Thread: телефонный - pronunciation

I have heard more than one version of the pronunciation of телефонный разговор.

tilifónyj
tiljefónyj

telefónyj
teljefónyj
tjeljefónyj

Which one is correct?

Russian wiktionary, викисловарь, displays it as [tʲɪlʲɪˈfonːɨɪ̯]
телефóнный - first two e's are reduced to "ɪ" like usual, stressed o, geminated (held for two beats) н (doesn't really sound any different in real speech honestly), and unstressed, good old adjective endings

I have heard the Russians often adopt foreign words with E sounds, and spell it with an "е", regardless of palatalization. They have a strange aversion to э, which is *supposed* to be the hard indicating version.

' for stressed vowel:
компьютер - pronounced компью'тэр

интернет - pronounced интэрнэ'т

Both телефон and телефонный however are pronounced as spelled, in terms of hard-soft consonants. This is probably because they come from very very very old Greek "tele"+"phonos" (inaccurate spelling and forms, apologies, but the idea stands)

Originally Posted by xXHoax

This is probably because they come from very very very old Greek "tele"+"phonos" (inaccurate spelling and forms, apologies, but the idea stands)

So correct! For this reason as a Greek not only I don't reduce "e" to "i", but I transform "e" to a high-pitch "э". Hahahaha!!!
Honestly I have the impression that some Russians do the same. The rule about unstressed "e" does not apply in this word twice!
Guys I supposed from the time we lent you the world you can use it as we do!!!
I don't know who invented this stupidity in Russian, English and many other languages!
"e" it should sound like "э", not like "ye" or like "i". Meaningless linguistic transformations!

https://forvo.com/word/%D1%82%D0%B5%...1%8B%D0%B9/#ru

Usual rules. Ustressed "те" or "ле" or "пе" or "ре" and so on can be:
"тьэ", "льэ" in clear and loud speech
or "ти", "ли" in quick and fluent speech that can be reduced to "unstressed unclear wovel" futher.

All you note is that clear and quick pronunciation can be mixed in one word with different syllables without noticing.

Rules are rules, despite of origin of word we say it as russian language implies.
The only thing I cannot understand why "Babylon" was converted to "Вавилон" (v <-> b conversion in bible texts seems to be popular long time ago)

Originally Posted by Alex80

The only thing I cannot understand why "Babylon" was converted to "Вавилон" (v <-> b conversion in bible texts seems to be popular long time ago)

That’s because of the translation chains biblical names had traversed before they came into English or Russian.
Roughly speaking, it’s
(name’s language of origin) → (Hebrew) → Greek → Latin → English
and
(name’s language of origin) → (Hebrew) → Greek → Old Slavic → Russian.

The [b]→[v] sound change had happened in Greek during the centuries between the Latin and the Slavic translations were made. So, the biblical proper names appear with [b] in the Latin translation and with [v] in the Slavic one according to the Greek pronunciation of that periods.

(Btw, the reason why the Cyrillic letter В looks like the Latin letter B is the same. Both letters are descendants of the Greek Letter Β, but the borrowing happened in different time periods.)

It’s also amusing that [b]↔[v] changes in the word Babylon had also happened in Accadian → Hebrew and Hebrew → Greek stages of the chain. In Hebrew the [b] and [v] sounds are allophones with [v] appearing after vowels and [b] elsewhere. So, Accadian /bābili/ (transcription from wikipedia) became בָּבֶל [bɑ̄vɛl] in Hebrew. Then, Ancient Greek language lacking the [v] sound made it back Babylon.

I don't know who invented this stupidity in Russian, English and many other languages!
"e" it should sound like "э", not like "ye" or like "i". Meaningless linguistic transformations!

On some level, I agree.

The thing is, vowel reduction takes form in the vast majority of languages, and in different ways. English has it too, for sure, we just have no idea at all what the 'rules' are. "Rules" in this case, are just the manifestation of pattern. We have little to no pattern, so we, English Speakers, have no idea that we reduce vowels. Russians have the ability to educate their speakers properly on the patterns, though Im not sure how much they really do. I've heard a Russian emigrant to Spain talk about how she doesn't understand the word "собака". It was because she wasn't taught about vowel reduction so she thought it was just random and poorly thought out. This is another case where learners of a language can end up understanding a language more than natives [who vs. whom].

Germanic languages have Umlaut, which they have adjusted to and now spell umlauted u: ü. English went through a similar thing but.... Not so purely.
German on TOP of that, reduces non stressed 'e' to the Schwa sound.
The schwa sound is incredibly common as a reduced sound and most unstressed vowels seem to just tend towards it. Probably not a coincidence that it is located in the center of the IPA vowel chart.


If so many language reduce in this way, the assumption is:


It's inevitable, natural, and simply something we must plan for and work with.

I guess... The next step is to pull some old, obscure cyrillic symbols out of the history books, and use them to represent reduced ɪ and the other sounds...

Maybe we'll get into a 'ѣ' situation there though....

Also, there is a tradeoff with making spelling fully represent sound changes, which is that they represent etymological changes less as a result....

Originally Posted by Antonio1986

Guys I supposed from the time we lent you the world you can use it as we do!!!
I don't know who invented this stupidity in Russian, English and many other languages!
"e" it should sound like "э", not like "ye" or like "i". Meaningless linguistic transformations!

And what have you Greeks done with your own language?

ι → [i]
η → [i]
υ → [i]
ει → [i]
οι → [i]
υι → [i]

What would Ancient Greeks say?

“Meaningless linguistic transformations” is the normal and only way languages exist. Only dead languages do not experience transformations.

Originally Posted by Soft sign

And what have you Greeks done with your own language?

ι → [i]
η → [i]
υ → [i]
ει → [i]
οι → [i]
υι → [i]

What would Ancient Greeks say?

“Meaningless linguistic transformations” is the normal and only way languages exist. Only dead languages do not experience transformations.

Believe me if ancient Greeks lived know they would be so dissapointed with us.
We modern Greeks raped our language more than anyone.
But my general view, is that we shouldn't change so much words deriving from other languages.
For example so many Russian names when they are translated in Greek they do not even look like the original russian.
This is also unacceptable.
Everyone should respect the language of origin!

Originally Posted by Antonio1986

We modern Greeks raped our language more than anyone.

C’mon! Think about how much time has passed. The language just cannot stay the same during so much time. It’s not raping or anything. It’s the natural process, it’s cool!
I think you see I’ve been joking.

Originally Posted by Antonio1986

But my general view, is that we shouldn't change so much words deriving from other languages.
For example so many Russian names when they are translated in Greek they do not even look like the original russian.
This is also unacceptable.
Everyone should respect the language of origin!

Adaptation of foreign words is also natural. There’s nothing wrong with it.