The phonological system of the modern Belarusian language consists of at least 44 phonemes: 5 vowels and 39 consonants. Consonants may also be geminated. There is not absolute agreement on the number of phonemes, so that rarer or contextually variant sounds are included by some scholars.
Vowels[]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | [ɨ] | u |
| Mid | e | ə | ɔ |
| Open | a |
Consonants[]
The consonants of Belarusian are as follows:
| Labial | Alveolar, Dental |
Retroflex | Dorsal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | pal. | plain | pal. | plain | pal. | ||
| Nasal | m | mʲ | n̪ | n̪ʲ | |||
| Stop | p b |
pʲ bʲ |
t̪ d̪ |
k (ɡ) |
kʲ (ɡʲ) | ||
| Affricate | ts̪ dz̪ |
ts̪ʲ dz̪ʲ |
ʈʂ ɖʐ |
||||
| Fricative | f v |
fʲ vʲ |
s z |
sʲ zʲ |
ʂ ʐ |
x ɣ |
xʲ ɣʲ |
| Approximant (Lateral) |
(w) | l̪ | l̪ʲ | (j) | j | ||
| Trill | r | ||||||