# All Slavic languages: Vowel Reduction



## Vulcho

Where can I find information on this topic? Which languages have it, since when do they have it, probably some other details about it.


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## phosphore

I can say that we have it in the urban speech of Belgrade, but I don't know if there's any book where you can find any information on that topic.


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## DenisBiH

I seem to vaguely recall a few posts Duya and Athaulf exchanged somewhere which might have dealt with vowel reductions in BCS spoken in Bosnia. Duya?

Anyway, vowel reductions, particularly of /i/ seem to me to be commonplace in B-H, at least in my speech (Sarajevo). 

Some short notes are to be found in "Govor grada Sarajeva i razgovorni bosanski jezik" by Senahid Halilović, Ilijas Tanović, Amela Šehović, which can be freely downloaded (link contributed here)

According to them, reduction of /i/ already appears in some Bosnian songs collected or authored by Mula Mustafa Bašeskija, a Sarajevan from the 18th and early 19th century notable for his chronicle, mainly in Ottoman Turkish but with some Bosnian here and there, including several full songs.

Besides that, in the analysis of a particular Sarajevan speech, that of Bjelave, the book talks about the partial and full reduction of /i/ and that of /u/ and /e/, although noting /i/ is the one most susceptible to reduction.

Since the book is available in PDF, if you can understand Bosnian / BCS, you may want to search for yourself (perhaps for "reduk" as in _redukcija vokala_). There's not much, but asides from  what I've mentioned above they cite some examples.


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## phosphore

DenisBiH said:


> Anyway, vowel reductions, particulary of /i/ seem to me to be commonplace in B-H, at least in my speech (Sarajevo).
> 
> Some short notes are to be found in "Govor grada Sarajeva i razgovorni bosanski jezik" by Senahid Halilović, Ilijas Tanović, Amela Šehović, which can be freely downloaded (link contributed here)
> 
> According to them, reduction of -i- appears in some Bosnian songs collected or authored by Mula Mustafa Bašeskija, a Sarajevan from the late 18th and early 19th century notable for his chronicle, mainly in Ottoman Turkish but with some Bosnian here and there. including several full songs.
> 
> Besides that, in the analysis of a particular Sarajevan speech, that of Bjelave, the book talks about the partial and full reduction of /i/ and that of /u/, although noting /i/ is the one most susceptible to reduction.
> 
> Since the book is available in PDF, if you can understand Bosnian / BCS, you may want to search for yourself. There's not much, but asides from what I've mentioned above they cite some examples.


 
The same reduction of /i/ and /u/ to zero occurs in Srem and Belgrade too. Here it is however less marked because of a different prosody.


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## TriglavNationalPark

As for Slovenian, here's an excerpt from Marc L. Greenberg's _A Short Reference Grammar of Standard Slovene_:



> The colloquial language spoken in Ljubljana and the central dialects of Slovene differ in pronunciation in several ways from the standard language, but arguably the feature that structurally affects the structure of most words, both in their stem structure and inflectional endings, is vowel reduction, i.e., *the reduction to schwa of short stressed and unstressed[FONT=cd9800388d99c6a502f6df28#940000] i, u[/FONT] (and sometimes other vowels)* and *their elimination in final syllables*.


 
(my emphasis)

Here is a more or less random excerpt from an internet post written in a dialect from Ljubljana or the surrounding areas:

_*Lepo turco smo naredl, hvala k ste šli znami pa upamo da bo druk let enako! mejte se vidmo, slišmo!*_

Here is the same sentence still in its colloquial form but with all the omitted vowels put back in (in *red*, with *blue* indicating consonants that change or reappear when the vowels are added):

_*Lepo turico smo naredili, hvala ker ste šli z nami pa upamo da bo drugo leto enako! Imejte se vidmo, slišmo!*_

This kind of extreme vowel dropping is common in several central Slovenian dialects.


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## DenisBiH

Interesting, /i/ and /u/ in both BCS and Slovenian as the vowels that most often undergo reduction. I wonder if there is a reason why them?


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## phosphore

Because they are close vowels, which are the most susceptible to deletions in the languages around the world.


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## Duya

DenisBiH said:


> I seem to vaguely recall a few posts Duya and Athaulf exchanged somewhere which might have dealt with vowel reductions in BCS spoken in Bosnia. Duya?



You probably mean this exchange, although it was more about consonant reduction, and we were just kidding.


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## sokol

Vulcho said:


> Where can I find information on this topic? Which languages have it, since when do they have it, probably some other details about it.


Please try to be more specific, because there have been many cases of vowel reduction in several Slavic languages, which have different background.

For example, vowel reduction in Bulgarian which lead to the development of a schwa phoneme (written /ъ/) is not related to vowel reductions in Slovene as described in the post above by Triglav.

Vowel reduction as such is any weakening or deleting of vowels - and this is a very common phonemic process which I think is bound to have occurred in all Slavic languages at some point of their history, or at least in modern urban speech.


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## Vulcho

I was wondering whether the Russian and Bulgarian reductions are related or they developed separately. I am also curious when exactly these two appeared, and if they are characteristic of any other languages. I thought there was no such thing in Serbo-Croatian and Slovene but now I am a little confused. It seems their dropping of vowels is something different though.

In Bulgarian unstressed a, o, е become ъ, у, и respectively. So for example когá (when) is pronounced кугá, крáва (cow) - крáвъ, and детé (child) - дитé. But all these are somewhat optional, with the first two considered normal in the whole country, and the third only in the east.


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## phosphore

Vulcho said:


> I was wondering whether the Russian and Bulgarian reductions are related or they developed separately. I am also curious when exactly these two appeared, and if they are characteristic of any other languages. I thought there was no such thing in Serbo-Croatian and Slovene but now I am a little confused. It seems their dropping of vowels is something different though.
> 
> In Bulgarian unstressed a, o, е become ъ, у, и respectively. So for example когá (when) is pronounced кугá, крáва (cow) - крáвъ, and детé (child) - дитé. But all these are somewhat optional, with the first two considered normal in the whole country, and the third only in the east.


 
The very same vowel reduction you cite for Bulgarian occurs in European Portuguese.

The type of reduction we have, aside from the deletion of unstressed /i/'s, /e/'s and /u/'s, is somewhat different. In the urban speech of Belgrade /a/'s, /e/'s and maybe other vowels too, are often reduced to a schwa when not stressed. I don't know about other parts of the country.


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## ilocas2

Czech l. doesn't know schwa. All vowels are pronounced  somehow. On the other hand, reduction of consonants in clusters occurs in colloquial language.


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## sokol

Vulcho said:


> I was wondering whether the Russian and Bulgarian reductions are related or they developed separately. I am also curious when exactly these two appeared, and if they are characteristic of any other languages.


The case of Bulgarian is very closely related to the so-called Balkan sprachbund - Albanian, Romanian and Bulgarian developed a phonemic schwa sound, and it is believed that this is a _Balkan sprachbund_ feature (possibly supported by linguistic developments in individual languages but nevertheless traceable to that sprachbund).

So your answer is, no, there's no relation between the Russian (unstressed vowel reduced to [ɐ] or even [ə]) and the Bulgarian kind of vowel reduction (development of phonemic /ɐ/, which could be even a stressed vowel by the way) - nor is there a relation to the development of phonemic /ə/ in Slovene.

The Russian vowel reduction developed from weakening of unstressed vowel while the Bulgarian one is closely related to the Balkan sprachbund changes which also (in this case) involve the development of a new phoneme over language boundaries (Romanian is a Romance language, Albanian a stand-alone IE language).


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## DarkChild

sokol said:


> The case of Bulgarian is very closely related to the so-called Balkan sprachbund - Albanian, Romanian and Bulgarian developed a phonemic schwa sound, and it is believed that this is a _Balkan sprachbund_ feature (possibly supported by linguistic developments in individual languages but nevertheless traceable to that sprachbund).
> 
> So your answer is, no, there's no relation between the Russian (unstressed vowel reduced to [ɐ] or even [ə]) and the Bulgarian kind of vowel reduction (development of phonemic /ɐ/, which could be even a stressed vowel by the way) - nor is there a relation to the development of phonemic /ə/ in Slovene.
> 
> The Russian vowel reduction developed from weakening of unstressed vowel while the Bulgarian one is closely related to the Balkan sprachbund changes which also (in this case) involve the development of a new phoneme over language boundaries (Romanian is a Romance language, Albanian a stand-alone IE language).



Bulgarian also has reduction of e to i and o to u, and sother Balkan languages don't have that so your explanation is questionable.


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## sokol

DarkChild said:


> Bulgarian also has reduction of e to i and o to u, and sother Balkan languages don't have that so your explanation is questionable.


I didn't know about that one - but a source I found in Google books ascertains that this too could be considered a Balkan sprachbund feature (not shared by all but by some sprachbund members): see the Concise encyclopedia of languages of the world from Keith Brown, Sarah Ogilvie (and in case the link does not work - which is sometimes the case with Google books - then search Google with 'Balkan sprachbund central unrounded vowel': which is exactly what I did).

And concerning "my" suggestion - it isn't really my suggestion but is considered by "Balkan linguists" as being one of the basic features of Balkan sprachbund members; of course one may always question this (one always can, with good arguments ).
Here's one quote from Wiki:


> - the presence of an unrounded central vowel, either a mid-central schwa /ə/ or a high central vowel phoneme
> 
> ë in Albanian; ъ in Bulgarian; ă in Romanian; ã in Aromanian
> In Romanian and Albanian, the schwa is obtained via centralizing unstressed /a/
> Example: Latin camisia "shirt" > Romanian cămaşă /kə.ma.ʃə/, Albanian këmishë /kə.mi.ʃə/)
> The schwa phoneme occurs in some dialects of the Macedonian language, even in some cases in the western-central dialects, on which the standard is based (сл`нце, к`лбас, к`смет etc.)


Of course, Wiki isn't always reliable - but in this case you can find plenty of other sources claiming the same thing. 

(The one quoted above being one of them.)


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## marco_2

Vulcho said:


> I was wondering whether the Russian and Bulgarian reductions are related or they developed separately. I am also curious when exactly these two appeared, and if they are characteristic of any other languages. I thought there was no such thing in Serbo-Croatian and Slovene but now I am a little confused. It seems their dropping of vowels is something different though.
> 
> In Bulgarian unstressed a, o, е become ъ, у, и respectively. So for example когá (when) is pronounced кугá, крáва (cow) - крáвъ, and детé (child) - дитé. But all these are somewhat optional, with the first two considered normal in the whole country, and the third only in the east.


 
In Polish we generally don't have vowel reduction but in south-eastern dialects, which, as a result of World War 2 occupy a very small area, you can find vowel reductions very similar to Bulgarian ones, i.e. unstressed *o  *
becomes *u*, (_bardzu _instead of _bardzo /very/, du kuścioła _instead of _do kościoła /to church/ _etc.), unstressed hard *e *becomes *y *(_byz ciebi _instead of _bez ciebie /without you/ _etc.) and unstressed soft *e *becomes *i *(_zilony _instead of _zielony_ /green/) These reductions were apparently a result of the influence of Ukrainian dialects. On the other hand, in north-eastern Poland, and on the territories which now belong to Belarus and Lithuania, exist Polish dialects with vowel reductions influenced by Belarussian dialects, so both unstressed *o  *and  *e  *are pronounced as  *a*.


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## DenisBiH

I'm sorry, this could be due to my lack of knowledge, but is the raising o>u, e>i really vowel _reduction_?


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## sokol

DenisBiH said:


> I'm sorry, this could be due to my lack of knowledge, but is the raising o>u, e>i really vowel _reduction_?


It may be - this depends: if a language has two sets for vowels, one for "strong" (stressed) and one for "weak" (unstressed) position then it is indeed vowel "reduction" as it is a reduction of the set of vowels used.

For example, let's suppose a system like in Russian - but oversimplified to only 5 vowels to make it easier, so:

- strong position = stressed: /i e a o u/
- weak position = unstressed: /i a u/ - the set of vowel has been reduced in weak position from 5 to 3
- and even weakest position = two syllables removed from stressed position (as is the case in Russian at least in some cases, but don't ask me in which ones ): /ə/ = reduction to a single vowel.

However, there are of course cases where /e > i/ isn't a case of vowel reduction but rather a case of vowel shift: as is the case e. g. in many Croatian and Bosnian dialects (shift of the vowel yat to /i/ in Ikavian dialects) - this of course is no vowel reduction.


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## marco_2

I can add that in this case the term _reduction _is not precise enough, because the vowels *u *or *i *are not _reduced vowels _like *shwa*, and I understand Denis's point of view, but as I noticed, linguists don't make here any difference.


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## sokol

marco_2 said:


> I can add that in this case the term _reduction _is not precise enough, because the vowels *u *or *i *are not _reduced vowels _like *shwa*, and I understand Denis's point of view, but as I noticed, linguists don't make here any difference.


Oh, but linguists do make a difference - sorry for the imprecise use.

Not the vowel in itself is weakened, but the whole set of vowel phonemes is weakened in cases like the one I described (so, in cases like Russian - even though I only described a radically simplified and thus _not_ Russian vowel system ).


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## DenisBiH

Thanks for the explanation, sokol and marco_2. 

Do then linguists distinguish between two types of reduction, individual and vowel-set (as in having different names for these phenomena etc)?

Edit: Ah, it seems Wiki makes this distinction at the very beginning of its Vowel reduction article.



> Vowel reduction is the term *in phonetics* that refers to various changes in the acoustic quality of vowels , which are related to changes in stress, sonority, duration, loudness, articulation, or position in the word (e.g. for Creek language[1]), and which are perceived as "weakening". It most often makes the vowels shorter as well.
> 
> *In phonology*, vowel reduction refers to a reduction of the number of distinct vowels, rather than their quality, either over time or when comparing related dialects. In some cases these two concepts may be related. For example, when vowels are phonetically reduced in English, there is also a reduction in the number of vowel contrasts. In other cases, however, phonemic reduction is due to historical vowel mergers (such as the merger of the a vowels in Mary, merry, marry in much of the United States) and has nothing to do with "weakening".


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## TriglavNationalPark

Two additional notes about vowel reduction in Slovenian:

* In many dialects, the final *-i* of infinitive forms is dropped; *govoriti* becomes *govorit*. This makes the infinitive indistinguishable from the supine.

* Vastly different types of vowel reduction occur in different dialects. In the southeastern town of Črnomelj, and possibly elsewhere in Bela Krajina,* a *is frequently reduced to schwa.


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