Iotation
Iotation is a form of
palatalisation which occurs in
Slavic languages. In most of them, iotated consonants are called soft consonants and the process of iotation is called softening.
singular¦¦Serbian
singular> | Serbian
plural | | branch| | |
| leaf| | / |
| stone | / | / |
It occurs by the mixing of a
consonant with the
palatal approximant /j/, which is in the
Greek alphabet represented by
iota (ι), hence the name. For example,
ni in
English onion has the sound of iotated
n. The example on the right shows how the
Serbian language uses iotation to express the
plural of a certain class of words.
An iotated consonant is represented in
IPA with superscript j after it and in
X-SAMPA with apostrophe after it, so the pronunciation of iotated n could be represented as or [
n'].
As it was invented for the writing of Slavic languages, the
Cyrillic alphabet has relatively complex ways for representing iotation, devoting an entire class of letters to deal with the issue; there are letters which represent iotified consonants as well as letters which iotify adjacent consonants or prevent their iotation. Their exact use depends on language; see
Cyrillic alphabet as used in Slavic languages.
The adjective for a
phone which undergoes iotation is
iotated and for a
letter formed as
ligature of the
Early Cyrillic I (І) and another letter, which is used to represent iotation, is
iotified.
In the
Cyrillic alphabet, some letter forms are iotified, that is, formed as a
ligature of
Early Cyrillic I (І) and a vowel.
In old inscriptions, other iotified letters, even consonants, could be found, but these are not parts of a regular alphabet.
There are more letters which serve the same function, but their
glyphs are not made in the same way.
When
Vuk Karadžić reformed the
Serbian language (the system still largely influential over the
Macedonian language), he created new letters which represent iotated consonants. This was possible because in Serbian and Macedonian only several consonants can be iotated. Though it might seem logical, the letters themselves are
not called "iotated letters" or by any similar name.
*
palatalization*
Cyrillic alphabet*
soft sign
