Ukrainian language

Language structure

Phonetics

The Ukrainian language has six vowels (a, e, i, y, o, u) and one semi-vowel j. The combination of j with some of the vowels is represented by a single letter (ja = ?, je = ?, ji = ?, ju = ?). jo and jy are written using two letters (jy is used in certain dialects only).

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Most of the consonants come in three forms: hard, soft (palatalized) and long, for example, l, l?, ll or n, n?, nn. In writing the vowels change the preceding consonant from hard to soft or vice versa. In special cases, for example, at the end of the word a special soft sign is used to indicate that the consonant is soft. An apostrophe is used to indicate the hardness of the sound in the cases when normally the vowel would change the consonant to soft. The letter is repeated to indicate that the sound is long. Ukrainians tend to pronounce long sounds where the letters are doubled in other language, English or Russian, for example.

Related Topics:
Palatalized - Soft sign - Apostrophe

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Sounds dz and dzh do not have dedicated letters in the alphabet and are rendered with two letters (?? and ??). Yet, they are single sounds rather than two sounds d z and d zh, pronounced separately. dzh is like English g in huge, dz is pronounced like ds in pods.

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The divergence in pronunciation of the Ukrainian ("heh") and Russian ("geh") (in Cyrillic ?) has already been discussed above. Another phonetic divergence between the two languages is the pronunciation of "v" (?). While is central and eastern Ukraine it is pronounced as in the Russian; that is "veh", in Western Ukraine it is pronounced somewhat in between the v-sound in "victory" and the w-sound in "water". ???? ("coffee") would be pronounced closer to "kawa" in western Ukraine (especially in the Carpathian mountain districts), while in other regions as "kava".

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The Ukrainian alphabet is almost phonetic with the exception of the three sounds that do not have dedicated letters, and complex but intuitive (for a native) rules of the change of softness or hardness of the consonants by the following vowels.

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