Talk:Iotation

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The article Korean language links here, but then one does not find any information here about Korean, only about Slavic languages. In what way should this be redressed? In the Korean article or here???

Nice work, Nikola. Michael Z.

This article needs a big overhaul. Perhaps just merge it with Palatalization. At least it needs some more English grammar and some fewer mistakes (for example it confuses Russian and Ukrainian).

David Marjanović 14:40 CET-summertime 2005/8/29

In Serbian, plural of 'grana' is 'grane'. 'Granje' is mass noun (if it is correct term in English) - Serbian 'gradivna imenica'. In the same manner, plural of list is listovi, "lišće" is mass noun. Column name should be changed and text should be adapted accordingly.Saigon from europe 13:13, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

On the table which lists iotated consonants in the Soth Slavic languages. I made one small amendment, changing the 'Ć' which was represented by 'THSjE' into a plain 'TjE' to correspond to 'Đ', as (DjE). I know that in Serbo-Croat dialects, the sounds have yielded to a phoneme closer to original 'č' and 'dž' but I feel it necessary to state their proposed sound. It is also worth mentioning that Macedonian equivalents are based on exactly the same sounds as their Serbian counterparts. It is a mistake to assume that Macedonian and Serbian 'šećer' and 'šekjer' (sugar) have different pronunciations. Macedonian employs 'Kj' wherever Serbian employs 'ć', which in nearly all primary cases replaces the 'T'+iotation. In the case of 'sugar', the iotation follows the K because the word is taken directly from Turkish (şeker) (from Persian shakar), ultimately from Sanskrit and for some reason, the second 'e' is iotated. Either way, the nature of G and D; along with K and T, work the same ways. The first sound is a stop involving a click of the back of the tongue, the second with the front. When attempting to pronounce either K or T with the back of the tongue raises, it is impossible to click either the back or the front and as such, the sound is the same. If one makes the effort to click the back of the tongue and follow this with what he thinks is the iotation, he will have pronounced two seperate phonemes, the second amounting to 'i' and not 'j'. So even though Macedonian uses a different Cyrillic symbol to Serbian, and even though Macedonian and Serbian speakers adhere to a standard pronuncation differing from the other, the principle of the sounds remains the same. A modified Serbian script should now accept that ć and č have effectively become the same sound with the former sounding like the latter (ie. no back of the tongue raised, and starting in 'T' position and breaking into 'Sh'), the only difference being that when saying the latter, the tongue is forced further back into the mouth for the harsher effect. So far, this behaviour has not been considered worthy of a seperate phoneme. Macedonian in turn favours a clear initial 'K' sound (even though the original sound was 'T'), and in doing this, (Kje) (verb: will) is prnounced (K+back vowel {i} + e). The distinction between K+j and K+i is that the only way to avoid the proper 'Kj' sound is to make a quick silent pause between the K and J in which case, it should be represented by a phoneme equivalent to the Russian hard sign. I hope this doesn't confuse anyone; only intellectual linguists would be reading the 'iotation' page in the first place! Celtmist

Yes, though note that that table is about letters, not the sounds they make. Is "Tje" used in English as name for Ћ? Nikola 06:38, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What about Yu (Ю)? 62.21.31.113 23:37, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is the Spanish letter ñ an example of iotation? If so, I think it should be given. ¿ςפקιДИτς! ☺ ☻ 20:11, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is this the same with Vietnamese Nh and French Gn?

The Spanish ñ is palatalized. I think iotation is a historical property of vowels in Cyrillic orthography (not sure if the article is strictly correct when it refers to iotated consonants). —Michael Z. 2007-07-25 19:59 Z

Are palatization and iotation the same thing? In all the Russian grammar books I've read they say they that, for example in the combination ня, the н is palatized.

The term 'iotation' is only used to described vowels, e.g. when the so-called soft vowels don't palatize a consonant (because they begin a word or follow a hard or soft sign.)

e.g. Ялта = jalta (the Я is iotated) But тётя = t^jot^ja (the Я is not iotated, the T is palatized and followed by the un-iotated A)

As Serbian Wikipedia would put it, "iotation is merging of nonpalatal consonants with /j/, that creates palatal consonants". Not all palatal consonants are iotated, that is, some are palatalized by other means than merging them with /j/. Nikola (talk) 10:20, 9 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Iotization (also iotisation, iotation) is the preceding of a spoken vowel sound with a "y" sound. It happens in English (in the words "pure" and "cute"), in French, and in Slavic languages. Palatalization is the softening of a hard consonant sound, which also occurs in non-Slavic languages.

Because the prototypical Greek alphabet didn't have letters for this, the Cyrillic alphabet created ligatures to represent iotized vowel sounds: ꙗ, ѥ, ю, ѩ, ѭ. Since then, various Cyrillic alphabets have been adapted with new letters for iotized vowels, я, е, є, і, ю, ё, and for iotizing semivowels, й and ј. Although we refer to the letter ꙗ as iotized a, after the sound it represents, remember that iotization is the modification of a sound, not of a letter.

This article needs a bit of rewriting. Iotify/iotified/iotification aren't proper English words and should be replaced by iotize(d)/iotization (in use since the 1850s and defined in the OED) or iotate(d)/iotation (1940s). It should probably be renamed Iotization in Slavic languages, or to cover the whole topic of Palatalization in Slavic languages. —Michael Z. 2009-04-04 19:42 z

I can't speak for other Slavic languages, but in the case of Czech, 'softening' is more a case of a consonant (perhaps in a palatized position) merged with a following glide (/j/). As differentiated from a consonant that is simply articulated in a different (i.e. palatized) position.

Please give any reason why the abovementioned letters were historically iotified. Where and when they are supposed to be so? Alone Coder (talk) 20:51, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I visited this page because of "see also" of the article "palatalization". There it says "Iotation, a related process in Slavic languages". Now here, I read "It should not be confused with palatalization, which is an entirely different process".--2.246.17.248 (talk) 17:10, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This article mixes up two things: (1.) the development that occurred in Proto-Slavic from earlier C + /j/, and (2.) the existence of palatalised consonants in several modern Slavic languages, most notably Russian. There is some overlap between the two, but they are absolutely not the same thing. For example, Slavic palatalised /t'/ yields Russian /tɕ/, while Slavic palatalised /b'/ yields Russian /bl'/. Russian /t'/ and /b'/ accordingly have different origins, namely other sound changes that occurred later on.

The Slavic languages have a perpetual tendency to produce sibilants and palatals. There are at least six processes that must be distinguished: (1.) Balto-Slavic satemisation, (2.) First Proto-Slavic palatalisation, (3.) Second Proto-Slavic palatalisation, (4.) Third Proto-Slavic palatalisation, (5.) Iotation, (6.) further palatalisation in the individual Slavic languages (e.g. Russian /t'/, Polish <ć>). An effort should be made to distinguish them more clearly. 88.64.225.53 (talk) 20:02, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]