Talk:ворогъ

Is /ŭ/ really an IPA sound? --Vahag (talk) 12:23, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, it seems it is. The big problem here is that by the end of the XIII century both /ŭ/ and /ĭ/ were reduced to what we can observe today. So I had a thought: maybe if we do include the extra-short phonemes, we are also supposed to specify the exact time of that pronunciation, as it is done elsewhere? Myndfrea (talk) 14:17, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Again, mentioned here and here. Myndfrea (talk) 14:20, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Specifying the period is very useful but I understand it requires a lot of research. That's the reason I do not give pronunciations for Old and Middle Armenian. --Vahag (talk) 15:16, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, let's see: the first examples of Old Russian literature appear near the end of the XI century, and all the extra-short vowels disappear around the beginning of the XIII century. We could presume that our best choice here is the XI-XII centuries. So something like "12th century Old Russian" or "12th century Kievan" would be sufficient, I guess. However, I only guess, since I can't find much good information on that. Maybe it'd be better to ask someone here on that. Myndfrea (talk) 15:26, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Try User:Ivan Štambuk or User:CodeCat. --Vahag (talk) 15:38, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

It's hard to determine the exact pronunciation of the yers because it was most likely dialect-specific as well as context-dependent. All we know for sure is that in Proto-Slavic times, they were near-close but became more open over time, that there was a distinction between front and back, and that they were prosodically divided between "strong" and "weak" types (w:Havlík's law). Even the rounding of ъ was not distinctive, as gives rounded outcomes in some cases and unrounded ones in others, even within the same language. ъ usually gives o in Russian for example, but the combination -ъj- became -yj- in that language when unstressed.

My guess is that by the 12th century, both types of yers were essentially very short schwas when in "weak" position, having become e/o i/y when strong. They were distinguished only by palatalisation of the preceding consonant, and could not carry stress. —CodeCat 15:49, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

• Phonemic transcription (//) doesn't deal with pronunciation. We don't need to constrain ourselves with IPA symbols at all. Old Russian spans too much territory and time to have any kind of uniform pronunciation or stable phonemic system, especially given artificially maintained archaicity in spelling and the influence of Russian Church Slavonic. These should best be programatically generated in Lua with new functionality expanded as the literature on this obscure topic becomes available. BTW, great work Myndfrea :D --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:24, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Thanks. I'll try to dig up some works concerning Old Russian phonology (though judging by absence or insufficiency of such information concerning that, it won't be easy). However, the Old East Slavic we are talking does not, as far as I understand, concern the many dialects of Rus that were spoken at that time – that's what the Old Novgorod and Old Pskov dialects prove with the changes they held. Old East Slavic is the standard of the literary language as it was supposed to be spoken by those who wrote its texts – monks, kings and patriarchs, and I think it's doubtful that this standard would have to differ much (phonetically) throughout the land of Rus. Myndfrea (talk) 15:30, 17 June 2014 (UTC)