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[ob-ivan.livejournal.com]

Hello here. I have a question 'bout classification of Russian letters.

Should we treat Й as a vowel or as a consonant?

Comments

[ob-ivan.livejournal.com]

> a letter represents a sound. It cannot behave like a sound

Yeah, we should have started with that. Generally we cannot say whether a letter is a vowel or consonant, this division is only about sounds.

I have read in some book (i don't remember exactly the book) that Й and so called 'jotted' vowels had a real /j/ sound only when placed in the word's beginning. But being placed after a vowel the /j/ sound converted into a неслоговая (i.e. 'not producing a syllable') vowel (in IPA: undotted i, as in /mein/ being the reading of the word 'main'). And /j/ was considered a consonant sound, and /i/ (undotted) was a semi-vowel.