Help:IPA/Belarusian

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 Template:IPA 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 Spanish higo
k к kʲ к scold, skew
l л[2] lʲ л loot; lute (in dialects without yod-dropping)
m м mʲ м moot; mute
n н nʲ н noon; canyon
p п pʲ п span, spew
r р trilled r, like in Spanish
s с sʲ с soup; assume (in dialects without yod-dropping)
ʂ ш shore
t т stool
t͡s ц t͡sʲ ц cats
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 (in dialects without yod-dropping)
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] between fat and father[4]
ɛ э, е[3] met
i і[5] meat
ɨ ы[5] roses (for some dialects)
ɔ о, ё[3] born
u у, ю cool
Semivowels
IPA Cyrillic English equivalent
j й[6] yes, boy
w ў[2] water, cow


Other symbols
IPA Explanation
ˈ Stress (placed before the stressed syllable)
ː Gemination[7] (doubled consonant)
  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 always soft, but /d, t, d͡ʐ, t͡ʂ, r, ʂ, and ʐ/ are always hard.
  2. ^ a b c /v/ and /l/ merge into /w/ ⟨ў⟩ before consonants and at the end of words.
  3. ^ a b c Unstressed /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ are reduced to [a]. Unlike Russian, this is reflected in writing.
  4. ^ Closer to fat in most accents of British and Irish English; closer to father in most accents of North American, Australian and New Zealand English.
  5. ^ a b [i] and [ɨ] are in complementary distribution: [i] occurs after soft consonants; [ɨ] occurs after hard consonants.
  6. ^ The "soft" vowel letters ⟨я, е, і, ё, ю⟩ represent a /j/ and a vowel when they are initial or after other vowels.
  7. ^ Ten Belarusian consonants can be contrastively geminated: /d͡zʲː, d͡ʐː, lʲː, nʲː, sʲː, ʂː, t͡sʲː, t͡ʂː, zʲː, ʐː/.