Philip Newton ([info]pne) wrote in [info]linguaphiles,
@ 2006-07-21 10:08:00
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Entry tags:russian

е vs ё in Russian

As far as I know,

  1. "е" can be pronounced either "(y)e" or "(y)o" in Russian
  2. If it's pronounced "(y)o", then the syllable is stressed
  3. If it's pronounced "(y)o", it can be written "ё", but this is optional (or is it? are there cases where the spelling ё is mandatory?)
  4. Syllables can contain an е which is stressed but which is nevertheless pronounced "(y)e"

My question is: are there minimal pairs with е and ё? That is, are there two words where one has е and one has ё, and where this is the only difference between them?

I'm looking specifically for pairs where on word has е which is stressed but nevertheless pronounced "(y)e", though pairs which, in spelling, contrast е and ё but where the word containing е has that syllable unstressed and the word containing ё has that syllable stressed would also be of interest.

Edit: OK, it seems that е and ё are different letters. In that case, my question becomes: are there words where the only difference is that one of them has е and the other one has ё, in the same position?


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[info]heresybythought
2006-07-21 08:13 am UTC (link)
"e" and "ё" are two different letters. Many times, ё is written as e and the reader must determine which of the two it is. When e is stressed, it is pronounced as "ye", and when it is unstressed it has the "e" sound. Syllables with ё аre always stressed and ё аlways has the yo sound.

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[info]uber1337n3ss
2006-07-21 08:27 am UTC (link)
Many times, ё is written as e and the reader must determine which of the two it is.

Lazy Russians. :p

So, yeah, "e" is never pronounced "yo" (unless it's actually "ë").

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[info]mischa [videntity.org]
2006-07-21 08:41 am UTC (link)
if the letters will be different - it will be two different words.
for example, мел and мёл the words you're looking for, but they don't have anything in common, from the poing of view of meaning.

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[info]corneff
2006-07-24 10:38 am UTC (link)
But we spell them identical. By the way, I don't have letter ё on my keyboard.

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[info]mischa [videntity.org]
2006-07-24 11:00 am UTC (link)
what do you mean 'spell'? different letters -> different words -> different pronounciation. What is identical here?
try button, which is left from (1 !) button.

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[info]corneff
2006-07-24 11:40 am UTC (link)
By spell I mean that everybody can spell 'ёжик' as 'ёжик' or 'ежик' and it's not a error.

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[info]mischa [videntity.org]
2006-07-24 12:06 pm UTC (link)
it's not a severe error ;)

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[info]hwizz_kid
2006-07-21 09:31 am UTC (link)
Key minimal pair is все ("all, every; entire", pl., nom.; also "everybody") vs. всё ("entire", sing., neut., nom.; also "everything")!

There is a controversy over whether one should always write their ё's, but it is generally agreed that one always should whenever it may cause ambiguity, i.e., in words that constitute minimal pairs (these are actually quite numerous).

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[info]fractalizator
2006-07-21 10:10 am UTC (link)
http://mithgol.ru/Yo/

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[info]kalaus
2006-07-21 11:00 am UTC (link)
Сёла (villages) - села ([she] sat)

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[info]klober
2006-07-21 11:38 am UTC (link)
лёнь(!)- лень . мёл - мел. нёбо - небо . лёва - лево.

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[info]ekeme_ndiba
2006-07-21 12:05 pm UTC (link)
First of all, I have to make to make some corrections to the replies posted above. I won't call these letters different, ё is semi-auxiliary: it's treated as ordinary e in alphabetical listing, it's never used in official documents and so on. Well, there are loads of minimal pairs with e/ё, but in overwhelming majority of cases the context leaves no doubt.

As for your main question, such pairs are divided into two categories. The first group includes some rare cases when the word with "ё" (i.e. secondary "o") is native, while another is a loanword (e.g. лён "flax" vs. лен "fee (feudal estate)"). The second group emerged as the result of the 1918 orthography simplification when the letter "ѣ" was abolished due to its phonetic identity to "e" (however, even my grandmother distinguished "ѣ" from "e" in some words, it was a feature of some rustic dialects). The reason is quite simple: secondary "o" itself is not a distinct phoneme but just an allophone of stressed "e", occurring as a rule before non-palatalized consonants in native Russian words. At the same time, words with "ѣ" usually don't undergo such transformation (with ~10 exceptions). So we have the following: осёл "donkey" vs. осел "[has] settled" (pre-1918 осѣлъ), above-mentioned сёла "villages" vs. села "sat down" (pre-1918 сѣла) etc.

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[info]pne
2006-07-21 01:39 pm UTC (link)
The second group emerged as the result of the 1918 orthography simplification [...] The reason is quite simple: secondary "o" itself is not a distinct phoneme but just an allophone of stressed "e", occurring as a rule before non-palatalized consonants in native Russian words. At the same time, words with "ѣ" usually don't undergo such transformation

Ah -- very interesting! Thanks!

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[info]remi_jakovlevic
2006-07-21 07:53 pm UTC (link)
The way you put you question doesn't make it clear whether you know or not that "ë" (mostly written "e") is an allograph of "o" after soft consonants: б (when pronounced /b'/), в /v'/, (г /g'/), д /d'/, з /z'/, (к /k'/), л /l'/, м /m'/, н /n'/, п /p'/, р /r'/, с /s'/, т /t'/, ф /f'/ + в некоторых корневых морфемах ч /č'/ (чёрт "devil" ~ черт "(of) strokes"), ш /š/ (шок "shock" ~~ шёл "was going"). Russian orthography is mainly syllabic: the way you write a/я, о/ё... tells you more about the consonant than about one of the five vowels!
[info]ekeme_ndiba's answer concerns the origin of e>o in some words (anticipation of velarization + lips roundig before hard consonants for "e", but for "ѣ") .
Sorry if you knew all this.

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[info]pne
2006-07-22 06:53 am UTC (link)
Sorry if you knew all this.

I didn't; thank you.

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(Anonymous)
2006-07-22 07:15 am UTC (link)
and sorry for the word missing:
...but NOT for "ѣ")

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[info]caprinus
2006-07-21 01:57 pm UTC (link)
Fascinating! Thanks.

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[info]mischa [videntity.org]
2006-07-24 11:09 am UTC (link)
could you please provide some reference for not counting ё as a normal letter? http://www.spravka.gramota.ru/pravila.html?gl_4.htm

"I won't call these letters different, ё is semi-auxiliary: it's treated as ordinary e in alphabetical listing, it's never used in official documents and so on." - and also for this statement

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Ты че сказать-то хотел, м?
[info]ekeme_ndiba
2006-07-25 05:31 pm UTC (link)
could you please provide some reference [...] for this statement

it's treated as ordinary e in alphabetical listing
a) open any dictionary (if you haven't seen one yet);

it's never used in official documents
b) just an empirical observation complicated by contacts with editors;

http://www.spravka.gramota.ru/pravila.html?gl_4.htm
c) after all, read your link carefully before posting something silly.

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well, it was worthy answer. cheers
[info]mischa [videntity.org]
2006-07-25 08:15 pm UTC (link)
послать на хуй я могу и по-русски

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[info]superslayer18
2006-07-21 02:51 pm UTC (link)
The way I learned it was that there should never be too much doubt because of context, but that (yo) would always be stressed, no matter what, and that if that letter were unstressed then it would disintegrate (I forgot the proper word for when a vowel shortens) into a schwa/ye/e sound. I got that off of the Princeton Russian website, let me see if I can find the exact lines of text for you.

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[info]zeekar
2006-10-24 09:28 pm UTC (link)
are there words where the only difference is that one of them has е and the other one has ё, in the same position?

Да.

:)

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