Re: Russian orthography (was: A perfect day ...)

On Fri, 28 Jan 2000 10:53:38 -0500, John Cowan <jcowan@...>
wrote:

>Russian has a four-way contrast between:
>
>  hard cons + vowel, written cons + non-iotified vowel
>  soft cons + vowel, written cons + iotified vowel
>  hard cons + /j/ + vowel, written cons + HARD SIGN U+044A + iotified vowel
>  soft cons + /j/ + vowel, written cons + SOFT SIGN U+044C + iotified vowel
>
>The "non-iotified vowels" are A (U+0410), E (U+042D), YERU (U+044B), O
(U+041E),
>and U (U+0423);
- I think YERY (or JERY) is a more correct spelling than YERU. It is
usually transcribed with 'y', and its more common name in Russian is
simply 'Y'.

> <...> the corresponding "iotified vowels" are YA (U+044F), IE
(U+0435),
>I (U+0438), IO (U+0401), YU (U+044E).  Note that IE is the one that looks
like
>Latin "E".  There is also a quality difference (front vs. central) between
I and YERU.

- Note also that two dots on top of YO are optional, so mostly it also
looks like Roman "E". "I" is indeed the counterpart of "Y" in the sense
of palatalization/lack of palatalization of the preceding consonant, but
it mostly is not classified as 'iotified', since it has no /j/ before it
in pronunciation word-initially.

>However, the four consonants TSE (U+0446), SHA (U+0448), CHE (U+0447),
>SHCHA (U+0449) are special cases: the first two are always hard, the second
two
>always soft, but all four are always written with A, IE, I, O, U following.
- Add ZHE (always hard, except for some special cases). TSE can also
combine with 'Y', mainly before flectional endings and in the roots of
a couple of words.

"I KRATKOE" (denoting yod) is also treated as 'always soft'. When
it occurs before a vowel (which does happen sometimes), it is mostly
followed by a 'iotified' vowel letter.

>Initial /j/ + vowel is written with an iotified vowel; final soft
consonants
>are written consonant + SOFT SIGN.
>
Thanks! Very consise and comprehensive!


Basilius