if they fit the pattern. For example, the word голландка is pronounced in a simplified manner [gɐ'lankə] for the meaning of 'Dutch oven' (a formerly popular type of oven in Russia) and in a full form [gɐ'lantkə] for 'Dutch woman' (a more exotic meaning).

In certain cases, phonetical simplification produces homophones, e.g. костный 'bone, osteous, osseal' and косный 'rigid, inert, stagnant' (both are pronounced ['kosnɨj]).

Another way to harmonize speech (and to break unwanted consonant clusters) is provided by the possibility to insert (both in spelling and in pronunciation) an epenthetic vowel <о> after most prepositions and prefixes that normally ends in a consonant. This includes both historically motivated usage and cases of its modern extrapolations. There are no strict limits when the epenthetic <о> is obligatory, optional and prohibited. One of the most typical cases of the epenthetic <о> is a position between a consonant and a cluster starting with the same or similar consonant (e.g. со среды 'from Wednesday' |s|+|srʲɪ'dɨ| > [səsrʲɪ'dɨ], not *с среды, ототру 'I'll scrub' |ot|+|ˈtru| > [ətɐ'tru], not *оттру).

Supplementary notes

/n/ and /nʲ/ are the only consonants that can be geminated within morpheme boundaries. Such gemination does not occur in loanwords.

The historical transformation of /ɡ/ into /v/ in the genitive case (and also the accusative for animate entities) of masculine singular pronouns, adjectives and participles is not reflected in the modern Russian orthography: его [jɪˈvo] ('his/him'), белого [ˈbʲɛ.lə.və] ('white' gen. sg.), синего [ˈsʲi.nʲɪ.və] ('blue' gen. sg.). Orthographic г also represents /x/ in stems легк-/лёгк-/легч- 'easy' and мягк-/мягч- 'soft': легко [lʲɪxˈko] 'easily', легче ['lʲext͡ɕɪ] 'more easily'.

Between any vowel and /i/ (excluding instances across affix boundaries but including unstressed vowels that have merged with /i/), /j/ may be dropped: аист [ˈa.ɪst] ('stork') and делает [ˈdʲɛləɪt] ('does'). (Halle1959 cites заезжать and other instances of intervening prefix and preposition boundaries as exceptions to this tendency.)

Stress in Russian may fall on any syllable and words can contrast based just on stress (e.g. мука [ˈmukə] 'ordeal, pain, anguish' vs. [mʊˈka] 'flour, meal, farina'); stress shifts can even occur within an inflexional paradigm: до́ма [ˈdomə] ('house' gen. sg.) vs дома́ [dɐˈma] ('houses'). The place of the stress in a word is determined by the interplay between the morphemes it contains, as some morphemes have underlying stress, while others do not. However, other than some compound words, such as морозоустойчивый [mɐˌrozəʊˈstojtɕɪvɨj] ('frost-resistant') only one syllable is stressed in a word.. Russian also has an intonation pattern similar to that of English.

Non-open back vowels velarize preceding hard consonants: ты [tˠɨ] ('you' sing.). /o/ and /u/ labialize all consonants: бок [bʷok] ('side'), нёс [nʲʷos] ('(he) carried').

Historical sound changes

See also: History of the Russian language

Russian scribe, 15th century

The modern phonological system of Russian is inherited from Common Slavonic, but underwent considerable innovation in the early historical period, before being largely settled by about 1400.

Like all Slavic languages, Old Russian was a language of open syllables. All syllables ended in vowels, and consonant clusters, in far lesser variety than today, existed only in the syllable onset. However, by the time of the earliest records, Old Russian already showed characteristic divergences from Common Slavonic.

Around the tenth century, Russian may have already had paired coronal fricatives and sonorants so that /s/ /z/ /n/ /l/ /r/ could have contrasted with /sʲ/ /zʲ/ /nʲ/ /lʲ/ /rʲ/, though any possible contrasts were limited to specific environments. Otherwise, palatalized consonants appeared allophonically before front vowels. When the yers were lost, the palatalization initially triggered by high vowels remained, creating minimal pairs like данъ /dan/ ('given') and дань /danʲ/ ('tribute'). At the same time, [ɨ], which was already a part of the vocalic system, was reanalyzed as an allophone of /i/ after hard consonants, prompting leveling that caused vowels to alternate according to the preceding consonant rather than vice versa.

The nasal vowels (spelled in the Cyrillic alphabet with yuses), which had developed from Common Slavic *eN and *oN before a consonant, were replaced with nonnasalized vowels, possibly iotated or with softening of the preceding consonant:

• PIE: *h₁sónti
• Latin: sunt
• Common Slavonic:
• sǫtь
• Old Church Slavonic:

sǫtь

• Russian: суть [sutʲ] ('they are', bookish 3rd person pl form of быть 'to be', cf. Polish są).

Borrowings in the Uralic languages with interpolated /n/ after Common Slavonic nasal vowels have been taken to indicate that the nasal vowels did exist in East Slavic until some time possibly just before the historical period.

Simplification of Common Slavic *dl and *tl to *l:

• Common Slavonic:
• mydlo
• Polish: mydło
• Russian: мыло [ˈmɨ.lə] ('soap').

A tendency for greater maintenance of intermediate ancient [-g-], [-k-], etc. before frontal vowels, than in other Slavic languages, the so-called incomplete second and third palatalizations:

• Ukrainian нозі /nozʲi/
• Russian: ноге [nɐˈɡʲɛ] ('leg' dat.).

Pleophony or "full-voicing" (polnoglasie, 'полногласие' [pəlnɐˈɡlasʲɪɪ]), that is, the addition of vowels on either side of /l/ and /r/ between two consonants. Church Slavonic influence has made it less common in Russian than in modern Ukrainian and Belarusian:

• Old Church Slavonic: vrabii *[ˈvrabii]
• Russian: воробей [vərɐˈbʲej] ('sparrow')

• Ukrainian: Володимир /woloˈdɪmɪr/
• Russian: Владимир [vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr] ('Vladimir') (although the nickname form in Russian is still Володя [vɐˈlodʲə]).

Major phonological processes in the last thousand years have included the absence of the Slavonic open-syllable requirement, achieved in part through the loss of the ultra-short vowels, the so-called fall of the yers, which alternately lengthened and dropped (the yers are given conventional transcription rather than precise IPA symbols in the Old Russian pronunciations):

• Old East Slavic:

объ мьнѣ /o.bŭ mĭˈně/ > R: обо мне [ə.bɐ ˈmnʲe] ('about me')

• OR: сънъ /ˈsŭ.nŭ/ > R: сон [son] ('sleep' nom. sg.), cognate with Lat. somnus;
• OR: съна /sŭˈna/ > R: сна [sna] ('of sleep') (gen. sg.).

The loss of the yers has led to geminated consonants and a much greater variety of consonant clusters, with attendant voicing and/or devoicing in the assimilation:

• OR:

къдѣ /kŭˈdě/ > R: где [ɡdʲɛ] ('where').

Consonant clusters thus created were often simplified:

• здравствуйте [ˈzdra.stvuj.tʲə] ('hello'), not *[ˈzdra.fstvuj.tʲə], although such a pronunciation could be affected in the archaic meaning be healthy
• сердце [ˈsʲɛ.rt͡sə] ('heart'), not *[ˈsʲɛ.rdt͡sə]
• солнце [ˈso.nt͡sə] ('sun'), not *[ˈso.lnt͡sə].

The development of OR

ѣ /ě/ (conventional transcription) into /(j)e/, as seen above. This development has caused by far the greatest of all Russian spelling controversies. The timeline of the development of /ě/ into /e/ or /je/ has also been debated.

Sometime between the twelfth and fourteenth century, the allophone of /i/ before velar consonants changed from [ɨ] to [i] with subsequent palatalization of the velars.

The retroflexing of postalveolars: /ʒ/ became [ʐ] and /ʃ/ become [ʂ]. This is considered a "hardening" since retroflex sounds are difficult to palatalize. At some point, /t͡s/ resisted palatalization, which is why it is also "hard" although phonetically it is no different than before. The sound represented by ⟨щ⟩ was much more commonly pronounced /ɕt͡ɕ/ than it is today. Today's common and standard pronunciation of ⟨щ⟩ is /ɕː/.

The development of stressed /e/ into /o/ when between a (historically) soft consonant and a hard one.

• OR о чемъ /o ˈt͡ʃe.mŭ/ ('about which' loc. sg.) > R о чём [ɐ ˈt͡ɕom].

This has led to a number of alternations:

Word	Gloss	Word	Gloss
весе́лье	merriment	весёлый	merry
вле́чь	to attract	влёк	he attracted
деше́вле	cheaper	дешёвый	cheap
е́ль	fir-tree	ёлка	Christmas tree
жечь	to burn	жёг	he burned
коле́сник	wheel-wright	колёса	wheels
лечь	to lie down	лёг	he lay down
Пе́тя	Pete	Пётр	Peter
поме́лья	brooms	мёл	he swept
сельский	rural	сёла	villages
се́стрин	sister's	сёстры	sisters
смерть	death	мёртвый	dead
шесть	six	сам-шёст	six-fold; with five others

Note that the /e/ that derives from the long obsolete vowel, yat (

ѣ) did not undergo this change except for a short list of words as of about a century ago. Nowadays, the change has been reverted in two of those exceptional words.

• вдёжка 'threading needle, bodkin'
• гнёзда 'nests'
• желёзка 'glandule' (however желе́зка 'piece of iron')
• запечатлён '[he/it is] depicted; [he/it is] imprinted (in the mind)'
• звёзды 'stars'
• зёвывал '[he] used to yawn'
• издёвка 'jibe'
• (ни разу не) надёван '[it is] (never) worn'
• обрёл '[he] found'
• сёдла 'saddles'
• смётка 'apprehension'
• цвёл '[he] flowered, flourished'
• надёвывал '[he] used to put on' (this word has fallen into disuse in the standard language)
• подгнёта 'fuel, chips; instigation; firebrand' (this word has fallen into disuse in the standard language)
• вёшка 'way-mark' (now ве́шка)
• медвёдка 'mole cricket', 'mole rat' (now медве́дка)

Loanwords from Church Slavonic reintroduced /e/ between a (historically) soft consonant and a hard one, creating a few new minimal pairs:

• не́бо 'sky' vs. нёбо 'roof of the mouth'
• паде́ж 'case (grammatical)' vs. падёж 'murrain, epizooty'
• вселе́нная 'universe' vs. вселённая 'settled' (f.)
• соверше́нный 'perfect' vs. совершённый 'completed, committed, performed, achieved'

A number of the phonological features of Russian are attributable to the introduction of loanwords (especially from non-Slavic languages), including:

• Sequences of two vowels within a morpheme. Only a handful of such words, like паук 'spider' and оплеуха 'slap in the face' are native.
  • поэт [pɐˈɛt] 'poet'. From French poète.
  • траур [ˈtraur] 'mourning'. From German Trauer.
• Word-initial /e/, except for the root эт-.
  • эра [ˈɛrə] 'era'. From German Ära
• Word-initial /a/.
  • авеню [ɐvʲɪˈnʲu] 'avenue. From French avenue.
  • афера [ɐˈfʲɛrə] 'swindle'. From French affaire.
  • агнец 'lamb'. From Church Slavonic
• The phoneme /f/ (see Ef (Cyrillic) for more information).
  • фонема [fɐˈnɛmə] 'phoneme'. From Greek φώνημα.
  • эфир [ɛˈfʲir] 'ether'. From Greek αἰθήρ.
  • фиаско [fʲɪˈaskə] 'fiasco. From Italian fiasco.
• The occurrence of non-palatalized consonants before /e/ within roots. (The initial /e/ of a suffix or flexion invariably triggers palatalization of an immediately preceding consonant, as in брат / братец / о брате.)
• The sequence /dʐ/ within a morpheme.
  • джин [dʐɨn] 'gin' from English.
  • джаз [dʐas] 'jazz' from English.

Many double consonants have become degeminated, though they are still written with two letters in the orthography. (In a 1968 study, long [tː] remains long in only half of the words that it appears written in, while long [fː] only a sixth of the time. The study, however, did not distinguish spelling from actual historical pronunciation, since it included loanwords in which consonants were written doubled but never pronounced long in Russian.)

See also

• Wikipedia:IPA for Russian
• Russian alphabet
• Russian orthography
  • Reforms of Russian orthography
• List of Russian language topics
• List of phonetics topics

Bibliography

• Агеенко Ф. Л., Зарва М. В. [Ageenko, F. L.; Zarva, M. B.]. 1993. Словарь ударений русского языка. Мoscow: Russkij Yazyk. ISBN 5-200-01127-2.

• Bickel, Balthasar; Nichols, Johanna (2007), "Inflectional morphology", in Shopen, Timothy (ed.), Language Typology and Syntactic Description. Vol. III: Grammatical categories and the lexicon. (2nd ed.), London: Routledge, pp. Chapter 3 {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |chapterurl= (help)
• Bidwell, Charles (1962), "An Alternate Phonemic Analysis of Russian", The Slavic and East European Journal, 6 (2), American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages: 125–129, doi:10.2307/3086096, JSTOR 3086096
• Crosswhite, Katherine Margaret (2000), "Vowel Reduction in Russian: A Unified Accountof Standard, Dialectal, and 'Dissimilative' Patterns" (PDF), University of Rochester Working Papers in the Language Sciences, 1 (1): 107–172
• Cubberley, Paul (2002), Russian: A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge University Press
• Davidson, Lisa; Roon, Kevin (2008), "Durational correlates for differentiating consonant sequences in Russian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 38 (2): 137–165, doi:10.1017/S0025100308003447
• Dobrodomov, I. G. 2002. Беззаконная фонема /ʔ/ в русском языке. In Проблемы фонетики IV. 36−52.
• Dobrodomov, I. G., Izmest'eva I. A. 2009. Роль гортанного смычного согласного в изменении конца слова после падения редуцированных гласных ["Guttural obstruent role in the word end alternation after reduced vowels fall"]. Известия Самарского научного центра Российской академии наук [Izvestija Samarskogo Nauchnogo Tsentra Rossijskoj Akademii Nauk], volume 11, 4(4): 1001-1005.
• Folejewski, Z (1962), "[An Alternate Phonemic Analysis of Russian]: Editorial comment", The Slavic and East European Journal, 6 (2): 129–130
• Jones, Daniel; Dennis, Ward (1969), The Phonetics of Russian, Cambridge University Press
• Halle, Morris (1959), Sound Pattern of Russian, MIT Press
• Hamann, Silke (2004), "Retroflex fricatives in Slavic languages", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (1): 53–67, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001604
• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996), The Sounds of the World's Languages, Blackwell Publishing, ISBN 0-631-19815-6
• Lightner, Theodore M. (1972), Problems in the Theory of Phonology, I: Russian phonology and Turkish phonology, Edmonton: Linguistic Research, inc
• Ostapenko, Olesya (2005), "The Optimal L2 Russian Syllable Onset", LSO Working Papers in Linguistics, 5: Proceedings of WIGL 2005: 140–151
• Padgett, Jaye (2001), "Contrast Dispersion and Russian Palatalization", in Hume, Elizabeth; Johnson, Keith (eds.), The role of speech perception in phonology, Academic Press, pp. 187–218
• Padgett, Jaye (2003a), "Contrast and Post-Velar Fronting in Russian", Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 21 (1): 39–87, doi:10.1023/A:1021879906505
• Padgett, Jaye (2003b), "The Emergence of Contrastive Palatalization in Russian", in Holt, D. Eric (ed.), Optimality Theory and Language Change
• Padgett, Jaye; Tabain, Marija (2005), "Adaptive Dispersion Theory and Phonological Vowel Reduction in Russian" (PDF), Phonetica, 62 (1): 14–54, doi:10.1159/000087223, PMID 16116302
• Rubach, Jerzy (2000), "Backness switch in Russian", Phonology, 17 (1): 39–64
• Schenker, Alexander M. (2002), "Proto-Slavonic", in Comrie, Bernard; Corbett, Greville. G. (eds.), The Slavonic Languages, London: Routledge, pp. 60–124, ISBN 0-415-28078-8 {{citation}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• Shapiro, Michael (1993), "Russian Non-Distinctive Voicing: A Stocktaking", Russian Linguistics, 17 (1): 1–14
• Shcherba, Lev V., ed. (1950). Грамматика русского языка. Часть I. Фонетика и морфология. Учебник для 5-го и 6-го классов семилетней и средней школы (in Russian) (11 ed.). Moscow. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |trans_chapter= and |chapterurl= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Stankiewicz, E. (1962), "[An Alternate Phonemic Analysis of Russian]: Editorial comment", The Slavic and East European Journal, 6 (2), American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages: 131–132, doi:10.2307/3086098, JSTOR 3086098
• Vinogradov, V. V. Origin and the meaning of the word "суть" (Russian). Istorija slov. Okolo 1500 slov i vyraženij i bolee 5000 slov, s nimi svjazannyh.
• Zsiga, Elizabeth (2003), "Articulatory Timing in a Second Language: Evidence from Russian and English", Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 25: 399–432

Further reading

• Hamilton, William S. (1980), Introduction to Russian Phonology and Word Structure, Slavica Publishers
• Hamann, Silke (2002), "Postalveolar Fricatives in Slavic Languages as Retroflexes" (PDF), in Baauw, S.; Huiskes, M.; Schoorlemmer, M. (eds.), OTS Yearbook 2002, Utrecht: Utrecht Institute of Linguistics, pp. 105–127, retrieved 2008-02-07
• Press, Ian (1986), Aspects of the phonology of the Slavonic languages: the vowel y and the Consonantal Correlation of Palatalization, Rodopi, ISBN 90-6203-848-4
• Rubach, Jerzy (2000), "Backness Switch in Russian", Phonology, 17: 39–64, doi:10.1017/S0952675700003821
• Shcherba, Lev Vladimirovich (1912), Russkie glasnye v kachestvennom i kolichestvennom otnoshennii, St. Petersburg: Tipografiia IU.
• Sussex, Roland (1992), "Russian", in Bright, W (ed.), International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (1st ed.), New York: Oxford University Press