Vowel letters in Russian

One of the most difficult sections for students in the Russian language is phonetics. Quite often, students make mistakes in the phonetic analysis of words, the characteristics of certain sounds, phonemes. But in many respects knowledge of phonetics is a pledge of literate and cultural speech. Therefore, much attention should be given to such a subject as sounds. Today we are interested in vowels. The letters they designate will also be discussed in our article. We will not pass around the general characteristics of the sound system of our language.

Sounds or letters?

First, let's look at what exactly we will describe in this article. It is worth noting that many people believe that in the Russian language there are consonants and vowels. Many are ready even to argue and will defend their rightness with foam at the mouth. But is it?

In fact, in the Russian language of this classification, only sounds are susceptible. The letters serve only as a graphic designation of a particular phoneme or even a combination of phonemes, and also indicate the peculiarity of the pronunciation of a particular sound. Therefore, one can not say that letters are either vowels or consonants, percussion or unstressed.

General information

Let us pass directly to the characterization of vowel phonemes. In Russian there are six vowel sounds, which in turn are denoted by ten "vowels". In the formation of these sounds from the mouth, a jet of air escapes, which does not encounter any obstacles in its path. Thus, vowel sounds consist only of a voice. Unlike consonants, they can be stretched or sung. These sounds include: [a], [o], [y], [e], [u], [s].

Vowels have the following main characteristics: row, uplift, impact or unstressed position. In addition, it is possible to distinguish such a specific characteristic as labialization.

It should also be noted that vowel sounds serve as syllabic. Remember how in elementary school children are taught to define syllables in a word, counting vowels "letters".

Sound is the smallest part of speech that serves not only as a material for the formation of words, but also helps to distinguish words with a similar sound composition (for example, "fox" and "forest" differ only by one vowel). The study of vowels and consonant sounds is such a science as phonetics.

Let's now analyze each of these characteristics.

Impact and Impact

Let's start with the simplest and most important, from the point of view of the culture of speech, characteristics. Each vowel can be percussion or unstressed. The vowel sound in the unstressed position sounds less clearly than in the percussion. As for writing, then, regardless of the position, they are denoted by the same letters. Vowel percussion on a letter can be distinguished by using the accent sign that stands above the letter. Often used such a designation in rare, malo-used, and also dialect words.

It is also worth noting that unstressed vowels sound less clearly and can act as another phoneme during transcription. Thus, an unstressed vowel "o" may sound like "a", and "and" sound like a "e" in the speech stream, in addition, sometimes a vowel sound can disappear altogether. In this case, the transcription will be different from the usual recording of the word.

For example, the word "milk" in phonetic transcription may look like this:

1. [malak'o] - transcription within the framework of the school curriculum.

2. [melak] - such a transcription is often used in higher educational institutions at philological faculties. The sign "b" means that the "a" sounds very briefly, practically disappears from the word when pronounced.

Note that one of the complexities of the Russian language is played by unstressed vowels. The letters denoting them on the letter are not always similar to the audible sound, which generates a lot of mistakes. If you doubt the correctness of writing a particular word, use a spelling dictionary or check the spelling of the word using the rules known to you.

Labialization

In Russian there are so-called labialized sounds - "o" and "y". In some manuals, they can also be called deformed. Their feature is that when they are pronounced, lips are involved, stretching forward. The remaining vowel sounds of the Russian language do not possess this feature.

The letters denoting vowel sounds that have this attribute are written in transcription in exactly the same way as ordinary sounds.

Row

In Russian on the position of the tongue in the mouth, when pronouncing the sound, three rows are distinguished: front, middle and back.

If the main part of the tongue when pronouncing the sound is in the back of the oral cavity - then it (sound) refers to the back row. The front row is characterized by the fact that in the pronunciation of vowels related to it, the main part of the tongue is in the front part. In the case when the tongue occupies an intermediate position in pronunciation, the sound refers to the vowels of the middle row.

To what series do these or those sounds belong in the Russian language?

[O], [y] - the rear row;

[A], [s] - the average;

[And], [e] - front.

As you can see, these characteristics are quite simple, the main thing is to remember them. Given that there are not many vowel sounds in the Russian language, it will not be difficult to memorize this classification.

Raising

Also there is one more characteristic of vowel sounds on the position of the tongue during pronunciation. Here, as well as in the classification of the series, there are three types of sounds: low, medium and high elevations.

This characteristic takes into account the position of the tongue in relation to the palate. If in pronunciation the language is in the closest proximity to it, then the sound refers to the vowels of the upper ascent, if it is at the most remote position from the palate, then the lower one. If the tongue is in an intermediate position, it refers to the vowel sounds of the middle elevation.

We will determine to which raise vowels of the Russian language are:

[A] - the bottom;

[E], [o] - the mean;

[And], [ы], [у] - the upper one.

This characteristic and classification can also be easily remembered.

Matching sounds and letters

As already mentioned, there are only six vowels, but they are denoted by ten letters on the letter. Let's discuss what letters of vowel sounds exist in Russian.

Sound [a] can transmit the following letters: "a", "I" (phonetically [ya]). Concerning the phoneme [o], then on the letter it is denoted as "o" and "e" (phonetically [yo]). Labialized [y] can also transmit two letters "y" and "yu" (phonetically [yy]). The same can be said about the sound [e]: it can be indicated by the letters "e" and "e" (phonetically [ye]).

The other two sounds [and] and [s] are identified by just one letter - "and" and "s" respectively. That's all the so-called vowel letters: a, o, y, y, e, y, e, e, u, u.

Transcription order

Many students, and university students, too, have to deal with such tasks as transcription of words. Consider the algorithm, focusing on the characteristics of vowel sounds.

The order of the tasks of this type is as follows:

1. Write the word to the form in which it is given to you.

2. Further, it is necessary to find out which letters are "vowels", and which of them is a percussion. That is, you need to put stress.

3. Divide the word into syllables. In this we can all the same vowel sounds.

4. We record the phonetic transcription of the word, taking into account the position of both the vowels and consonant sounds in the word, their variants (for example, in the unstressed position [o] may sound like [a]).

5. Write down all the letters in the column.

6. Determine which sound or counting sounds denotes a particular letter, and write this data in a column opposite.

7. Describe the characteristics of sound. Here we will not dwell on the characterization of consonant sounds, we will only focus on vowels. In the school tradition, only the position of the sound with respect to stress (shock or unstressed) is indicated. In universities, at the philological faculties, additionally, a number and elevation are indicated, as well as the presence of sound labilization.

8. The last step is to count the number of letters and sounds in the analyzed word.

As you can see, nothing complicated. If you doubt the transcription, you can always check it using the orthoepic dictionary.

conclusions

There are six sounds in Russian, which correspond to ten letters of the alphabet on the letter. These sounds, like other phonemes, are those bricks from which lexical units are built. It is thanks to the sounds we distinguish words, because the change of even one sound can completely change their meaning and turn into completely different lexemes.

So, we learned what "letters" are vowels: shock and unstressed, labialized. They found out that each vowel has such characteristics as a series and a lift, learned to make a phonetic transcription. In addition, we found out which science is studying vowel sounds.

We hope that this material will be useful not only to students, but also to students of philological faculties.