Allophony
| A quick index of vowel pronunciation | ||||
| Phoneme | Position | Letter (typically) |
Stressed | Reduced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| /a/ | V, CV | а | |
, |
| CʲV(C) CʲVCʲ |
я | |
||
| /o/ | V, CV | о | , | |
| CʲV | ё | × | ||
| /e/ | V, CV | э, е | ||
| CʲV | е | |||
| /u/ | V, CV | у | ||
| CʲV(C) CʲVCʲ |
ю | |
||
| /ɨ/ * | V, CV | ы, и | ||
| /i/ * | V, CʲV | и | ||
| * distinction is disputed × written as ⟨е⟩ in this position |
||||
Russian vowels are subject to considerable allophony, subject to both stress and the palatalization of neighboring consonants. In most unstressed positions, in fact, only three phonemes are distinguished after hard consonants, and only two after soft consonants. Unstressed /a/ and /o/ merge (a phenomenon known as akan'je); unstressed /e/ and /i/ merge (ikan'je); and all four unstressed vowels merge after soft consonants, except in absolute final position in a word. None of these mergers are represented in writing.
Read more about this topic: Russian Phonetics, Vowels