Help:IPA/Belarusian

This is the pronunciation key for IPA transcriptions of Belarusian on Wikipedia.

It provides a set of symbols to represent the pronunciation of Belarusian 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 of the symbols or their values without establishing consensus on the talk page first, so that no discrepancies between the key and transcriptions are made.

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The charts below show the way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) represents Belarusian language pronunciations in Wikipedia articles. For a guide to adding IPA characters to Wikipedia articles, see {{IPA-be}} and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Pronunciation § Entering IPA characters.

See Belarusian phonology for a more thorough look at the sounds of Belarusian.

Consonants
IPA	Cyrillic	IPA	Cyrillic^[1]	English approximation
b	б	bʲ	б	boot; beautiful
d	д			do
d͡z	дз	d͡zʲ	дз	birds, adze
d͡ʐ	дж			jug
f	ф	fʲ	ф	fool; few
ɣ	г	ɣʲ	г	roughly like go but without completely blocking the air flow
k	к	kʲ	к	scold, skew
l	л^[2]	lʲ	л	loot; lute (for some dialects)
m	м	mʲ	м	moot; mute
n	н	nʲ	н	noon; canyon (for some dialects)
p	п	pʲ	п	span, spew
r	р			trilled r, like in Spanish
s	с	sʲ	с	soup; super (for some dialects)
ʂ	ш			shore
t	т			stool
t͡s	ц	t͡sʲ	ц	cats; quartz
t͡ʂ	ч			child
v	в^[2]	vʲ	в	voodoo; view
x	х	xʲ	х	Bach; huge (for some dialects)
z	з	zʲ	з	zoo; resume (for some dialects)
ʐ	ж			rouge

Marginal consonants
IPA	Cyrillic	IPA	Cyrillic	English approximation
ɡ	г, ґ	ɡʲ	г, ґ	goo; argue

Vowels
IPA	Cyrillic	English equivalent
a	а, я^[3]	father
ɛ	э, е^[3]	met
i	і^[4]	meat
ɨ	ы^[4]	roses
ɔ	о, ё^[3]	born
u	у, ю	choose

Semivowels
IPA	Cyrillic	English equivalent
j	й^[5]	yes, boy
w	ў^[2]	water

Other symbols
IPA	Explanation
ˈ	Stress (placed before the stressed syllable)
ː	Gemination^[6] (doubled consonant)

Notes

^ Belarusian has a contrast between palatalized ("soft") and unpalatalized ("hard") consonants. Palatalized consonants, 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. /j/ is also soft, but /d, t, d͡ʐ, t͡ʂ, r, ʂ, ʐ/ are always hard.
^ ^a ^b ^c /v/ and /l/ merge into /w/ ⟨ў⟩ before consonants.
^ ^a ^b ^c Unstressed /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ are reduced to [a]. Unlike Russian, this is reflected in writing.
^ ^a ^b [i] and [ɨ] are in complementary distribution: [i] occurs at the beginning of words and after soft consonants; [ɨ] occurs after hard consonants.
^ The "soft" vowel letters ⟨я, е, і, ё, ю⟩ represent a /j/ and a vowel when they are initial or after other vowels.
^ Nine Belarusian consonants can be contrastively geminated: /d͡zʲː, lʲː, nʲː, sʲː, ʂː, t͡sʲː, t͡ʂː, zʲː, ʐː/.

[1] Belarusian has a contrast between palatalized ("soft") and unpalatalized ("hard") consonants. Palatalized consonants, 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. /j/ is also soft, but /d, t, d͡ʐ, t͡ʂ, r, ʂ, ʐ/ are always hard.

[w-2] /v/ and /l/ merge into /w/ ⟨ў⟩ before consonants.

[reduced-3] Unstressed /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ are reduced to [a]. Unlike Russian, this is reflected in writing.

[i-4] [i] and [ɨ] are in complementary distribution: [i] occurs at the beginning of words and after soft consonants; [ɨ] occurs after hard consonants.

[5] The "soft" vowel letters ⟨я, е, і, ё, ю⟩ represent a /j/ and a vowel when they are initial or after other vowels.

[6] Nine Belarusian consonants can be contrastively geminated: /d͡zʲː, lʲː, nʲː, sʲː, ʂː, t͡sʲː, t͡ʂː, zʲː, ʐː/.

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[5]

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