Belarusian phonology

Template:Self reference Template:IPA notice 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 no absolute agreement on the number of phonemes; rarer or contextually variant sounds are included by some scholars.

Many consonants may form pairs that differ only in palatalization (called hard and soft consonants, the latter being represented in the IPA with the symbol Template:Angbr IPA). In some of such pairs, the place of articulation is additionally changed (see distinctive features below). Some consonants do not have palatalized counterparts.

Distinctive features

As an East Slavic language, Belarusian phonology is very similar to both Russian and Ukrainian phonology. The primary differences are:

• Akannye (Template:Langx) – the merger of unstressed into . The pronunciation of the merged vowel is a clear open front unrounded vowel , including after soft consonants and . In standard Russian akanye, the merger happens only after hard consonants; after soft consonants, merges with instead. Ukrainian does not have this merger at all. In Belarusian, unlike Russian, this change is reflected in spelling: compare Template:Wikt-lang "head", pronounced Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler, with Russian Template:Wikt-lang Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler and Ukrainian Template:Wikt-lang Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler.
• Lack of ikanye (the Russian sound change in which unstressed has merged with , and unstressed and with after soft consonants). Instead, unstressed merges with (yakannye). Compare Belarusian Template:Wikt-lang Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler with Russian Template:Wikt-lang Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler and Ukrainian Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler.
  Not all instances of are subject to yakannye in literary Belarusian, for example Template:Wikt-lang Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler instead of па́ляц , which occurs only dialectally. In standard Belarusian, yakannye after palatalized consonants occurs in the syllable immediately preceding the tonic syllable: Template:Wikt-lang "song" — Template:Wikt-lang "singer" — Template:Wikt-lang "singers". Exceptions are allowed in loanwords: Template:Wikt-lang "medal".
• Tsyekannye (Template:Langx) and dzyekannye (Template:Langx) – the pronunciation of underlying as soft affricates . This occurs, for instances, in:
  • Belarusian Template:Wikt-lang "woodpecker" ; compare Russian Template:Wikt-lang Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler and Ukrainian Template:Wikt-lang Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler.
  • Belarusian Template:Wikt-lang "hard" , compare Russian Template:Wikt-lang Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler; or Belarusian Template:Wikt-lang , compare Ukrainian Template:Wikt-lang Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler
  • Many Russian speakers similarly affricate phonemic , but this is not universal and not written.
• Relatively stronger palatalization of and .
• Postalveolar consonants (/ʐ, ʂ, tʂ, dʐ/) are all hard (laminal retroflex), whereas Russian has both hard and soft postalveolars (/ʐ, ʂ, tɕ, ɕː/ and for some speakers /ʑː/).
• The phoneme has hardened and merged with ; compare:
  • Belarusian "radish" and Russian Template:Wikt-lang ,
  • Belarusian Template:Wikt-lang "row, line" and Russian Template:Wikt-lang ,
  • Belarusian "tip" and Russian Template:Wikt-lang , etc.
• Unlike in standard Russian, historical before consonants has merged with and is pronounced . This is reflected in the spelling, which uses a special symbol known as "non-syllabic u" (Template:Langx), written as an Template:Angbr with a breve diacritic on top of it: Template:Angbr,^? Template:Angbr.^? For example: Belarusian — Russian волк . The merger did not occur before suffixes (before historical ⟨ъ⟩ in the word middle): Russian and Template:Langx "stick".
• Lenition of to similarly to Ukrainian, Czech, or Slovak, and unlike Russian and Polish.
• Proto-Slavic shifted to Belarusian and Russian after a soft consonant but not before one (i.e. at word-final position or before a hard consonant); compare:
  • the Belarusian word for "green", Template:Wikt-lang , and the Russian word, Template:Wikt-lang , with Ukrainian Template:Wikt-lang .
  • the Belarusian word for "tip", , and the Russian word, Template:Wikt-lang .

Unlike in Russian but like in Ukrainian, Belarusian spelling closely represents surface phonology rather than the underlying morphophonology. For example, akannye, tsyekannye, dzyekannye and the allophone of and Template:Examples needed are all written. The representation of akannye in particular introduces striking differences between Russian and Belarusian orthography.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Mid	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
Open		Template:IPA link

Belarusian Cyrillic script	Belarusian Latin script	IPA	Description	Belarusian example
i	i	Template:IPAslink	close front unrounded	('leaf')
э	e	Template:IPAslink	mid-central (unstressed), open-mid front unrounded (stressed)	('this one')
е	ie, je	Template:IPAblink	Palatalises preceding consonant followed by mid front unrounded vowel	('white')
ы	y	Template:IPAblink	close central unrounded	('mouse')
a, я	a	Template:IPAslink	open central unrounded	('executioner')
у, ю	u	Template:IPAslink	close back rounded	('noise')
о, ё	o	Template:IPAslink Template:IPAblink	open-mid back rounded	('cat')

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

Consonants

The consonants of Belarusian are as follows:

		Labial		Alveolar/Dental		Retroflex	Dorsal
		plain	pal.	plain	pal.		plain	pal.
Nasal		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPA link
Stop	voiceless	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPAlink			Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
	voiced	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPAlink			(Template:IPA link)	(Template:IPA link)
Affricate	voiceless			Template:IPAlink	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
	voiced			Template:IPAlink	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Fricative	voiceless	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
	voiced	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Approximant		(Template:IPAlink)		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
Trill				Template:IPAlink

The rare phonemes and are present only in several borrowed words: , . Other borrowed words have the fricative pronunciation: ('geography'). In addition, and are allophones of and respectively, when voiced by regressive assimilation, as in 'train station'.

In the syllable coda, is pronounced or , forming diphthongs, and is spelled Template:Angbr. sometimes derives etymologically from , as with ('wolf'), which comes from Proto-Slavic . Similar to Ukrainian, there are also alternations between and in the past tense of verbs: for example, "(he) thought" versus "(she) thought". This evolved historically from a form with (as in Russian: ) which vocalized like the in Polish (cognate , "he mused").

The geminated variations are transcribed as follows:

• .