It provides a set of symbols to represent the pronunciation of Russian in Wikipedia articles, and example words that illustrate the sounds that correspond to them. Integrity must be maintained between the key and the transcriptions that link here; do not change any symbol or value without establishing consensus on the talk page first.
Russian distinguishes hard (unpalatalized or plain) and soft (palatalized) consonants (both phonetically and orthographically). Soft consonants, most of which are denoted by a superscript j, ⟨ʲ⟩, are pronounced with the body of the tongue raised toward the hard palate, like the articulation of the y sound in yes. In native words /j, ɕː, tɕ/ are always soft, whereas /ʐ, ʂ, ts/ are always hard.[1]
^ abcEven though /ts/ and its voicing [dz] are considered to be exclusively hard consonants, they may be palatalized in certain words of foreign origin.
^ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvConsonants in consonant clusters are assimilated in voicing if the final consonant in the sequence is an obstruent (except [v, vʲ]). All consonants become voiceless if the final consonant is voiceless or voiced if the final consonant is voiced (Halle 1959:31).
^ abcdefghThe affricates[ts], [tɕ], and [tʂ] (and their voiced counterparts [dz], [dʑ], and [dʐ]) are sometimes written with ligature ties: [t͡s], [t͡ɕ], and [t͡ʂ] ([d͡z], [d͡ʑ], and [d͡ʐ]). Ties are not used in transcriptions on Wikipedia (except in phonology articles) because they may not display correctly in all browsers.
^ abcdefghijkThe voiced obstruents /b, bʲ, d, dʲ, ɡ, v, vʲ, z, zʲ, ʐ/ are devoiced word-finally unless the next word begins with a voiced obstruent (Halle 1959:22).
^ abcd⟨г⟩ is usually pronounced [ɣ] or (word-finally) [x] in some religious words and colloquial derivatives from them, such as Го́споди and Бог, and in the interjections ага́, ого́, го́споди, ей-бо́гу, and also in бухга́лтер[bʊˈɣaltʲɪr] (Timberlake 2004:23). /ɡ/ devoices and lenites to [x] before voiceless obstruents (dissimilation) in the word roots -мягк- or -мягч-, -легк- or -легч-, -тягч-, and also in the old-fashioned pronunciation of -ногт-, -когт-, кто. Speakers of the Southern Russian dialects may pronounce ⟨г⟩ as [ɣ] (soft [ɣʲ], devoiced [x] and [xʲ]) throughout.
^The soft vowel letters ⟨е, ё, ю, я⟩ represent iotated vowels /je, jo, ju, ja/, except when following a consonant. When these vowels are unstressed (save for ⟨ё⟩, which is always stressed) and follow another vowel letter, the /j/ may not be present. The letter ⟨и⟩ produces iotated sound /ji/ only after ь.
^Alveolo-palatal consonants are subjected to regressive assimilative palatalization; i.e. they tend to become palatalized in front of other phones with the same place of articulation.
^Most speakers pronounce ⟨ч⟩ in the pronoun что and its derivatives as [ʂ]. All other occurrences of чт cluster stay as affricate and stop.
^⟨щ⟩ is sometimes pronounced as [ɕː] or [ɕɕ] and sometimes as [ɕtɕ], but no speakers contrast the two pronunciations. This generally includes the other spellings of the sound, but the word счи́тывать sometimes has [ɕtɕ] because of the morpheme boundary between the prefix ⟨с-⟩ and the root ⟨-чит-⟩.
^Geminated [ʐː] is pronounced as soft [ʑː], the voiced counterpart to [ɕː], in a few lexical items (such as дро́жжи or заезжа́ть) by conservative Moscow speakers; such realization is now somewhat obsolete (Yanushevskaya & Bunčić (2015:224)).
^ abcdefVowels are fronted and/or raised in the context of palatalized consonants: /a/ and /u/ become [æ] and [ʉ], respectively between palatalized consonants, /e/ is realized as [e] before and between palatalized consonants and /o/ becomes [ɵ] after and between palatalized consonants.
^ abUnstressed /a/ and /o/ regularly lose their contrast, being pronounced [ɐ] in word-initial position, as well as when in a sequence, and [ə] in posttonic position (i.e. after the stress); in non-initial pretonic position (i.e. before the stress) they are reduced to [ɐ] only immediately before the stress, being realized [ə] otherwise.
Timberlake, Alan (2004), "Sounds", A Reference Grammar of Russian, Cambridge University Press
Yanushevskaya, Irena; Bunčić, Daniel (2015), "Russian"(PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 45 (2): 221–228, doi:10.1017/S0025100314000395