Talk:Vowel reduction in Russian

I moved the page from Vowel reduction in Russian language to Vowel reduction in the Russian language. Davidleeroth 09:09, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Now that I've finally found a "corect" title, I've immediately found quite a few fundamental publications on the topic. I am leaving it to expert linguists to shell out an encyclopedic text which is not overly scientific. `'mikkanarxi 23:15, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Borrowings

These phenomena are not applied to borrowings from Russian into other languages, are they? I mean, English has perestroika, from the transliteration, not piristroika. A Clockwork Orange has moloko and horrorshow, without akanye. Maybe it is reflected in languages spoken in actual contact with Russian (languages of Russia, languages of the former Eastern Bloc,...) --84.20.17.84 09:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes borrowings reflect spelling more than pronunciation. One possible example is je ne sais quoi. In French, they don't pronounce the e in ne but we do (although we could have just borrowed it early enough that the French speakers did pronounce it). Turning to Russian loanwords, there are several that have the stress on the wrong syllable sóviet vs сове́т, Bólshevik vs Большеви́к, sámovar vs самова́р. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 05:58, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Major rewriting

While the last reqrite of Aeusoes1 may add linguistical correctness, it disturbed the previous structure of the article and lost "okanie and ekanie". Please keep in mind that many terms reridect here and must be esily findable. Please also make clean distinction in terms of dialects/ language standard. `'юзырь:mikka 17:10, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

The main reason I did the reorganization was because of this comment in the akanye talk page about this page. I've looked at the redirects and there aren't a great many mainspace redirects. Where is there not a clean distinction between dialects and language standard? Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:03, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I know, the "this comment" was mine :-). What worried me is the abovementioned loss of "okanie ekanie". While your classification by back vs front vowels is nice, still the terms for individual recognized types of reduction must be seen prominently, together with their geographical zoning. `'юзырь:mikka 02:32, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, the words are still there but they are a bit buried. One possibility is to put them in bold. I don't believe I took out anything regarding geographical locations of the various features. Maybe we should have a map for the areas in which they apply. Maps are always very illustrative. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 04:25, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

How many distinct unstressed vowels?

From the information in the article it appears that in unstressed positions there are three distinct vowels (by "distinct" I mean phonemically distinct at the surface): /i/, /a/, /u/, where /i/ is [ɪ] or [ɨ] (I'm omitting diacritics), /a/ is [ə] or [ʌ], and /u/ is [ʉ], [ʊ]. (Unstressed /a/ deriving from basic /a/ or /o/, and unstressed /i/ deriving from basic /i/, /e/, /a/, or /o/, under various different circumstances. If that's correct, it would be worth mentioning, because it would make the picture clearer and easier to grasp. But I'll leave that to others, since I'm no expert on Russian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.112.64.79 (talk • contribs)

Yeah, I noticed that as well but I haven't seen that in any sources so I don't know how I would include it without it qualifying as original research. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 23:31, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

О and exceptions

Firstly, /o/ is not always reduced in foreign borrowings, eg радио, [ˈra.dʲɪ.o] ('radio'), the common pattern for this exception is: final unstressed "о" preceded by a another vowel (e.g. Антонио, какао, стерео), compare with моно, фото, where the final unstressed "о" is reduced to [ə].

Aeusoes1, you requested source at the end of this paragraph. Let me clarify first and see if you still disagree.

• I put "rare", meaning this pattern is not too common and the majority of foreign words with the unstressed "о", even if it's final are still reduced to [ə].
• Are you questioning that "моно, "фото" are pronounced with [ə] or you are questioning whether this is a common pattern? Even high-level words are normally pronounced with the reduced [ə] (e.g. сопрано, фортепиано). It is acceptable to say /so'prano/ or /sə'prano/ but /sə'pranə/ is even more common and standard.
• The pattern I described is quite stable, it is unacceptable to say [ˈra.dʲɪ.ə], the final unstressed "о" is pronounced rather clearly by all speakers.
• I am an educated native Russian speaker, BTW. --Atitarev (talk) 05:25, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I understand what you were trying to indicate, but you were editing a sourced statement to add information that said source did not include. Readers would see the citation and assume that Halle says that /o/ not reducing is rare when he doesn't make that claim.

I am requesting a source on whether or not that's a regular pattern. I don't necessarily doubt it (I wouldn't know either way), but I would like to see a source to back it up. Being an educated Russian speaker doesn't necessarily qualify you to make phonological analyses of Russian. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:05, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

As a native speaker i have to say that this statement looks incorrect to me:

"Secondly, some speakers pronounce /a/ as /i/ after retroflex consonants /ʐ/ and /ʂ/ (thereby mimicking the reduction of /o/); this pronunciation generally applies only to жалеть [ʐɨˈlʲetʲ] ('to regret'), к сожалению [ksə.ʐɨˈlʲe.nʲɪ.ju]"

I tend to pronounce "жалеть" like "желеть" but not like "жилеть/жылеть".

And if you will check for generic typos in (google for example) you will see statistics like this:

- Results 1 - 10 of about 176,000 for "жалеть". (0.19 seconds)

- Results 1 - 10 of about 123,000 for "желеть". (0.27 seconds)

- Results 1 - 10 of about 8,220 for "жилеть". (0.19 seconds)

- Results 1 - 10 of about 1,230 for "жылеть". (0.20 seconds) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.66.69.228 (talk) 05:50, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what to make of those statistics. Most people spell it correctly...?

The source of that statement is kind of old and I'm sure speech varies in this regard. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:51, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Yakanye

I'm not sure, if it's term can be used by Russians linguists. But this phenomena exists in russian phonology. I think it's may be consider as a variant of akanie... No? --Grenadine (talk) 00:45, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Akanye is pronouncing unstressed /o/ and /a/ more-or-less identically. Yakanye is contrasting unstressed /a/ and /e/ in unstressed syllables. At least, according to the article. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:52, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's again my mistake. --Grenadine (talk) 09:48, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Finno-Ugric influence

Is the akanye pronunciation Finno-Ugric influence? Apparently Proto-Finno-Ugric only allowed a and i in unstressed syllables. --85.156.237.150 (talk) 11:53, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Ukrainian and Belorussian

I'm far from an expert on either of these two languages, but from occasional sources, I notice that they seem, at least in a lot of cases, to eliminate akanye by writing the vowel in question as an "a", whereas Russian would have an "o" pronounced as an "a". I seem to remember seeing this phenomenon in Odessa this last summer, although I'm not totally sure - it was wonderfully hot and there was a lot to see, and Odessa - interestingly, "Odesa" in Ukrainian - is very much a Russian city, but signposted (etc.) largely in Ukrainian. Any comments, historical background info, etc., would be most welcome! Maelli (talk) 17:37, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

It might be the case that Ukrainian and Belorussian have akanye as well and simply reflect it in the orthography while Russian does not. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:38, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, yes, of course - but can we then still talk about akanye? That's why I'd like to hear from someone who knows the history of Belorussian (there must be one or two out there!), it seems likely that there's been a spelling reform in Belorussian at some time which eradicated the charming illogicality of akanye, but I don't know for certain. I've not done any research, but my Slavicist instinct tells me that the original roots in Slavic would have had "o", and came into the East Slavic languages with "o", and that the replacement of that "o" by "a" has been a conscious - and logical - change. I think I was wrong about Ukrainian, BTW. Would be interesting to hear more! Maelli (talk) 19:09, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The replacement of o by a in unstressed syllables is indeed a later development (good eye) but it's not a conscious one. It's one of the many examples of unconscious language change over time. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 22:12, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Dialects?

Dialects are spoken by very small population. Standard language is absolutely prevalent. So I think, this article breaks Wikipedia:WEIGHT rule. Sorry for bad English.--178.71.130.161 (talk) 16:27, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Even if you're right, I think we can still cover dialectal variation. Do you have any sources we could use that discuss the prevalence of dialects (and your English is good)? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 16:46, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Akanye

Most of the info in this article pertains to Russian. The bits that refer to other Slavic languages can be mentioned in the respective articles of those languages, if not already done so. Pariah24 ┃ ☏ 20:17, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm fine with that. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 20:37, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

I was initially confused because I thought you were proposing moving this article into Akanye, but it sounds like it is the other way around. So I support it. — Eru·tuon 20:40, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion. Per latest Wikipedia policy (and it's the way Twinkle works) the talk page is supposed to be created on the page being merged to. Some still do it the other way though. Pariah24 ┃ ☏ 17:15, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Oppose: Akanje is a widespread phenomenon found in at least five Slavic languages, not simply a Russian feature. Doremo (talk) 23:52, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

@Doremo: I am curious, is the phenomenon named "akanye" in all these languages? I am not familiar enough with the languages to know. — Eru·tuon 00:02, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

It has always been named akanje in Slovenian (alongside parallel linguistic terms such as cokanje, dzekanje, elkanje, sakanje, ukanje, etc.). I do not speak Belarusian, but I assume that akanne is also a well-established term. Slavic akanje/akanye is not simply a subcategory of vowel reduction in Russian, just as palatalization is not simply a subcategory of Russian phonology. Doremo (talk) 00:38, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, I don't doubt that the process is similar in these languages and the other ones mentioned on the page, but I wonder if it would be objectionable to describe Belarusian akanne under the differently spelled Russian term akanye. — Eru·tuon 03:24, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

That's exactly the point. Like palatalization, the process is one that Russian phonology participates in, but it is not an inherently Russian phenomenon. Nor is there anything inherently "Russian" about the spelling akanye. Russian akanie / akan′e / akan′je / akanje / akanye can be transcribed all sorts of ways (e.g., here or here or here), but the most common English spelling pattern uses -nye regardless of the language it occurs in. Doremo (talk) 04:59, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Are the processes identical in all five languages? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:47, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Taking the comments into consideration, perhaps it would be better to rename the article Akanye to something generic like Vowel reduction in Slavic languages, then explain the various differences therein. Does that alleviate your concerns @Doremo:? I still support the merger as best (and adding the other phenomena to other language articles) but in any case it shouldn't stand as it is, with Russian taking precedence over all others. Pariah24 ┃ ☏ 17:00, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

They discussed a related issue to this on Talk:Akanye several years ago. All the akanye-type phenomena used to have their own articles, and they were merged into Akanye. I suggest that we take it a step further and put all specific-language related info where it belongs on an article related to that language i.e. Belarusian phonology, Slovene phonology. Is this not the best solution for all parties? Pariah24 ┃ ☏ 17:09, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Vowel reduction is a very broad concept. In addition to akanje, it would also encompass ukanje, ikanje, etc. as well as complete loss (apheresis, syncope, and apocope). Doremo (talk) 20:52, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Exactly, which is why I support putting info on it on the phonology pages of the various languages, so readers can find exactly what they are looking for without having to link to a small article on an relatively obscure term that has to encompass all the Slavic languages. It's not efficient. I'm showing 3 support, 1 oppose so far. I'll give it some more time so others can chip in. Pariah24 ┃ ☏ 23:52, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Basically, in a nutshell, akanye belongs here, akanje belongs on Slovene phonology, and so on. There's no need for a specific article on any of them. Pariah24 ┃ ☏ 23:55, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

I disagree. Akanye is a phonological process that is found in multiple languages, similar to metathesis, epenthesis, lenition, and so on (which are also found in Slavic languages). None of these pages have been broken up and merged into pages for individual languages. I don't see why akanye should be handled any differently. WP has links so that people can easily look at other pages, and handling the phenomenon on one page provides a better cross-linguistic perspective than breaking it up and repeating it on multiple pages. Doremo (talk) 04:45, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't think there's any one specific way subjects get handled, it goes all different ways depending on the circumstances. It detracts from the phonology pages to do as you are saying. If you're going to have phonology articles, they should have the phonology in them. Pariah24 ┃ ☏ 05:53, 31 October 2016 (UTC)