Table Of ContentRussian
Science Grammar
BY
A. G. WARING
P E R G A M ON PRESS
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Copyright © 1967 Pergamon Press Ltd.
First edition 1967
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 66-22727
Printed in Great Britain by Spottiswoode, Ballon true & Co. Ltd., London and Colchester
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The Russian Alphabet
Russian English
Printed Written name transliteration
A a α a a
Β 6 6 63 b
Β Β β B3 V
Γ r ζ Γ3 g
Α Ά ?à Λ3 d
Ε e e H3 ye
Ë ë ë HO yo
3Κ HC HC3 zh
3 3 33 ζ
Η Η U H i
ίϊ Η Ü H KpâTKOe j
Κ κ Κ Ka k
JI ji Λ 3JI 1
Μ Μ M 3M m
Η Η H 3H η
Ο ο 0 Ο ο
Π π η Π3 Ρ
Ρ ρ Ρ 3p Γ
C c c 3C s
Τ τ m T3 t
y y y y u
φ φ φ 3φ f
Χ χ X xa kh
H U3 ts
^ Η H H3 ch
vii
Vlll THE RUSSIAN ALPHABET
ΙΠ in IU rua sh
m m Uf ma shch
h OTßeJIHTeJILHLIH 3HaK
H hi bl bl y
h h b ΜΗΓΚΗΗ 3HaK
3 3 1 3 OÔOpOTHOe e
Κ) ίο W iiy yu
Ά Ά H iia ya
The above transliteration system is unambiguous and will en-
able a person knowing no Russian to reconstitute the original
Cyrillic, which is all a transliteration system can be expected to do.
It is not possible to devise a workable system which will give an
accurate idea of the pronunciation (see unstressed vowels and
voiced and unvoiced consonants). Anyone interested specifically
in reproducing Russian sounds should avail himself of the Inter-
national Phonetic Alphabet.
Note: y could be underlined: y when it means M. Given the fre-
quency of the vowel e and the relative rarity of 3, e could be trans-
literated e instead of ye, and e used for 3.
CHAPTER 1
The Alphabet and Sounds
1. The Russian sound system has two distinctive features:
2. Stress
In Russian, as in English, the effort of pronunciation of a word
with more than one syllable is unequally distributed so that one
syllable is emphasized at the expense of the other syllable or syl-
lables, e.g. in yHHBepcHTéT "university", only the final syllable is
heard distinctly and the other four are slurred. Stress varies not
only from word to word, but often between different forms of the
same word where it changes in declension or conjugation. As,
moreover, Russian is written without stress marks, correct stress
is a major difficulty in acquisition of the spoken language. For the
purpose of reading in Russian, of course, knowledge of stress is
not required, but as the reader must inevitably form for himself
some idea of the sound of words he encounters, he is well advised
to pay some attention to stress, determining as it does the whole
"physiognomy" of a word, and to this end stress is indicated in
this book.
3. "Hard" and "soft" consonants
Most Russian consonants have, beside their normal (hard)
sound, a higher pitched (soft) articulation involving an additional
movement of the tongue towards the hard palate. English, too,
has soft consonants in front of the vowel w, especially in British as
opposed to American speech, e.g. èeauty, dew, /?ure. In Russian
soft consonants occur much more often: they may stand before
1* 1
2 RUSSIAN SCIENCE GRAMMAR
all vowels except bi and also before consonants and at the end of
words.
4. Vowels
The vowels are a, 3, H, BI, O, y.
These vowel letters, unlike English, have each only one sound
which, however, is heard fully only when stressed.
a is somewhere between a in "farther" and in "hat": 4>aKT
"fact".
3 is like e in "get": 3pr "erg".
ο is like aw in "dawn": TOH "tone" (tawn).
y is like oo in "moon": nymcr "point" (pöonkt).
H and Η are really the same vowel pronounced in different parts
of the mouth, H is like ee in "geese" ; hi does not exist in English—
to produce it the mouth is held as for H but the tongue is moved
backwards, H and u are as distinct as are the vowels in English
"seat" and "sit"; H sounds further back in the mouth than the
English short /, however, somewhere between / in "s/t" and the
indistinct vowel a in "mica".
Before H consonants except in, ac, η are always soft.
5. The so-called "soft" vowels
When a, 3, o, y are preceded by a soft consonant they are writ-
ten a, e, ë, ίο respectively. For example, in the sentence τοκ τέκ
"the current flowed", the τ of the first word is hard, so ο is written
o; in the second word the τ is soft, so the ο is written ë, to show
that the τ is soft (approximate pronunciation: tawk tyawk).
Where there is no consonant written before a, e, ë, ίο, i.e. when
they stand alone as in the alphabet, begin words or follow vowels
or the hard and soft signs, they denote a, 3, o, y, preceded by the
consonant which sounds like English y in ">>ou", but which has a
letter of its own only when following vowels—the letter ii (it
should be remembered that the way the sounds of a language are
THE ALPHABET AND SOUNDS 3
written is entirely conventional—H, e, ë, ίο could just as well have
been written Ha, ifo, HO, öy, and in fact in a few foreign words this
happens, e.g. ιίο,α "iodine" (German jod)).
After the soft sign (b) Η is also preceded by a H: craTbH
"articles", sounds stat'yee.
Notes: (i) the vowel ë is frequently written without the which
makes it indistinguishable from e; (ii) since 3, like H, is pro-
nounced in the front of the mouth the only hard consonants
which can precede it are those without a soft variant, namely ac,
in, u, and even so, the convention is to write e, not 3. Thus 3 is
found only as e after consonants.
6. Unstressed vowels
Stress has little effect on consonants; all unstressed vowels,
however, sound more or less indistinctly.
In unstressed positions y(io), bi and H are merely shortened and
weakened.
Unstressed e and H sound like a weak H, as does a after H and in,:
cepeôpo "silver", sounds seereebraw, wpo "nucleus", sounds
yeedräw, nacbi "clock, watch", sounds cheesy.
Unstressed a and ο sound like a weak a before the stress: BOjxk
"water", sounds vadà; after the stress they sound like a weak bi
(or a in "mica"): cnjia "force", sounds seek, Teno "body",
sounds tyélfl.
7. Diphthongs
Russian has only one kind of diphthong, namely any vowel in
combination with a following H sound (cf. English diphthongs of
the type "may, say"). The H sound is spelt H at the end of words
and before consonants: CJIOH "layer", GajiajiaÜKa "balalaika".
4 RUSSIAN SCIENCE GRAMMAR
Before vowels it is denoted by the soft spelling of the following
vowel: MOÂ "my" (feminine) (i.e. MOM), MOO "my" (neuter) (i.e.
Μοίίό); cf. the masculine MOH.
Where a vowel is followed by a "hard" vowel, no diphthong is
formed: Hayica "science" (pronounced na-ooka), BâicyyM
"vacuum" (pronounced vakoo-oom).
The diphthongs are: aft (HH), 3H (en), HH, ΜΗ, OH (en), yn (IOH);
3H and ιοίί are rare.
aii is like i in "lzke": Man "May", sounds like "my",
en is like ey in "they": Kjieii "glue", sounds like "clay".
HH and tin are so narrow as to be hardly distinguishable from
Η and BI.
OH is like oy in "boy" : CJIOH "layer",
yn is like oo-ee: 6yö "buoy".
Diphthongs undergo the same reduction as vowels when un-
stressed.
8. The Consonants
6, Β, r, £, 3, κ, ji, Μ, Η, n, c, τ, φ are much the same as the
corresponding English consonants b, v, g d, z, k, /, m, n, p, s, t,f.
9
HI is pronounced as sh in "s/mt"; Η as ch in "cAeese"; m as
shch in "A.y/zcAurch" ; η as ts in "cato", ac is pronounced
as m except that the voice is used (see below, "voiced and
unvoiced consonants"), thus it sounds like a vigorous s in
"leisure" (French j).
χ is imitated by trying to pronounce a k and an h together,
hence the appropriate transliteration kh.
ρ is always a strongly rolled r and is never silent.
Note: in masculine and neuter genitive case endings and also the
word ero "him, it, his, its", the r is pronounced as v.
THE ALPHABET AND SOUNDS 5
9. Groups of consonants
While the individual consonants do not differ greatly from
those in English, some of their groupings do: poickBQTh "to rust",
pmyjh "mercury", cutKinp "spectrum", CMUCA "sense", ww/eHarja
"wheat", ww/âTejiBHHH "painstaking", edeOQ "twofold", MZASL
"mist".
10. Soft consonants
All the consonants except m, 3κ, u, Η and m have a soft as well
as a normal variant. A satisfactory approximation to a soft con-
sonant may be attained by pronouncing an English y as in ".you"
after the consonant concerned, as in the sentence on page 2:
TOR τακ (tawk tyawk); crudely, therefore, one merely reads the
transliteration as it stands. More difficult for the English speaker
is the pronunciation of soft consonants when they are not fol-
lowed by a vowel, i.e. when they end a word or precede a hard
consonant. Again, the soft consonant may be imitated on the
basis of the English y, this time by making to pronounce a y after
the consonant, but stopping before actually doing so ; the inten-
tion to pronounce a y after a consonant will have the effect of
moving the consonant nearer the part of the mouth where soft
consonants are produced. An example will serve as a guide: when
pronouncing the word for "mother" MaTb, which ends in a soft τ,
it should sound somewhere between, at the one extreme MaT
"mate at chess", which has an ordinary τ, and, at the other, MaTH
"match" (sport), in which the TH reproduced the English tch. Like-
wise, the verb "to drink" nHTb, should sound between the two
English words "peat" and "peach".
Soft consonants are shown in the written language in two
ways :
(i) when followed by a vowel—by the written form of the
vowel, i.e. the fact that a "soft" vowel follows—or because
it is followed by the vowel Η (although Η is a basic vowel,
for all practical purposes it can be regarded as a "soft"
6 RUSSIAN SCIENCE GRAMMAR
vowel): mm. "ball", Λίβτρ "metre", aqjx "ice", n/zioc
"plus", dacK "disc";
(ii) when at the end of a word or before a hard consonant by
having written after them the soft sign (b) : yroyzb "coal",
nncbMO "letter".
Consonants standing before soft consonants are also softened :
ece "everyone".
m is the soft variant of in, thus being the only consonant sound
with separate letters of the alphabet for its two variants. A soft
variant of ac also exists, but it has neither a separate letter nor is
shown by the soft sign or following vowel. Instead, it is denoted by
three consonant groups: aoK, 3)κ, Hc,m>: ΛΡΟΕΟΚΗ "yeast", é3acy "I
travel", Aoacflb "rain".
11. The consonants us, o§c, η, ιμ, μ
Since in, and η are always hard and H, m always soft, no
further indication of the fact is required; as a result certain spell-
ing conventions or "rules" have grown up with these consonants
which are quite haphazard and can be summarized thus:
(i) after in, τκ, Η, in, and υ, a and 10 are never used except in
some foreign words and geographical names, e.g. υ,κφηχ,
etc.;
(ii) bi is never used after in, 3K, H, m, but after ni, HC, U, H is pro-
nounced BI: IÜHHK "zinc", sounds ubimc; likewise after the
three hard consonants in, and n,, e is pronounced a:
ueMéHT "cement", sounds U3MCHT;
(iii) although the soft sign is used after these consonants:
PO3KB "rye", HOHb "night", it has no significance;
(iv) an unstressed ο is never found after these consonants (see
declension of nouns and adjectives with stems ending in ac,
in, m, H).
12. The consonants κ, ε, χ
While having hard and soft variants, the consonants κ, r and
χ are never followed by a, K), bi or the soft sign.
