Talk:Ukrainian alphabet

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chinese character "Book" This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Writing systems, a WikiProject interested in improving the encyclopaedic coverage and content of articles relating to writing systems on Wikipedia. If you would like to help out, you are welcome to drop by the project page and/or leave a query at the project’s talk page.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project’s quality scale.
High This article has been rated as high-importance on the Project’s importance scale.
Ukraine Portal
This page is within the scope of WikiProject Ukraine. If you would like to participate, please join the project and help with our open tasks.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale.
High This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale.

Contents

[edit] Non-phonetic spellings

Are there are any examples of Ukrainian alphabet not being phonetic other than the absence of letters for ʥ/ʤ? I can understand how pidžaryty and bdžola are pronounced differently due to one being the combination of two phonemes and one being one phoneme with a different pronunciation. But does every declination and conjugation remain pronounced as written in "standard" Ukrainian? --iopq


There are definitely a number of phonetic variations in speech. The [x] is sometimes de-voiced towards [ç], and [v] is usually de-voiced to [w] at the end of a word (and in some regional accents is virtually always pronounced [w]). Some vowels tend to become reduced towards a schwa in normal speech, but not nearly to the extent of Russian akanye (see Russian phonology#Unstressed vowels). I'm no expert; these are just some random observations.
But I think phonemically, spelling in Ukrainian is consistent and intuitive. If you can read a word, you can pronounce it—Ukrainian dictionaries have no pronunciation guide.
Interesting example of піджарити and бджола. It seems to me that the placement of the syllable break affects the difference, but I don't know if that is intuitive or memorized. "Pid" is obviously a prefix, but when the word is spoken quickly I think the d-ᴣ almost merges into ʤ. Perhaps the b-ʤ combination forces that to be a single sound. —Michael Z. 2005-09-29 05:09 Z

I am aware of the phonetic differences, but I was trying to see if there were any problems with phonemic differences like there are in Russian. In піджарити and бджола the prefix with д adds to the root beginning with ж and is therefore pronounced as two sounds (of course they start to run over each other but you can time a place when д starts but ж hasn't started yet) in бджола you have a root with the original phoneme intact spelled by using two letters because there is no letter that corresponds to that phoneme that actually exists in the language.

There's also o pronounced as u when unstressed. If I heard it I must have forgotten it, but I've read about it.

--iopq

[edit] Palatalization before є

Give me ONE word where є is rendered as /ʲe/ I don't think it can even COME after a consonant. This is not Russian, guys :)

--Iopq 08:11, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Лєнь? Is that a native word or borrowed? I suppose it could be used in loan words or quotations: «Російський поліцай сказав "нєт!"», but that doesn't count as part of the language. —Michael Z. 2005-10-3 09:25 Z
That word is not even in the dictionary! Yahoo search gives 76 matches. Most of them names. Compare: Лєн gets 232 matches
Google search is so smart it matches the Russian word. Anyway, the official usage should be the same as the letter ї --Iopq 00:09, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
I was thinking Google is too smart too, but realized that if you put it in double quotation marks, Google searches for the exact text; "лєнь": I get 1,210 results. The word isn't in my dictionary either (a poor one), but then it's not exactly a literary term. —Michael Z. 2005-10-5 01:24 Z
It's not a term at all. I think it's just used by people who don't know Ukrainian very well. The correct term is ледарство (thanks, mom :D) which IS in the dictionary. -Iopq 03:53, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
My mum, originally from Львів, uses it as a slightly more disparaging synonym for лінюх, a lazy person. —Michael Z. 2005-10-6 06:05 Z
Синє. Found this one in uk:Українська абетка, and it also brings to mind блакитнє; there must be other adjectives with that ending. Must remember to translate the history section from there into English, although it will be a bit of a tough slog for me. —Michael Z. 2005-10-6 06:05 Z
Finally a valid word :D there's also lĺeća

I can't believe it took me this long to find these Thanks -Iopq 09:43, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Is that ллєча? Does that mean "pouring" (noun)? Couldn't find that in my dictionary, but it has ллєш. —Michael Z. 2005-10-17 04:26 Z
It's ллєця. I use a haček to denote post-alveolars (although listening to some samples makes me believe it might be retroflex) and I use the acute to denote palatalization. I use c as the affricate ts.
Oops, I should have realized that. —Michael Z. 2005-10-18 00:02 Z

[edit] About в when not followed by a vowel

Ve (в) is usually not voiced when not followed by a vowel, and pronounced as /w/. In some regional accents it is virtually always unvoiced. It's either one or the other! /w/ is a *voiced* labialized velar approximant. Plus, I have not heard the unvoicing outside of Russian where it turns to /f/ --Iopq 00:41, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I've adjusted it. Does this sound right? —Michael Z. 2005-10-6 00:45 Z
Ve (в) usually loses its frication when not followed by a vowel, and is pronounced as the approximant /w/. In some regional accents it is virtually always pronounced /w/.
Sounds good. -Iopq 09:45, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Azbuka is a Russian word?

Someone edited the page replacing azbuka with abetka. It's fine, but azbuka is a word from like the twelfth century... coming from the names of the letters - az, buka (А, Б) When this term got invented there was no Russian or Ukrainian yet! -Iopq 07:36, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

There is the word "азбука" in modern Ukrainian, but it sounds a bit as archaism. "Абетка" is more common. It is more a matter of taste, after all.--AndriyK 11:39, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cyrillic in Wikipedia

Please see the new page at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Cyrillic), aimed at

  1. Documenting the use of Cyrillic and its transliteration in Wikipedia
  2. Discussing potential revision of current practices

—Michael Z. 2005-12-9 20:44 Z

[edit] The last table

Is it just me, or is there a problem with the table? If so, you can find a good one at Cyrillic alphabet. FilipeS 00:01, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I fixed it some time ago. FilipeS 17:14, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Position of Soft Sign relative to Ju and Ja

In both the detailed table in Wikipedia under "Letter names and pronunciation", and in Omniglot, Soft Sign is shown last, after Ju and Ja. However, in the first presentation of the alphabet, under "Alphabet", Soft Sign is shown before Ju and Ja. I'm guessing Omniglot is right -- they're pretty reliable. If any Ukrainian speaker wants to comment on this and/or correct whichever portion of the article is wrong (since they conflict, it's likely that one or the other is wrong), that'd be great. Auros 18:47, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if their is an official order, but it's always listed at the end of the alphabet in all of my grammar books.--tufkaa 19:06, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The soft sign was the last letter until 1990. The 3rd official edition of Ukrainian orthography ("Український правопис". Київ, 1990) has moved it to the traditional position of historical Cyrillic alphabet (between Щ and Ю). There are opinions that this has been performed to avoid rendering conflicts with Russian and other modern Cyrillic alphabets. As far as I know, further editions of the spelling rules (4th, 1993; 5th, 1997; 2000; 2005; 2007) follow this new system. The decision to move soft sign is being actively disputed (like "безглуздість перенесення його 1990 року на інше місце вже всім очевидна" -- "nonsence of moving it [i.e. soft sign] in 1990 to another place is already clear to everybody"), but it still stands. -- Kcmamu 16:58, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

In that case, you should also update the full detailed table, lower in the article, to reflect this order. I really don't care which order is used, as long as they're consistent. Auros 17:04, 3 May 2007 (UTC)