Belarusian Alphabet - Details

Details

Officially, the letter <г> represents both /ɣ/ and /ɡ/, though the latter is only found in borrowings and mimesis. The letter <ґ> is used by some for the latter sound, but it has never belonged to a standard codification of the Belarusian alphabet.

The combination <д> with letters <ж> or <з> may denote either two distinct respective sounds (e.g., in some prefix-root combinations: <пад-земны>, <ад-жыць>), or the Belarusian affricates <дж> and <дз> (e.g., <падзея>, <джала>). In some representations of the alphabet, the affricates are included in parentheses after the letter <д>, to emphasis their special status, as: <… Дд (ДЖдж ДЗдз) Ее …>.

<Ў> is not a distinct phoneme, but the neutralization of /v/ and /l/ when there is no following vowel, such as before a consonant or at the end of a word.

Palatalization of consonants is mostly indicated through choice of vowel letter, as illustrated here with /p/ and /pʲ/, both written with the letter <п>:

palatalization	/p/	/pʲ/
final	п	пь
before /a/	па	пя
before /e/	пэ	пе
before /i/	пы	пі
before /o/	по	пё
before /u/	пу	пю

When a consonant is not palatalized, precedes /j/, the apostrophe <’> is used to separate the iotated vowel: <п’я п’е п’і п’ё п’ю> /pja pje pi pjo pju/. (<І> is the palatalizing version of <ы>, and arguably represent the a single phoneme.) The apostrophe is not considered a letter and therefore is not taken into account when alphabetizing. (In pre-Second World War printing, the form <‘> was used. In practical computer use, it is frequently substituted with <'>.)