# Russian spoken in Belarus - g or h?



## ilocas2

In Belarus most people speak Russian at home. Belarusian language has h in place where Russian has g. So how is Russian spoken in Belarus pronounced - with g or with h in Slavic words?


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## Karton Realista

Трасянка is Russian vocabulary + Belarusian pronounciation, so I think it's pronounced with h.
Although my grandfather called his home village Hoża (in Belarus, previously Poland), but now he says that the current name is Goża. Reverse with Grodno: previously Grodno, now Hrodna.


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## Budspok

I have been to Belorus more than once. Like in the Ukraine they mostly pronounce it "h".


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## yan_shams

ilocas2 said:


> Belarusian language has h in place where Russian has g.



No, it's not so!  Belarusian language has so called fricative g sound (sound between g and h, but closer to g). If you say хорад instead of горад you probably won't be understood. Not Хродна or Хомель， but Гродна and Гомель.


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## marco_2

yan_shams said:


> No, it's not so!  Belarusian language has so called fricative g sound (sound between g and h, but closer to g). If you say хорад instead of горад you probably won't be understood. Not Хродна or Хомель， but Гродна and Гомель.



But Czech _h _is like Belarussian (and Ukrainian) fricative _г_, so *ilocas2* was right. In Polish eastern dialects we also used to pronounce *h *and *ch *in a different way.


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## yan_shams

marco_2 said:


> But Czech _h _is like Belarussian (and Ukrainian) fricative _г_.


Didn't know that.


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## ahvalj

In principle, the Belarusian sound is not _h_ but _ǥ,_ a different consonant than the Ukrainian, Slovak and Czech _h_. Historically, this is the earlier stage in the chain _g>ǥ>h_.


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## metaphrastes

Some years ago, I studied some Ukrainian phonology, and I found that the *г* would have originally a sound as a sonorous *х*, with vibration in the vocal cords. (This would be, I hope, the *ǥ* sound pointed by ahvalj). Then, I read aloud an Ukrainian text to an Ukrainian friend, doing my best to produce a sonorous *х*, using my vocal cords, and I was corrected to simply say a *х *sound 

Now I note that many Ukrainians, coming from more Eastern regions, do speak mostly Russian, using clearly a "g" sound - however, when being bilingual and speaking Ukrainian purposefully, they shift to "h" sound. While others tend to use mostly "h" sound, even when speaking Russian. Thus, my impression is that depends on the degree of exposition to Ukrainian phonology - if this is their "phonetic natural environment" or, on the opposite, something to be used only occasionally, due to circumstantial need. I would think that, if one person is not even used to speak the "g" sound from childhood (being it absent from daily language) when speaking Russian the tendency would be to keep some Ukrainian accent, specially regarding the "g". Maybe a similar thought might apply too to Belorussian.


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## ahvalj

metaphrastes said:


> Now I note that many Ukrainians, coming from more Eastern regions, do speak mostly Russian, using clearly a "g" sound - however, when being bilingual and speaking Ukrainian purposefully, they shift to "h" sound. While others tend to use mostly "h" sound, even when speaking Russian. Thus, my impression is that depends on the degree of exposition to Ukrainian phonology - if this is their "phonetic natural environment" or, on the opposite, something to be used only occasionally, due to circumstantial need. I would think that, if one person is not even used to speak the "g" sound from childhood (being it absent from daily language) when speaking Russian the tendency would be to keep some Ukrainian accent, specially regarding the "g". Maybe a similar thought might apply too to Belorussian.


Well, actually, pronouncing the sound _g_ requires good self-control from Ukrainians as they always tend to shift to _h. _The jumping intonations (as well as their great compass) and this _h_ are the things that always reveal themselves, sooner or later, in the Russian speech of virtually any person from Ukraine. Most Russians find both very unpleasant: there is a very snobbish attitude towards southern accents (Ukrainian, Belarusian and south Russian) here; for example, a positive hero in the fiction cannot usually speak this way, only if the author needs to add some ethnographic flavor.


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