Question..

[samoria.livejournal.com]

How would you say Samoria in Russian? It's pronounced Sam-or-ee-uh...

I was thinking is was CAMЙPИЯ... is this right?

Comments

[kniazhna.livejournal.com]

Yes, this is exactly what I'm trying to say. Й is an и краткое ("short и" in translation; yes, it does correspond to a [j] sound, which is also a non-syllabic и - a vowel in its root), a letter which is neither a consonant nor a vowel and stands alone by itself along with soft and hard signs (http://encycl.yandex.ru/cgi-bin/art.pl?art=io/io/19000/13178.htm&encpage=io&mrkp=/yandbtm7%3Fq%3D-1784182801%26p%3D0%26g%3D3%26d%3D0%26ag%3Denc_abc%26tg%3D1%26p0%3D0%26q0%3D856233717%26d0%3D2%26script%3D/yandpage%253F).

[yers.livejournal.com]

буква “й” передаёт “и неслоговое” или j; “ъ” и “ь” не обозначают отдельных звуков.
So where does it say that it's neither a consonant nor a vowel?

[kniazhna.livejournal.com]

Have you ever gone to a grammar school in Russia? If you did, then you should have seen an alphabet chart split in vowels (red) and consonants (blue) up above the blackboard. Nowhere in those color-coded charts was an й. It was in the white one - with the other two letters. The link doesn't say anything about that, but it's a given - taught in school. And like it's that hard to figure out that an и краткое (gosh, an и at the root of this letter is a vowel, no matter how short it is) is not an actual consonant in some cases. It's neither, or - both depending on the case, just like a "y" in English (and version of alphabet description).

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

Regardless of й's relation to и and ь, it's still a consonant, although an unusual one. I'm struggling to come up with an example of where й doesn't behave like a consonant and I'm failing.

I just checked the two Russian linguistic texts I have on hand (Russian: A Linguistic Introduction by Cubberly, and Levin's Russian Declension and Conjugation) to make sure I'm not smoking something, and both treat й as a consonant.

Perhaps this whole discussion is just evidence of a split between linguistic perception and the perception of native speakers ... ?

yeah

[yers.livejournal.com]

Наконец, к варьированию по способу образования следует отнести мену [j]//[й] в различных позициях. Сильный напряжённый фрикативный среднеязычный согласный [j] произносится в позиции перед ударными гласными: "яблоко" [jáблъкъ], "юбка"[jýпкъ], "ель" [jел'], "моя" [маjá]. Во всех остальных позициях произносится сонорный согласный [й], фонетические особенности которого заключаются в том, что он является слабым и менее напряжённым: "трамвай" [трамвáй], "зайка" [зáйкъ], "явление" [йивл'éн'ийь], "юмористический" [йумър'ис'т'úч'ьск'ий]. Согласный [й] артикулируется при более широкой щели и с более слабой воздушной струёй, чем согласный [j].
http://www.philol.msu.ru/rus/lena-1/conson/mesto2.html

[kniazhna.livejournal.com]

Perhaps so ;) At least, it's been an ongoing matter of dispute for a long time now :)

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

From your comment to yers, it appears like this is just something taught in grammar school?

Since й sometimes behaves strangely, it makes sense to separate it from the other consonants when teaching basic grammar, but linguistically, I see no evidence of a debate about its consonantal status.