Belarusian phonology

As an East Slavic language, Belarusian phonology is very similar to both Russian and Ukrainian phonology. The primary differences are:[1]

• Akannye (Belarusian: аканне) – the merger of unstressed /o/ into /a/. The pronunciation of the merged vowel is a clear open front unrounded vowel [a], including after soft consonants and /j/. In standard Russian akanye, the merger happens only after hard consonants; after soft consonants, /o/ merges with /i/ instead. Ukrainian does not have this merger at all. In Belarusian, unlike Russian, this change is reflected in spelling: compare галава́ "head", pronounced [ɣalaˈva] , with Russian голова́ [ɡəlɐˈva]  and Ukrainian голова́ [ɦɔlɔˈu̯ɑ] .
• Lack of ikanye (the Russian sound change in which unstressed /e/ has merged with /i/, and unstressed /a/ and /o/ with /i/ after soft consonants). Instead, unstressed /e/ merges with /a/. Compare Belarusian зямля́ [zʲamˈlʲa]  with Russian земля́ [zʲɪˈmlʲa]  and Ukrainian [zeˈmlʲɑ] .
• Unlike in Russian, there is no emphasized separation after the /j/ in the pronunciation of the iotified /ja/, /jo/, /je/ and /ji/.[2] This means palatalized consonants are always palatalized and iotification is not separable as in Russian.
• Tsyekannye (Belarusian: цеканне) and dzyekannye (Belarusian: дзеканне) – the pronunciation of Old East Slavic /tʲ, dʲ/ as soft affricates [tsʲ, dzʲ]. This occurs in дзе́сяць "ten", pronounced [ˈdzʲɛsʲatsʲ]; compare Russian де́сять [ˈdʲesʲɪtʲ] , Ukrainian де́сять [ˈdɛsʲɐtʲ] . (Many Russian speakers similarly affricate phonemic /tʲ, dʲ/, but this is not universal and not written.)
• Relatively stronger palatalization of /sʲ/ and /zʲ/.[3]
• Postalveolar consonants are all hard (laminal retroflex) while Russian and Ukrainian have both hard and soft postalveolars.
• /rʲ/ has hardened and merged with /r/.
• Unlike in standard Russian, historical /l/ before consonants has merged with /v/ and is pronounced [w]. This is reflected in the spelling, which uses a special symbol known as "non-syllabic u" (Belarusian: у нескладовae),[4] written as an ⟨u⟩ with a breve diacritic on top of it: ⟨ў⟩,^? ⟨ŭ⟩.^?
• Lenition of /ɡ/ to /ɣ/ similarly to Ukrainian, Czech, or Slovak, and unlike Russian and Polish.
• Proto-Slavic /e/ shifted to Belarusian and Russian /o/ before a hard consonant. Compare the Belarusian word for "green", зялёны [zʲaˈlʲɔnɨ], and the Russian word, зелёный [zʲɪˈlʲɵnɨj], with Ukrainian зеле́ний [zeˈlɛnɪj].

Unlike in Russian, Belarusian spelling closely represents surface phonology rather than the underlying morphophonology. For example, akannye, tsyekannye, dzyekannye and the [w] allophone of /v/ and /l/ are all written. The representation of akannye in particular introduces striking differences between Russian and Belarusian orthography.

As with Russian, [ɨ] is not a separate phoneme, but an allophone of /i/ occurring after non-palatalized consonants.[7]

The consonants of Belarusian are as follows:[8]

The rare phonemes /ɡ/ and /ɡʲ/ are present only in several borrowed words: ганак [ˈɡanak], гузік [ˈɡuzik]. Other borrowed words have the fricative pronunciation: геаграфія [ɣʲeaˈɣrafʲija] ('geography'). In addition, [ɡ] and [ɡʲ] are allophones of /k/ and /kʲ/ respectively, when voiced by regressive assimilation, as in вакзал [vaɡˈzal] 'train station'.

In the syllable coda, /v/ is pronounced [w] or [u̯], forming diphthongs, and is spelled ⟨ў⟩.[9] [w] sometimes derives etymologically from /l/, as with воўк [vɔwk] ('wolf'), which comes from Proto-Slavic *vьlkъ. Similar to Ukrainian, there are also alternations between /w/ and /l/ in the past tense of verbs:[10] for example, ду́маў /ˈdumaw/ "(he) thought" versus ду́мала /ˈdumala/ "(she) thought". This evolved historically from a spelling with -л (ду́мал) which vocalized like the Ł in Polish (cognate dumał, "he mused").

The geminated variations are transcribed as follows:

• падарожжа [padaˈroʐʐa]
• ззяць [zʲzʲatsʲ]
• стагоддзе [staˈɣoddzʲe]
• каханне [kaˈxanʲnʲe]
• рассячы [rasʲˈsʲatʂɨ]
• ліхалецце [lʲixaˈlʲettsʲe]
• сярэднявечча [sʲarɛdnʲaˈvʲettʂa].