# Russian/Romanian: ы vs. â, î



## DrLindenbrock

Hi,

for me it's hard to say, but do you think that the Russian ы represents the same sound rendered in Romanian by â and î ?

Despite reading many suggestions on how to pronounce the Romanian letters, I've never been totally sure if I say them correctly or - more realistically - close enough! (ok, this is just my problem, not the scope of this post  ).
Now, I listened to some audio files on the Russian alphabet and I came across ы. This is what lead me to pose the above question.
Furthermore, is it a sound typical of Slavic languages? From my tours on the internet, I wouldn't think so, but if you know more about it, I'm eager for knowledge!  

PS on the English wikipedia the article on the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet (i.e. the one in use before 1860), they show a correspondance between the two letters, so the sound they render must a least be very alike; my question is: is it the same?


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## Etcetera

Hello Dr Lindenbrock,
An acquiatance of mine used to learn Romanian some time ago, and from what I heard from her in Romanian, â sounds very much like ы indeed. I don't think sounds of different languages can be exactly the same, but they can be very, very close. 
As for î, I'm not sure about it, so let's wait for other forer@s.


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## Outsider

Here's a previous thread which may be a useful reference, and here's a vowel chart with sound files.

P.S. *Etcetera*, Romanian _â_ and _î_ stand for the same sound. The difference between the two is etymological.


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## DrLindenbrock

Etcetera said:


> I don't think sounds of different languages can be exactly the same, but they can be very, very close.
> As for î, I'm not sure about it, so let's wait for other forer@s.


 
Thank you very much!  
Of course you're write in saying that sounds of different languages can't be exactly the same!
What I meant is that... hm, I'll use an example:
CH in English sound quite like CH is Spanish (but not exactly, of course). On the other hand, CH is French sounds more like SH in English.
So, roughly speaking, CH sounds alike in Spanish and English, but sounds different in French.
This was the degree of precision I contented myself of.  

As for â and î, no problem...they sound exactly (sic  ) the same.

Thank you Outsider! You're links were very useful, and they confirmed my previous knowledge. What I'm actually asking here is whether Romanian and Russian share (given the conditions I outlined above) this sound.  
Cheers


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## OldAvatar

DrLindenbrock said:


> Hi,
> 
> for me it's hard to say, but do you think that the Russian ы represents the same sound rendered in Romanian by â and î ?
> 
> Despite reading many suggestions on how to pronounce the Romanian letters, I've never been totally sure if I say them correctly or - more realistically - close enough! (ok, this is just my problem, not the scope of this post  ).
> Now, I listened to some audio files on the Russian alphabet and I came across ы. This is what lead me to pose the above question.
> Furthermore, is it a sound typical of Slavic languages? From my tours on the internet, I wouldn't think so, but if you know more about it, I'm eager for knowledge!
> 
> PS on the English wikipedia the article on the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet (i.e. the one in use before 1860), they show a correspondance between the two letters, so the sound they render must a least be very alike; my question is: is it the same?


 
*â, î, ы* are absolutely the same letter with the same sound. It is a Slavic characteristic, but not only. Turkic languages have it too. See Turkish „*ı*” *.
* As far as I remember, even the position in both alphabets order is identical. I mean after vowel „*i*”


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## Thomas1

OldAvatar said:


> *â, î, ы* are absolutely the same letter with the same sound. It is a Slavic characteristic, but not only. Turkic languages have it too. See Turkish „*ı*” *.*
> As far as I remember, even the postition in both alphabets order is identical. I mean after vowel „*i*”


Hi,

Could you please elaborate on what you mean by _the same letter_?


Thank you,
Tom


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## DrLindenbrock

OldAvatar said:


> *â, î, ы* are absolutely the same letter with the same sound. It is a Slavic characteristic, but not only. Turkic languages have it too. See Turkish „*ı*” *. *


 
Thank you for your contribution!  
Are you sure that the Turkish and the Russian letters we are talking about could be considered to express the same sound?
Note that wikipedia says the Turkish letter is / ɯ / (close back unrounded vowel) in IPA, whereas the Russian letter would be phonetically rendered as / ɨ / (central close unrounded). So they appear to be close but not really the same (see also the vowel chart provided by Outsider ).


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## vince

This is one of the weaknesses of IPAs: sometimes similar but different sounds are written with the same symbol. For example, there is something distinctive about the French "i" that is not conveyed in IPA that is different from the "i" in different languages.


We should compare Ukrainian и, Polish y, Russian ы and European Portuguese e (as in "fala-m_e_")

Turkish ı ought to be like the Japanese 'u' sound (I don't know Japanese kana so I can't write it out)


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## Focalist

Note that the close central unrounded vowel /ɨ/ is found also in the northern variety of Welsh, 
where _Cymru_ (= Wales) is pronounced 
/ˈkəmrɨ/.

F


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## Etcetera

Outsider said:


> P.S. *Etcetera*, Romanian _â_ and _î_ stand for the same sound. The difference between the two is etymological.


Thanks Outsider. I'll know that.
The point is that I've never done any Romanian, it was a friend who was very interested in the language.


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## OldAvatar

Thomas1 said:


> Hi,
> 
> Could you please elaborate on what you mean by _the same letter_?
> 
> 
> Thank you,
> Tom



You're welcome! I only hope I can be helpful! 
The letters have the same correspondent sound, just the alphabets are different. If I'm not mistaken, the old Romanian Slavonic (Kyrillic) alphabet had the actual Russian character *ы* for *î, â*. I'll verify that.


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## OldAvatar

Etcetera said:


> Thanks Outsider. I'll know that.
> The point is that I've never done any Romanian, it was a friend who was very interested in the language.



The difference it's not even etymological. The only difference now is that if the letter is in the interior of word, we use *â, *if it is an initial or a final letter, then it will be* î. *This controversial rule started out from an etymological debate, indeed, but it's not down to etymology anymore.


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## Outsider

vince said:


> We should compare Ukrainian i, Polish y, Russian y and European Portuguese e (as in "fala-m_e_")


As for the sound of European Portuguese, it seems to be different. According to the chart here, it's a near-back vowel, not a central vowel. It's an unrounded version of the English "oo" in "hook". The barred-_i_ is often used to transcribe it because it has no standard symbol in IPA.



vince said:


> Turkish ı ought to be like the Japanese 'u' sound (I don't know Japanese kana so I can't write it out)


The Japanese "u" is a special sound, a compressed back vowel.


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## Spectre scolaire

It is a strange fact that the sound _more or less_(!) corresponding to Russian ы is to be found in a long belt from Swedish (not in all dialects) through Polish, Ukrainian, Rumanian and Bulgarian to Turkish, and hardly anywhere else in Europe!

Welsh – cf. _Focalist_ - seems to be way out of line with this quasi _Sprachbund_ feature.
​


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## Thomas1

vince said:


> [...]
> 
> We should compare Ukrainian и, Polish y, Russian ы and European Portuguese e (as in "fala-m_e_")
> [...]


 


Outsider said:


> vince said:
> 
> 
> 
> We should compare Ukrainian i, Polish y, Russian y and European Portuguese e (as in "fala-m_e_")
> 
> 
> 
> [...]
Click to expand...

Outsider, as for the Slavic sounds given by vince--they are all more or less* equivalents, you changed them into three different sounds now.
Ukrainian i sounds like Polish i and Russian и (IPA _).__
Polish y sounds like Ukrainian и and Russian ы (IPA[i]).
Russian y sounds like Polish u and Ukrainian y (IPA .

*I say more or less on purpose since I don't want to be categorical as there can occur minute changes probably even inaudible for most people.


Tom_


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## Thomas1

OldAvatar said:


> You're welcome! I only hope I can be helpful!
> The letters have the same correspondent sound, just the alphabets are different. If I'm not mistaken, the old Romanian Slavonic (Kyrillic) alphabet had the actual Russian character *ы* for *î, â*. I'll verify that.


Thank you, OldAvatar.  So if I understand you correctly they actually are graphically different today but they used to be put down as the same letter in the past. They underwent a graphic alteration retaining their phonetic alikeness. That's very interesting!



Tom


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## OldAvatar

Thomas1 said:


> Thank you, OldAvatar.  So if I understand you correctly they actually are graphically different today but they used to be put down as the same letter in the past. They underwent a graphic alteration retaining their phonetic alikeness. That's very interesting!
> 
> 
> 
> Tom



You're welcome. Notice that the entire Romanian alphabet used to be Kirillic. So, there is no big deal.  You can find almost all the Slavic sounds in Romanian language.


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## Outsider

Thomas1 said:


> Outsider, as for the Slavic sounds given by vince--they are all more or less* equivalents, you changed them into three different sounds now.


That's because I can't type Cyrillic characters.


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## Thomas1

Outsider said:


> That's because I can't type Cyrillic characters.


Hm... I'm afraid I can't quite get to grips with your explanation then.  
Vince gave it correctly in the cyrilic script and you changed it into Latin one... Why?



Tom


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## Outsider

Outsider said:


> [...] because I can't type Cyrillic characters.


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## Kassikakk

Spectre scolaire said:


> It is a strange fact that the sound more or less(!) corresponding to Russian ы is to be found in a long belt from Swedish (not in all dialects) through Polish, Ukrainian, Rumanian and Bulgarian to Turkish, and hardly anywhere else in Europe!


 
In Estonian we have a corresponding sound, too. It's represented by 'õ' (o-tilde). Note that in Finnish they don't have such a sound, it's one of our biggest phonetic differences.

I have also been slightly curious about how many languages use this sound. Besides the languages mentioned here, I think it should be present in many Asian languages, too. For example, in Mandarin Chinese the sound that is represented by the final -e in Pinyin (ㄜ in Bopomofo) is also rather similar. It's definitely more closed than Russian ы (which is relatively open and 'bright' compared to probably most of the analogues), but compares quite well to the Estonian counterpart.


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## Outsider

According to Wikipedia, the Estonian _õ_ is a back vowel, not a central vowel. It's also lower than [i].


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## neonrider

Spectre scolaire said:


> It is a strange fact that the sound _more or less_(!) corresponding to Russian ы is to be found in a long belt from Swedish (not in all dialects) through Polish, Ukrainian, Rumanian and Bulgarian to Turkish, and hardly anywhere else in Europe!
> 
> Welsh – cf. _Focalist_ - seems to be way out of line with this quasi _Sprachbund_ feature.
> ​



Latvians have a very ы-sounding one. Listen for pron. BALVI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balvi 
It's something between i and ы.

Another Latvian example - AINAZI: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Latvia

 Listen to pronounciation of all other cities in Latvia that end with an "i".

American English sometimes or usually pronounces "y" in the word REALLY or UGLY as ы. Sometimes "ea" as well is pronounced as ы, for example in the word REALLY,  and WEASEL. 

Estonian or Lithuanian languages do not have a ы sound. Estonian has a similar sound as _õ and also _ü. 

Lithuanian does not have an even close sound to ы, although some old country songs may pronounce "i" or "y" as ы sometimes. Some Lithuanians (many) use a heavily russified jargon, for example: bыdla (means: freak, monster) which originates in Russian language. The sound ы is often used (accented) by Russians as an intimidating sound.

Someone told me that Russian/Kazakh sound ы sounds like that of a last breath (death).

By the way, have you seen a Soviet comedy "Operatsiya ы"? You should. It's a funny one about criminal alcoholics etc.


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