# Croatian (BCS): pronunciation of -ije- -ija- etc.



## shifter78

What is the pronunciation of -ija- -ije- compared to -ja- -je- etc? Are they pronounced as diphtongs or separately? 
For example name of the city Rijeka: is it Ri-je-ka, Rje-ka, Ri-e-ka, Rie-ka (pronounced with IPA's /i̯e/, SAMPA's IˆE)? If pronounced as a diphtong, why it is not just Rjeka? As far as I understand it is Ijekavian dialect but the real pronounciation it the thing what I am confused with.
Well, if it is written Rijeka, should be then Ri-je-ka, but you never know when it comes to diphtongs, for example in Slovak some loaned words with diphtongs are pronounced as with two syllables (Polícia = po-lí-ci-ja, diéta = di-jé-ta).


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## dudasd

One of the rules in Croatian language is that one vowel (including "r" in some cases) = one syllable. Some words can sound like having a diphtong, especially loanwords, but such cases are not treated as diphtongs from the point of grammar.

So, Rijeka is always Ri-je-ka. In common speach, you can hear it like "Rjeka" sometimes, but that's either a person who is speaking fast and "swallowing" vowels, or a person who doesn't know the proper spelling of the word. The same is valid for "ija" (policija is always po-li-ci-ja, you even won't hear anyone pronouncing it as "po-li-cja"). In some parts of Bosnia "i" in "ija" is sometimes swallowed in common speach (so you will hear words like "insinuacja" instead of "insinuacija"), but people mostly don't make that mistake when writing. More likely they will have trouble with "ije".


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## Duya

Let me respectfully disagree with Duda here. Yes, from the grammar standpoint, _ije_ are two syllables, but in practice it works as a diphthong *in most ijekavian dialects*. That's the case with practically all Croatian and Bosnian (geographically) dialects; only the dialects of East Herzegovina and Montenegro do pronounce it as two syllables. Compare the singing of national anthems of Croatia and Montenegro:

*Lije*-pa na-ša do-mo-vi-no
Oj *svi-jet*-la maj-ska zo-ro

So, most ijekavian speakers _will _indeed pronounce /'ri̯e:ka/, and, yes, it will be only barely distinguishable from /'rje:ka/. In my opinion, _je _vs. _ije_ is more a typographical convention (short vs. long) rather than straightforward phonetic notation. 

Some Croatian linguists opposed (and still oppose) the current practice; on political level, it is challenged as a Vuk Karadžić's invention (Vuk comes from Herzegovinian dialectal area). On practical level (um, I had a link somewhere which I could probably dig), it is criticized on the basis that it "creates" two syllables where there's only one. However, the alternatives didn't caught up -- spelling of ije as *ie* ("korienski pravopis") got a bad name since it was imposed (but not invented) in WW2 NDH, while spelling it as *je *or inventing a new letter wasn't really considered a viable alternative.

P.S. An interesting reading: http://www.matica.hr/MH_Periodika/vijenac/1999/136/tekstovi/28.htm


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## dudasd

Duya said:


> Let me respectfully disagree with Duda here. Yes, from the grammar standpoint, _ije_ are two syllables, but in practice it works as a diphthong *in most ijekavian dialects*. That's the case with practically all Croatian and Bosnian (geographically) dialects; only the dialects of East Herzegovina and Montenegro do pronounce it as two syllables.


 
Now it's my turn to respectfully disagree - my own experiences say that in Bosnian area pronunciation of "ije" can vary a lot, even within borders of one town. As my in-laws live in Bosnian part (not in Herzegovina, not in RS), I often stay there and what I noticed, listening both to people and to local radio stations (a professional deformation  ): while younger population is inclined to pronounce "ije" like a diphtong, older population in inclined to pronounce it like two separate syllables. Also, Croatian population is more inclined (generally) to pronounce it like two syllables. Further: rural population is preserving "two-syllable" pronunciation of -ije- much better than urban population. So we can "respectfully agree" about this  - whatever linguists said, people talk the way they talk, and it's not always according to grammar rules. A foreigner can adopt local pronunciation and it's OK, but should be aware that technically - at least in writing - -ije- is "dividable":

li-
jepa

cvi-
jet

etc.


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## el_tigre

the problem is that many places where now is spoken ijekavian are native ijekavian speaking regions . They adopted ije ad hoc as standard. Although they rarely  distinguish ije/je as ex. in Hercegovina.


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## Athaulf

Duya said:


> So, most ijekavian speakers _will _indeed pronounce /'ri̯e:ka/, and, yes, it will be only barely distinguishable from /'rje:ka/. In my opinion, _je _vs. _ije_ is more a typographical convention (short vs. long) rather than straightforward phonetic notation.



As a side note, is this remark really accurate, even if we assume that all reflexes of yat are pronounced as diphthongs? If you're talking about _phone*t*ic_ differences, then the difference in vowel length is definitely relevant in any language, regardless of whether short and long vowel are separate phonemes or allophones. Even if you're talking about _phone*m*ic_ oppositions, the difference is still relevant in BCS, since vowel length and pitch are phonemic for all vowels (including even _r_). For example, a minimal pair that differs only in the length and pitch of a yat reflex would be _svijetla_ (indefinite feminine nominative of the adjective _svijetli_) and _svjetla_ (nominative plural of the noun _svjetlo_). Right now I can't think of a minimal pair that differs only in the length of a yat, but I'm pretty sure there must be one (and even if there are none, then the _-ije-_/_-je-_ distinction still sometimes captures the phonemic combined difference in pitch and length). 

Now of course, with the increasing difference between the official four-accent pronunciation and the practical one in most of the BCS speaking area,  fewer and fewer people have an accurate feeling for these distinctions in practice. But for speakers who still have that feeling, the _-ije-_/_-je-_ distinction still captures a phonemic difference even when both are pronounced as a single diphthong. Which is not to say that it's necessarily logical and consistent, since other phonemic differences in vowel length and pitch are normally unmarked, except when they create confusion. 

(Usually I wouldn't go ahead with such nitpicking remarks, but I know that you normally strive for precision in linguistic matters, so I figured you might appreciate the comment. )



> Some Croatian linguists opposed (and still oppose) the current practice; on political level, it is challenged as a Vuk Karadžić's invention (Vuk comes from Herzegovinian dialectal area). On practical level (um, I had a link somewhere which I could probably dig), it is criticized on the basis that it "creates" two syllables where there's only one. However, the alternatives didn't caught up -- spelling of ije as *ie* ("korienski pravopis") got a bad name since it was imposed (but not invented) in WW2 NDH, while spelling it as *je *or inventing a new letter wasn't really considered a viable alternative.
> 
> P.S. An interesting reading: http://www.matica.hr/MH_Periodika/vijenac/1999/136/tekstovi/28.htm


Škarić is known to be pretty radical and alone in his views, but unlike most other Croatian linguists, he usually has a very good empirical and pragmatical backing for his claims and proposals. Just like the _č_/_ć_ distinction, this is one of those cases where the Serbo-Croatian standard was so strongly opposed to the phonology and phonetics of most Croatian dialects that even after 150 years, most Croatians are still deaf for it in practice.


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## Duya

Athaulf said:


> As a side note, is this remark really accurate, even if we assume that all reflexes of yat are pronounced as diphthongs? If you're talking about _phone*t*ic_ differences, then the difference in vowel length is definitely relevant in any language, regardless of whether short and long vowel are separate phonemes or allophones. Even if you're talking about _phone*m*ic_ oppositions, the difference is still relevant in BCS, since vowel length and pitch are phonemic for all vowels (including even _r_). For example, a minimal pair that differs only in the length and pitch of a yat reflex would be _svijetla_ (indefinite feminine nominative of the adjective _svijetli_) and _svjetla_ (nominative plural of the noun _svjetlo_). Right now I can't think of a minimal pair that differs only in the length of a yat, but I'm pretty sure there must be one (and even if there are none, then the _-ije-_/_-je-_ distinction still sometimes captures the phonemic combined difference in pitch and length).
> 
> Now of course, with the increasing difference between the official four-accent pronunciation and the practical one in most of the BCS speaking area,  fewer and fewer people have an accurate feeling for these distinctions in practice. But for speakers who still have that feeling, the _-ije-_/_-je-_ distinction still captures a phonemic difference even when both are pronounced as a single diphthong. Which is not to say that it's necessarily logical and consistent, since other phonemic differences in vowel length and pitch are normally unmarked, except when they create confusion.



I was talking about phone*t*ic issues all along, i.e. only which sounds are used to pronounce the jats, and what makes the syllable(s) nucleus. Of course I agree that phone*m*ic difference (however one defines phonemes in the case at hand) between _-ije-__ and __-je- _is significant, with a large majority of ijekavian speakers.

P.S. _sjena/sijena_ ?


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## Athaulf

Duya said:


> P.S. _sjena/sijena_ ?



Yes!


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