Thread: O

OK i often speak with my friend from Moscow by the phone, and she say things such as the word for 'dot' '.' Tochka but she pronounces it like tOIchka. .

is this common in russian to use. . o as Oi, and a as Ai?

I hope that you understand.

'o' in точка (and in any other word in stressed position) is pronounced as O, not Oi. The same is true for 'a'.
What you have described is neither common nor correct.

Pasha, I understand what you mean. Yes O can sound like that. Probably got smth to do with moving the tongue from low in the mouch up toward the palate so as to make Ч. But don't worry yourself about it. When Muscovites say for ex., the nominative plural, it often sounds to me like they are saying /e/ instead of /i/. На столе лежат книге. Who knows what's really going on, does it matter? Let sleeping dogs lie.

Well, "е" and "и" really sound almost (or may be even completely) identical when not stressed. And it is hard to say whether this sound is closer to stressed "и" or "e" (however most people think that it is closer to "и", and children often write "и" insted of "e" (as well as "а" instead of "о") when they learn to write).
But I have never heard "о" pronouced as "ои". It is of course not a crime if someone pronounces it like that, but don't do it yourself if you don't want to sound odd.

This must have been the phenomenon called "призвук" (stress on 'и'). For us, it is not noticeable most of the time. And I believe many sounds, for example in the English language, vary. And especially territorially.
I myself sometimes speak odd.

And, yes, reduction does change words drastically from time to time. So, if any questions, I can try to explain what is wrong or right.

This is what I mentioned before

Soft consonants can project a slight й sound onto the vowel before them.
Like in сколько the first о has a very slight й sound after it, but it is not a full ой sound.

Its to do with the way the tongue is moved to palatise the soft consonant after the vowel.

If you listen carefully to the Os in the folloqing words, they sound different. It's because the first comes before a soft L, and the second comes before a hard L.
Только - only, just
Тол - TNT

I cannot agree with you to your suggestion of pronouncing 'сколько'. There is no any 'й' after the first 'о'. The sound is too distinct to muddle or hear something else. Maybe it is dialectal. Why do you think so?

Originally Posted by Rtyom

I cannot agree with you to your suggestion of pronouncing 'сколько'. There is no any 'й' after the first 'о'. The sound is too distinct to muddle or hear something else. Maybe it is dialectal. Why do you think so?

I've seen this written in two books on the Russian language, including Essentials of Russian Grammar.



Here's what it says in the book:

"The letters а, е, о, and э are pronounced with the mouth more open in front of hard consonants and less open in front of soft ones. Thus:
Open а in мало is similar to the a in market.
Closed а in маленький is followed by a barely audible "y-sound," similar to the first part of the sound i in mile.
Open e in ел is similar to ye in yell.
Closed e in ели is similar the ya in Yale.
Open o in стол sounds like the o in old.
Closed o in столько is followed by a barely perceptible "y-sound"*
similar to the first part of the diphthong oi in oil.
Open э in это sounds like the e in get.
Closed э in эти sounds like the a in gates.

*"Лёгкий призвук"-slight additional sound (Грамматика русского языка, Академия наук СССР)."

So not only is it in that book, the author sites it in a Soviet book too.

Is it theoretical phonetics or what? I am a bit confused.

Originally Posted by Rtyom

Is it theoretical phonetics or what? I am a bit confused.

It's not theoretical.

Now it is clearer. What they mean, as I understood, is that the nucleus of the diphthong 'oi' must be the closeset allophone for that. Not 'i', mind that, i.e. not the glide, which just modifies original 'o'. So you must enunciate that variant of the Russian 'o' like the nuclues of the diphthong, okay?

Originally Posted by Rtyom

Now it is clearer. What they mean, as I understood, is that the nucleus of the diphthong 'oi' must be the closeset allophone for that. Not 'i', mind that, i.e. not the glide, which just modifies original 'o'. So you must enunciate that variant of the Russian 'o' like the nuclues of the diphthong, okay?

Wow, that was cool
Never thought that such a simple thing can be described in such complex terms.

I too think that that's what they mean - pronounce the nucleus, but leave out the glide - in other words say oi but leave out the 'i' - there's really no й in точка. The closest version of o in English I can think of can be found in the Scottish pronunciation of Bob - which Irvine Welsh spells Boab in his eye dialect. But there's no й. If still not convinced, let me tell you this -the Russian й is not even a vowel, whereas glides are. If there was a й in точка it would stick out like a sore thumb to every native speaker, but as we've all seen native speakers do not hear any й in точка.