It provides a set of symbols to represent the pronunciation of Russian in Wikipedia articles, and example words that illustrate the sounds that correspond to them. Integrity must be maintained between the key and the transcriptions that link here; do not change any symbol or value without establishingconsensus on thetalk page first.
Russian distinguishes (both phonetically and orthographically) hard (velarized oruvularized) and soft (palatalized) consonants. Soft consonants, most of which are denoted here by an IPA superscript ⟨ʲ⟩, are pronounced with the body of thetongue raised toward thehard palate, like the articulation of they sound inyes. In native words,/j,ɕː,tɕ/ are always soft, whereas/ʐ,ʂ,ts/ are always hard.[1]
^abcEven though/ts/ and its voicing[dz] are considered to be exclusively hard consonants, they may be palatalized in certain words of foreign origin.
^abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvConsonants in consonant clusters areassimilated in voicing if the final consonant in the sequence is an obstruent (except[v,vʲ]). All consonants become voiceless if the final consonant is voiceless or voiced if the final consonant is voiced (Halle 1959:31).
^abcdefghTheaffricates[ts],[tɕ], and[tʂ] (and their voiced counterparts[dz],[dʑ], and[dʐ]) are sometimes written withligature ties:[t͡s],[t͡ɕ], and[t͡ʂ] ([d͡z],[d͡ʑ], and[d͡ʐ]). Ties are not used in transcriptions on Wikipedia (except in phonology articles) because they may not display correctly in all browsers.
^abcdefghijkThe voiced obstruents/b,bʲ,d,dʲ,ɡ,v,vʲ,z,zʲ,ʐ/ are devoiced word-finally unless the next word begins with a voiced obstruent (Halle 1959:22).
^abcd⟨г⟩ is usually pronounced[ɣ] or (word-finally)[x] in some religious words and colloquial derivatives from them, such asГоспо́дь[ɣɐsˈpotʲ] andБогⓘ[box], and in the interjectionsага́ⓘ,ого́ⓘ,Го́сподиⓘ,ей-бо́гуⓘ, and also inбухга́лтерⓘ[bʊˈɣaltʲɪr] (Timberlake 2004:23)./ɡ/ devoices andlenites to[x] before voiceless obstruents (dissimilation) in the word roots-мягк- or-мягч-,-легк- or-легч-,-тягч-, and also in the old-fashioned pronunciation of-ногт-,-когт-,кто. Speakers of theSouthern Russian dialects may pronounce⟨г⟩ as[ɣ] (soft[ɣʲ], devoiced[x] and[xʲ]) throughout.
^The soft vowel letters⟨е, ё, ю, я⟩ representiotated vowels/je,jo,ju,ja/, except when following a consonant. When these vowels are unstressed (save for⟨ё⟩, which is always stressed) and follow another vowel letter, the/j/ may not be present. The letter⟨и⟩ produces iotated sound/ji/ only afterь.
^Alveolo-palatal consonants are subjected to regressive assimilative palatalization; i.e. they tend to become palatalized in front of other phones with the same place of articulation.
^Most speakers pronounce⟨ч⟩ in the pronounчто and its derivatives as[ʂ]. All other occurrences ofчт cluster stay as affricate and stop.
^⟨щ⟩ is sometimes pronounced as[ɕː] or[ɕɕ] and sometimes as[ɕtɕ], but no speakers contrast the two pronunciations. This generally includes the other spellings of the sound, but the wordсчи́тывать sometimes has[ɕtɕ] because of the morpheme boundary between the prefix⟨с-⟩ and the root⟨-чит-⟩.
^Geminated[ʐː] is pronounced as soft[ʑː], the voiced counterpart to[ɕː], in a few lexical items (such asдро́жжи orзаезжа́ть) by conservative Moscow speakers; such realization is now somewhat obsolete (Yanushevskaya & Bunčić (2015:224)).
^abcdefVowels arefronted and/orraised in the context of palatalized consonants:/a/ and/u/ become[æ] and[ʉ], respectively between palatalized consonants,/e/ is realized as[e] before and between palatalized consonants and/o/ becomes[ɵ] after and between palatalized consonants.
^abUnstressed/a/ and/o/ regularly lose their contrast, being pronounced[ɐ] in word-initial position, as well as when in a sequence, and[ə] in posttonic position (i.e. after the stress); in non-initial pretonic position (i.e. before the stress) they are reduced to[ɐ] only immediately before the stress, being realized[ə] otherwise.
Timberlake, Alan (2004),"Sounds",A Reference Grammar of Russian, Cambridge University Press
Yanushevskaya, Irena; Bunčić, Daniel (2015),"Russian"(PDF),Journal of the International Phonetic Association,45 (2):221–228,doi:10.1017/S0025100314000395
