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Sounds and Pronunciation of the Russian Language

• Russian has 5 to 6 vowel phonemes, with some dispute over whether /ɨ/ is separate from /i/.

• Russian has 34 consonants, which can be divided into two types: hard and soft.

• Russian distinguishes hard consonants from soft consonants and from iotated consonants, making 4 sets in total.

• Russian has vowel reduction in unstressed syllables, with only 3 phonemes distinguished after hard consonants and only 2 after soft consonants.

• /i/ is retracted to [ɨ] when a preceding consonant is hard.

• /e/ only follows unpaired and soft consonants, and /a/ becomes [æ] between soft consonants.

• /o/ is a mid vowel [o̞], but it can be a more open [ɔ] for some speakers.

• /u/ is centralized to [ʉ] between soft consonants.

• Unstressed vowels are typically shorter than stressed vowels and tend to undergo mergers for most dialects.

• Unstressed /o ~ a/ can have a less-reduced allophone [ʌ] alongside a more-reduced allophone [ə].

• There are some exceptions to vowel-reduction rules, such as the pronunciation of unstressed /u/.

• There is some dispute over the phonemicity of certain vowels in Russian, as well as the classification of /j/ as a consonant or semivowel.

• Russian has 34 consonants, with some disputed phonemes.Phonology of Russian

• Russian has a soft-hard distinction for velar consonants, which is allophonic, meaning that they become soft before front vowels unless there is a word boundary, in which case they are hard.

• Soft consonants are separate phonemes in their own right and are closer to the underlying structure of Russian.

• Voiced consonants are devoiced word-finally unless the next word begins with a voiced obstruent.

• Voicing assimilation applies across word-boundaries when there is no pause between words, and voicing or devoicing is determined by that of the final obstruent in the sequence.

• Paired consonants are normally soft before /j/ (paired consonants come in a hard-soft pair).

• Before hard dental consonants, /r/, labial and dental consonants are hard.

• Softening is stronger inside the word root and between root and suffix; it is weaker between prefix and root and weak or absent between a preposition and the word following.

• In addition to this, dental fricatives conform to the place of articulation (not just the palatalization) of following postalveolars.

• Paired consonants preceding another consonant often inherit softness from it.

• Russian has fewer phonotactic restrictions on consonants than many other languages, allowing for clusters that would be difficult for English speakers.

• Consonant cluster simplification in Russian includes degemination, syncope, dissimilation, and weak vowel insertion.

• The simplifications of consonant clusters are done selectively.Pronunciation and spelling in Russian

• Russian pronunciation is based on the Cyrillic alphabet.

• The Russian alphabet has 33 letters, with 10 vowels, 21 consonants, and 2 letters that do not designate any sounds.

• Russian consonants can be hard or soft, which affects the pronunciation of vowels that follow them.

• Russian vowels can be stressed or unstressed, with stressed syllables being pronounced with a longer duration and more intense pronunciation.

• Consonant clusters in Russian are often simplified through syncope, or the dropping of a vowel between two consonants.

• Another method of dealing with consonant clusters is inserting an epenthetic vowel, which is pronounced and spelled as ⟨о⟩ after most prepositions and prefixes that normally end in a hard consonant.

• Stress in Russian is phonemic and unpredictable, with stress being determined by the interplay between the morphemes in a word.

• Generally, only one syllable in a word is stressed, but compound words can have multiple stresses, with the last one being primary.

• There are numerous ways in which Russian spelling does not match pronunciation, with some consonants still being spelled even though they are no longer pronounced.

• Vowels in Russian can velarize or labialize consonants that precede them.

• A weak palatal offglide may occur between certain soft consonants and back vowels.

• Pitch accent has only a minimal role in indicating stress in Russian.