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The sequence [ɐ ɐ] across word boundaries

Can it occur in that context? Russian phonology#Vowel mergers is a bit vague. Does the closeness of the word-final [ə] assimilate to the openness of the word-initial [ɐ]? In other words, is LoveVanPersie right or is my transcription correct? Thanks in advance. Mr KEBAB (talk) 22:26, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, it looks like LVP was right after all. Jones & Ward say that [ɐ] occurs in phrases such as [pɐ ɐdnɐˈmu] and [nɐ ɐstrɐˈvax]. But are those the same grammatical contexts as human names? I'm not so sure about that. Mr KEBAB (talk) 22:41, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Your fix seems to be proven by stand-alone (or phrase-final) pronounce [mɐˈrʲinə], as in other words with unstressed {-на} = [-nə]. However, hiatus can occur across words, so — yes, there can be [ɐ·ɐ], like «А Анто́н до́ма?». Because openness-closeness depend on the speed and (especially) loudness of the speech, word-final [ə] may be assimilated to the openness of the word-initial [ɐ], but that can't be the rule. Tacit Murky (talk) 13:15, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: Thanks. So, are you saying that my transcription is better/more universal or that both are equally correct? Mr KEBAB (talk) 15:05, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

I would transcribe it like LVP, but that's based off of Jones & Ward. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 19:46, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Well, I can't decide for you, but if we can postulate (in the Phonetics article), that not only «hiatus can occur across words», but that rule has a priority over «word-final [ə]», then [ɐ·ɐ] sequence is correct. But you'd be the one to be asking for sources for that, too, right? ;) Tacit Murky (talk) 15:01, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, Sourcing would not only help us adjudicate this, but also help us improve the Russian phonology article. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:38, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

My two kopecks: there is no middle dot in the IPA. The syllabification is shown with simple period.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 23:26, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

It's about word-breaks. Middle dot is a good separator, otherwise it should be NBSP, not just a space. Tacit Murky (talk) 17:01, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Could you enlighten me then what the IPA recommends for such situations? I could not find any, except for undertie. So the proper way must be [ɐ‿ɐ] ("absence of a brake", as they say). Surely not middle dot.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 21:21, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

@Любослов Езыкин: I'm not Tacit, but it is the undertie. The middle dot is perhaps used to distinguish stop-fricative sequences from affricates (when the transcriber doesn't use tie-bars), but I'm not sure if it's an official part of the IPA. It probably isn't. Mr KEBAB (talk) 21:31, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

As I see it, there is no way to differ mid-word and cross-word underties. It's good to have something to denote absence of a sound-brake, but presence of a word-brake. Tacit Murky (talk) 00:56, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: Underties aren't used in a mid-word position. Mr KEBAB (talk) 01:33, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

All right, I'm out of arguments, but I still prefer the mid-dot, because it so easy to type it on my keyboard, and it's used in math :) Interpunct article says: «Various dictionaries use the interpunct (in this context, sometimes called hyphenation point) to indicate syllabification within a word with multiple syllables. There is also a separate Unicode character, U+2027 ‧ hyphenation point.» Tacit Murky (talk) 02:12, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: They do, but in orthographic forms. I've never seen it used in IPA, at least in that context. With that being said, I understood what you meant so there's no problem. Mr KEBAB (talk) 05:19, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Russian vowel chart by Jones & Trofimov (1923:55).

I would honestly just do away with ⟨ɐ⟩ and write ⟨a⟩ instead. The difference between near-open and open central unrounded vowels is very likely to be inaudible to native speakers of Russian, much like the difference between near-close and close variants of the close central vowels (rounded and unrounded alike). What do you say? Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 14:58, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't do away with ⟨ɐ⟩. It strikes me as unnecessarily oversimplistic for no point other than that the cardinal vowels (which differ from the Russian realizations) are adjacent to each other in the vowel trapezium. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:18, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1: The values on the chart you've added aren't necessarily representative of contemporary standard speech. Yanushevskaya & Bunčić (2015) say that what we transcribe with ⟨ɐ⟩ is [ɐ] in Moscow and [ʌ] in Saint Petersburg, and the stressed allophone of /a/ is central or advanced back. They also analyze all instances of what we transcribe with ⟨ɐ⟩ and ⟨a⟩ (and ⟨ə⟩ too) as /a/. You realize that the difference between open and near-open central unrounded vowels is barely audible, no? Just like the difference between close and near-close varieties of [ɨ] and [ʉ]. It's also not phonemic in any of those cases. The difference between [i] and [ɪ] as well as [a] (including [ɐ]) and [ə] is audible, though. IMO as long as you get the height of [ə] right you can use the open [a] for the unstressed open allophone without any problems. See the comment section here. This book that I used to own uses ⟨a⟩ for what we write ⟨ɐ⟩ (unfortunately, it probably also uses it for what we write ⟨ə⟩).

When we write [a] we actually always mean [ä]. What's the problem with writing [a] in unstressed positions when we actually mean [ä̝] = [ɐ]? Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 15:54, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

That's the chart we use in the article. If it's not accurate, we should probably remove it.

I don't think the phonemic analysis matters for a phonetic transcription. Again, this idea is oversimplistic for no good reason. We've already got loads of transcriptions that mark a distinction between stressed and pre-tonic, it's something backed up by sources, and in some dialects it's more pronounced than it is in Moscow. What problem are we trying to solve here? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:14, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1: You can check the JIPA article and judge that yourself.

I can let this go, but only on the basis of the Saint Petersburg pronunciation being sufficiently different from the main open central allophone to warrant a separate symbol for it. In the case of the Moscow standard, there's little reason to use it. We already use stress marks and ignore the difference between the unstressed variants of [ɨ] and [ʉ] (there's already a discrepancy in the way we transcribe /u/ - we mark the unstressed allophone when it's back but not when it's central). Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 17:16, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I can't resist a JIPA article. I'll check it out.

I can't remember if we used to transcribe the unstressed variants of [ɨ] and [ʉ], but the main reason we don't is that it would require diacritics and we try to avoid that when we can. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:33, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1: Wouldn't you say that ⟨ʌ⟩ is a better symbol for it? After all, we mostly use a different symbol because of the Saint Petersburg pronunciation. The JIPA article uses ⟨ʌ⟩ and so do Jones & Ward (1969). I think that Марина Андреевна Аганина is better transcribed [mʌˈrʲinʌ ʌnˈdrʲeɪvnʌ ʌˈɡanʲɪnə], rather than the current [mɐˈrʲinɐ ɐnˈdrʲeɪvnɐ ɐˈɡanʲɪnə], not least because Standard Russian [ʌ] seems to have pretty much the same phonetic range as English /ʌ/ in many dialects. What is the predominant symbol in the literature? Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 00:57, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

I couldn't be certain what is typical, but I'm under the impression that ⟨ʌ⟩ is typical enough that no one would be confused. It might even be helpful to English-speakers who are used to that symbol for English strut. So I wouldn't have a problem with switching to ⟨ʌ⟩. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 02:28, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1: If nobody objects to this in the following weeks, I'll try to find someone to replace ⟨ɐ⟩ with ⟨ʌ⟩ (and ⟨l⟩ with ⟨ɫ⟩) on WP. Doing this manually would be insane, see e.g. [1]. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 09:53, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Recent Moscow „posh/youth“ speech of 1990-s and 2000-s used prolonged, more opened and less rounded pretonic vowels, up to the point of stress shifting (like «Москва́» = [mʌː'skva]~['maː·skvɐ]), but not in official or TV speech. SPb dialect never did that. However, for some speakers pretonic vowels behave similarly, but with no prolongation, so [mʌˈrʲinə ʌnˈdrʲeɪvnə ʌˈɡanʲɪnə] is better than [mɐˈrʲinɐ ɐnˈdrʲeɪvnɐ ɐˈɡanʲɪnə]. But [ʌ] is „too back“ to pair [ä], so [ɜ] may be better. So: before stress = (more) open, after stress = (more) mid; and all of them are more or less central. Tacit Murky (talk) 22:07, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: You mean [mʌˈrʲinʌ ʌnˈdrʲeɪvnʌ ʌˈɡanʲɪnə]? [ə ʌ] coalesces to [ʌ ʌ].

I've already explained why I prefer ⟨ʌ⟩ for it (so it's not "too back" because it's [ʌ] in Saint Petersburg where the phonetic contrast between [a] and [ʌ] is more pronounced than in Moscow). ⟨ɜ⟩ is the worst choice out of three and it doesn't necessarily signify a vowel that's specifically open-mid (it was only two decades ago when it was defined as such; before that, it was just a "variety of [ə]" which was defined for neither height nor roundedness, like ⟨ə⟩). Plus, as far as I can see, most sources write this vowel with ⟨ʌ⟩. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 03:53, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

What do you mean [ə ʌ] «coalesces» to [ʌ ʌ]? These are different phones, and (according to Moscow school) pre- and post-tonic vowels (at least /o/) are different. SPb school treat them as same (as [ʌ ʌ] denotes), for which I for one can not agree with. Tacit Murky (talk) 22:01, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: Well, what is this thread about (or what was it about originally?) That's what I mean. And no, I don't think that the SPb school treats the second vowel in "облако" and the first vowel in "какой" the same. In SPb the main distinction between them is backness; the first vowel in "какой" is only slightly more open than the true schwa in the second syllable of "облако". The final syllable of "облако" is different - it's normally mid in both standards, but (at least according to Jones & Ward 1969) it assimilates to the openness/backness/whatever (depending on the standard) of the word-initial [ʌ] (or however you want to transcribe it). Hence [mʌˈrʲinʌ ʌnˈdrʲeɪvnʌ ʌˈɡanʲɪnə]. Controlling the openness of word-final schwas is hard for native speakers of English, I'd say that it's even harder than suppressing aspiration. Are you aware of newer sources that contradict Jones and Ward? Remember that [mʌˈrʲinʌ ʌnˈdrʲeɪvnʌ ʌˈɡanʲɪnə] is a pronunciation that is specifically without pauses and without glottal stops. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 00:05, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Then why not [ʌˈɡanʲɪnʌ]? Does J&W instate clause-final unstressed vowels? Tacit Murky (talk) 04:58, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: Why are you asking a question that I've already answered in the very message you're replying to? To quote myself, The final syllable of "облако" is different - it's normally mid in both standards, but (at least according to Jones & Ward 1969) it assimilates to the openness/backness/whatever (depending on the standard) of the word-initial [ʌ] (or however you want to transcribe it). Hence [mʌˈrʲinʌ ʌnˈdrʲeɪvnʌ ʌˈɡanʲɪnə]. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 08:06, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I see now; you are making an example of this case of a phrase transcription. Generally, we are analyzing separate words, except for assimilation effects. Tacit Murky (talk) 22:50, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: And should we do that with names? Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 08:06, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Slavic and old („russified“) Greek/Latin names are no different than common Slavic nouns. Loans can be treated differently: «Theresa» — «Тереза» [tɛˈrɛzə] vs «дереза» [dʲɪrʲɪˈza] (type of wolfberry). Tacit Murky (talk) 21:20, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Nobody cares about degree of “openness” in the context of an unstressed /a/. Everything varying in height from [ä] up to [ə] can represent /a/, and variability in pronunciation is wider than minute gradations represented with IPA. This IPA approach for Russian is IMHO not very good at all – for some things precision is excessive, whereas for other phonemes necessary symbols are missing or inconvenient (for example, we know that this [l] representing ⟨л(ъ)⟩ is not really [l] as pronounced in Spanish or Italian, let alone German, French, and Arabic). [ɐ] for the thing which may sound as [ɜ], [ʌ], or something alike is not a problem at all. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 11:17, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

@Incnis Mrsi: I'd support transcribing the unstressed close central vowels with ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ for the sake of consistency, if not here then at least in Russian phonology. But I don't know about other editors. If we're basing so much on Jones & Ward then I don't know why ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ should be excluded from our transcriptions, especially given the fact that we're transcribing the English postalveolar approximant with ⟨r⟩. If we can use a sign that's so far removed from the phonetic reality of English /r/ then I'm not sure why we should avoid using ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩. They're not really non-IPA but unofficial extensions to IPA that are used in the literature.

To me, [dᵻˈʂatʲ, ʐᵻˈna, ˈvodᵻ, ᵻˈtap, k ᵻˈvanʊ, tɕᵿˈdʲɛsnᵻj, lʲᵿˈbʲitʲ] look a bit better than [dɨˈʂatʲ, ʐɨˈna, ˈvodɨ, ɨˈtap, k ɨˈvanʊ, tɕʉˈdʲɛsnɨj, lʲʉˈbʲitʲ]. The use of ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ in addition to marking stress with the primary stress mark makes the distinction between stressed and unstressed syllables even more obvious.

One more thing: we're going to deprecate the plain ⟨l⟩ in Russian transcriptions. We're going to use ⟨ɫ⟩ and (in the case of the soft variant) ⟨lʲ⟩ instead. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 11:50, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm fine with ⟨ᵻ⟩ ⟨ᵿ⟩ and ⟨ɫ⟩. The former two will be a bit time consuming to convert, I think.— Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:44, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1: Only the unrounded variant will be (somewhat) time consuming to convert. Believe it or not, but ⟨ʉ⟩ is a rare symbol in our transcriptions of Russian. See [2], [3], [4] and [5]. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 16:59, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

use of ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ in addition to marking stress … makes the distinction between stressed and unstressed syllables — but we are using [ɨ̞], [ʉ̞] and [ʊ] now (at least they are in the allophones table); what's wrong with them (apart from being rare)? ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ are newer to Unicode and may not be shown correctly everywhere. (And you probably meant [lʲʉˈbʲitʲ].) Tacit Murky (talk) 23:00, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: Only [ʉ] (including [ʉ̞]) is rare (how is that a problem?) and I've never mentioned [ʊ] in this context (I don't want to transcribe it differently). We're not using ⟨ɨ̞⟩ and ⟨ʉ̞⟩ now. We're just using them in those places where narrow transcription is called for. If we used ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ we could use them everywhere (including this guide) like ⟨ɪ⟩ and ⟨ʊ⟩ because they don't require diacritics like ⟨ɨ̞⟩ and ⟨ʉ̞⟩. Could you perhaps read a bit more carefully next time?

My impression is that ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ are just as likely to be displayed correctly as ⟨ɨ̞⟩ and ⟨ʉ̞⟩ as well as ⟨ɪ̈⟩ and ⟨ʊ̈⟩. Is that a wrong impression?

I did mean [lʲʉˈbʲitʲ]. Thanks for the correction. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 07:55, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

I've just introduced ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ to Russian phonology. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 10:07, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

If you can tolerate this anecdotal report, for some reason ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ are not showing on my desktop Firefox under Windows. I had to use pictographs from Unicode charts to get what they look like. No wonder: these are from «extIPA» subset.

Sorry, I thought you only going to change Russian language articles, where people are used to see IPA symbols in general. Less diacritics is good, only if we can see symbols themselves. Tacit Murky (talk) 21:38, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Regardless of whether readers have the right font, I just don't think it's a good idea to use any non-IPA symbol in general unless you're taking about a sound the IPA just does not provide a means to represent. So no, count me against. Nardog (talk) 23:17, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky and Nardog: ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ are not showing on my desktop Firefox under Windows. I had to use pictographs from Unicode charts to get what they look like. That's a problem.

What do you two (and others) think about using ⟨ɪ̈⟩ and ⟨ʊ̈⟩ instead? I consider them to be the second best notation if we want to differentiate between stressed and unstressed variants of the close central vowels. This isn't as much about vowel quality as it is about consistency; all other vowels have separate symbols for stressed and unstressed allophones. The close central vowels are the only one that have the same symbols in both series, and stressed /ɨ/ has a very different allophone (which isn't used categorically, but it's common) that sounds almost like broad cockney realization of /iː/. Plus, all vowels in the soft series are transcribed differently than those in the hard series (except, again, for [ʉ] which corresponds to two hard vowels). To me this issue is similar to that with Malayalam and the issue of dental vs. alveolar consonants. I think that there's a compelling reason to use ⟨ɪ̈⟩ and ⟨ʊ̈⟩ here, also for the reason English NURSE is normally transcribed with ⟨ɜː⟩ to make it maximally distinct from /ə/ (which isn't necessarily its short counterpart) - see "5. Vowels: quantitative and qualitative" in [6].

Compare:

1. [dɨˈʂatʲ, ʐɨˈna, ˈvodɨ, ɨˈtap, k ɨˈvanʊ, tɕʉˈdʲɛsnɨj, lʲʉˈbʲitʲ]

2. [dᵻˈʂatʲ, ʐᵻˈna, ˈvodᵻ, ᵻˈtap, k ᵻˈvanʊ, tɕᵿˈdʲɛsnᵻj, lʲᵿˈbʲitʲ]

3. [dɪ̈ˈʂatʲ, ʐɪ̈ˈna, ˈvodɪ̈, ɪ̈ˈtap, k ɪ̈ˈvanʊ, tɕʊ̈ˈdʲɛsnɪ̈j, lʲʊ̈ˈbʲitʲ]

4. [dɨ̞ˈʂatʲ, ʐɨ̞ˈna, ˈvodɨ̞, ɨ̞ˈtap, k ɨ̞ˈvanʊ, tɕʉ̞ˈdʲɛsnɨ̞j, lʲʉ̞ˈbʲitʲ]

How are the diacritics displayed in the latter two cases? Here's how it looks on my laptop: [7]. This proves that ⟨ɨ̞⟩ and ⟨ʉ̞⟩ are the worst choice (see how they can look next to the retroflexes and [j], it's awful), unless you customize your common.css like I did and you're logged in. And even then they're a suboptimal solution. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 05:51, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Using ⟨ɪ̈⟩ or ⟨ᵻ⟩ would imply a relation to [ɪ], while ⟨ɨ̞⟩ implies a relation to [ɨ] as it should. As much as the five-phoneme analysis may be theoretically preferable, when the distinction is reflected in orthography (and I assume speakers consider [ɨ] more or less a distinct vowel), I just don't see a point in disrupting that relation. Symbols and diacritics interfering in phonetic transcription is a problem all too common and not unique to Russian, and should be reckoned with only when deciding the presentation, not the choice, of symbols. Nardog (talk) 11:40, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Yep, [ɪ̈] and [ʊ̈] are better. However, talking about consistency, diaeresis must mean the same thing. While we don't have [ё] as an IPA symbol, there is [ä], and in Russian it is stressed. Stressed /ɨ/ does sounds different than its Wiki audio-file (which is too centralized), so [ɪ̈] is actually the right thing for that filed sound, but it's not used in Russian. And BTW: I see Firefox uses wider symbols, when ʲ precedes: ʊ̈ʲʊ̈ ʉʲʉ ʉ̞ʲʉ̞. [8] That's monospace, but in proportional fonts they are wider and/or higher. Tacit Murky (talk) 01:08, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't like ⟨ɪ̈⟩ and ⟨ʊ̈⟩ as solutions. They introduce diacritics, which we're trying to avoid. I'm fine with being inconsistent in how we treat unstressed high vowels, which seems to be the main reason we're trying to represent these unstressed allophones differently than we do now. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 01:53, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

We're just talking about what to do at Russian phonology, aren't we? Nardog (talk) 06:18, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

No, Kbb2 said: If we used ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ we could use them everywhere (including this guide) like ⟨ɪ⟩ and ⟨ʊ⟩… Tacit Murky (talk) 21:03, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Oh, I see, thanks. In that case, I concur with Aeusoes1. I also endorse this edit by Kbb2. Nardog (talk) 07:30, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

btw in the initial case it might be good to add a note that in isolation Marina is pronounced with an ə at the end (same way like we do for Spanish names with b/β) LICA98 (talk) 13:55, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

"TS" and "TSH"

Link of "ts" should be voiceless alveolar affricate.

Also there is no mention about sound of voiceless retroflex affricate (tʂ) like in words "лучше" & "Ницше". --Smthngnw (talk) 14:37, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

That redirect voiceless dental affricate seems to have been changed last year while ignoring all the incoming links that already used the opposite meaning. I'm turning it into a disambiguation page. --Ørjan (talk) 02:15, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

I think it should look like this (without refs)

Consonants
Hard			Soft
IPA	Examples	English approximation	IPA	Examples	English approximation
ts	;	cats	tsʲ	Цю́рих	cat's young
tʂ		it shrieks	tɕ	;	chip

Smthngnw (talk) 16:40, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

From what I gather, Russian distinguishes between affricates and stop+fricative clusters. [tʂ] belongs to the latter category.

By the way, the audio file for the example word, лу́чше, doesn't feature retroflexion to my ears. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 02:34, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

In Russian there are "able to be palatalized" and "constant in being palatalized or not" consonants. Almost all of consonants are first ones but second ones are only hard (Ж - [ʐ], Ц - [t͡s], Ш - [ʂ]) and only soft (Й - [j], Ч - [t͡ɕ], Щ - [ɕ]).

Hard letters like ш cancel palatalization on next vowel and even on next soft sign (ь). Ч merges with ш which makes ч harder, loosing its traditional palatalization - [t͡ʂ]. Otherwise чш sounded like complex [t͡ɕʂ].

Also there is similar example of мужчи́на but there [t] is dropped out. Smthngnw (talk) 13:26, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Proposed changes to canonical O and E

Regarding the Russian Alphabet page listing pronunciations of o and e, I propose these changes:

1. While [e] is an allophone of "Е/е" that occurs in certain contexts, canonically - that is, when reciting the alphabet - nobody would ever pronounce the names of the letters "Е/е" and "Э/э" as [je] and [e], as the chart suggests. The correct pronunciations are [jɛ] and [ɛ] respectively. Furthermore, as far as I'm aware (I'm a native speaker from Moscow, with family from Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Ukraine, and Orenburg) Э/э is never [e] in any context.

2. While the actual realization of "O/o" is somewhere in between [o] and [ɔ], the pure former sounds less incorrect than the pure latter. Furthermore, at least among American English speakers learning Russian, [o] tends towards the dipthong "ou", which sounds plain wrong, while [ɔ] tends towards "oa", which sounds close to or actually how natives pronounce it.

BlackNBlue (talk) 14:37, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

According to our Russian phonology article, /e/ can be [e] in a (C)VCʲ environment. You see this mostly in loanwords, but also in эль, the name for the letter ⟨л⟩. It also states that this vowel is at a place between cardinal [e] and [ɛ], making the choice of symbols arbitrary. The Russian phonology article uses [ɛ] and it looks like Russian alphabet uses [e]. Our chart here doesn't specify what to do in this context and we probably should be consistent about it.

The source that backs up these phonetic claims (Jones & Ward) is from 1969 and contradicts the chart made from information provided by the more recent Timberlake (2004), which indicates that (C)VCʲ and CʲVCʲ are less close than CʲVCʲ. I'm not sure how to read this chart, since it's not presented in a logarithmic like your typical vowel quadrangle. It seems like we would want to pick the same symbol for (C)VCʲ and CʲVCʲ. I'd be fine with either.

If we are to use Timberlake (2004) to justify these changes in our transcription, then we would want to keep /o/ the same, as that chart seems to indicate that the sounds represented by ⟨о⟩ in stressed syllables are close-mid, not mid or open-mid. If I'm misreading this chart and this sound is more mid, I'd still say we stick with using o, since changing it all across the project would be a headache and the effect a given symbol might have for American English RSL speakers isn't a compelling reason to make such a change. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:53, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm less concerned with sticking to one or another academic source, than with the transcription correctly guiding a foreign speaker learning Russian phonology. I got involved following questions from a friend learning the language, and found some of the entries in the pronuciation chart (notably E and O) inaccurate for unnecessary reasons. The effect on an American Engish speaker isn't a valid reason to change, but [ɔ] simply being closer (to my ears, by a lot) than [o], is. Headache in correcting all across the project isn't a reason to keep it, either. BlackNBlue (talk) 10:14, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

The academic sources are what guide us to move beyond impressionistic OR and into what experts say about phonetics. It seems like the experts are saying that the vowel is mid or close-mid, so it's the combination of what experts say, the burden of changing it, and the irrelevance of RSL speaker experience that makes me remain unconvinced that this would be a worthwhile change. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:33, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

RSL speaker experience is irrelevant, as is the burden of changing something if it's incorrect. However, I understand and will defer to the policy on cited experts favored over OR and impressionism. At the same time, I have to wonder what we'd do with an expert "opinion", for example, that the majority of screws are left-hand thread; something that is obviously wrong to anyone with any real experience in the subject? With all due respect, do you actually speak Russian and can hear the difference between these vowel pairs? With O, it's a fine hair to split and I won't argue it further, though I would advocate for a supplementary note instructing avoidance of an "OU" dipthong. With E, though... experts or not, the earth isn't flat. I'd like some speakers of the language to weigh in. BlackNBlue (talk) 20:57, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

you're wrong about Е [jɛ] (it is indeed [je]) but right about Э [ɛ], I remember I tried removing the э=[e] example a while ago but they didn't let me unfortunately LICA98 (talk) 09:26, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

What is your source for [je]? To my ears, it doesn't sound right at all. As for Э to [ɛ], can we correct this, then? BlackNBlue (talk) 10:14, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

for example you can check words on wiktionary with the IPA transcription: есть [jesʲtʲ], подъезд [pɐdˈjest]

also 1 way is to go on forvo and compare Russian and Polish words (cause their "je" is [jɛ]) ем jem jesz ешь

btw I'm also Russian and I remember a couple of years ago (when I started learning Polish) I couldn't understand this e/ɛ difference (and especially o/ɔ), like I was looking at the IPA and just couldn't understand why is ours [o] while theirs is [ɔ], if it's the same sound... well then I started paying more attention to how we pronounce the sounds and with time it became quite clear

(also it might be true that some people pronounce [jɛ] and [ɔ] in Russian but anyway the standard is [je] and [o]) LICA98 (talk) 19:13, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

If you wanna change ⟨o⟩ to something else, that something else should be ⟨ʊɔ⟩, as it's a back rising-opening diphthong, a lot like Slovak ⟨ô⟩. If that's too narrow, there's no better transcription than ⟨o⟩. Just my 2 cents. Sol505000 (talk) 17:06, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Case of dual vowels, when second is iotated — as in «краткое»

My point is: there is no actual [j] glide here for iotated «е»=/je/; between vowels it's a transient [i] and is relevant enough for a phonetic transcription. Therefore [ˈkratkəɪ̯ə] (as per Wiktionary) is phonetically correct. While it is an allophone, but why miss it in the transcription? Yes, [ˈkratkəjə] is correct in slow and careful pronunciation; but then most other morphophonetic effects (even unstressed vowel reduction) shouldn't be denoted as well. Tacit Murky (talk) 12:38, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

In our in-house IPA guides, we try to avoid diacritics if we can. We are already glossing over the [ɪ̯~i̯] allophone of /j/ in post-vocalic context, and I don't see a reason to do any differently for an intervocalic one. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:12, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Any non-syllabic vowel from the [i ~ ɪ ~ e] range is correctly represented by ⟨j⟩ in IPA as it fulfils the definition of a palatal approximant. This [ɪ̯] you're talking about is far from the only allophone missing from the guide. The German city name Mainz, usually transcribed [maɪnts] can be transcribed [majnts] (despite the fact that the actual pronunciation is closer to [mae̯nts]) and it doesn't even necessarily mean that [j] is analyzed as an underlying consonant (in Russian, it is, so you'd probably write it [majnts] anyway). Native speakers of German feel that Mainz features four sounds: /m/ + /aɪ/ + /n/ + /ts/. Furthermore, /aɪ/ functions as "one vowel" in German phonology, partially because it often stems from an earlier /iː/ (though maybe not in Mainz, but it's still felt to be one vowel there). In Russian, [-əjə] is felt to be three sounds and there is no [əj] diphthong that actually functions as a phonological diphthong. On the other hand, in Luxembourgish, /əɪ/ (which you could conceivably write /əj/) really functions as a vowel (a phonemic diphthong) that contrasts with /i, iː, e, eː, ɑɪ, æːɪ/ and other vowels.

Unless you're talking about [ˈkratkə.ɪ], with [ɪ] being an entire reduced syllable like [ə]. That's a different story. Sol505000 (talk) 02:09, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree with these points. But shouldn't Wiktionary (at least Russian version) use the same rules for reducing diacritics and treating /j/? I'm pointing at it as my „reliable source“.

«[ˈkratkə.ɪ], with [ɪ] being an entire reduced syllable like [ə]» — actual syllabification of «краткое» gives us 3 syllables, typically [ˈkrat·kə·ɪ]. Unstressed /e/ is usually [ɪ] (give of take iotation). But then, again, the problem is — how deep should we go with denoting phonological effects in these (somewhat simplified) transcriptions? Why settle that post-vocal iotation still needs /j/=[j] ? — Tacit Murky (talk) 12:54, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

We can only deal with English Wikipedia here.

I'd say that [jə] → [ɪ], if it applies in this case, is an allophonic effect. If [ˈkratkə.ɪ] is the usual pronunciation, we should probably transcribe it. Sol505000 (talk) 13:50, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

2 sounds missing

should also add /dʐ/ (e.g. джем) and /tʂ/ (devoiced дж as in коттедж) as hard versions of /dʑ/ and /tɕ/ to complete the table (if we're including /dzʲ/ and /tsʲ/) LICA98 (talk) 06:51, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Go ahead… Tacit Murky (talk) 15:30, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

We ought not to add those. /dʐ/ and /tʂ/ are not separate consonants, but rather consonant clusters. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 21:22, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

English approximation of /lʲ/ is wrong

The current English approximation for /lʲ/ is "lean", but because most English dialects render /iː/ as [ɪj], the palatalization is very limited, making it invalid. A better example would be a word like "lewd". Masimatutu (talk) 15:00, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

I think it was Million awhile ago — but only for British speakers. Tacit Murky (talk) 10:48, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky The problem in words like "million" is that the /l/ is in syllable coda position, thus making it a dark [ł]. Certain English dialects do not pronounce the /j/ in "lewd", but it is the only example that works well, and several other examples have the same problem, making it quite consistent. Masimatutu (talk) 12:04, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

That's why it is an approximation. We have IPA for precision. And I couldn't find and words with «lew*» pattern, that guarantee to be pronounced with /lj*/ initially. We may invoke some dialect statistics, if there is any available. Tacit Murky (talk) 18:00, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky "lewd" works just as well as "newt" for /nʲ/, and is probably the best approximation for most dialects. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet_chart_for_English_dialects, although it does not show demographics, suggests that a great majority of English accents pronounce the [j] in the diaphoneme /juː/. Another good approximation that also works for accents that drop [j] in /juː/ would be "failure", as the [j] before the /l/ prevents velarization. Masimatutu (talk) 18:27, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, then be bold and make an edit. Tacit Murky (talk) 14:35, 6 August 2022 (UTC)