Quote:
Originally Posted by Oberon
I always thought it was 'Nyet' with a y.  Then again, I spent a few years thinking Spasibo was Spasib a because of the pronunciation.  |
Linguist here
The "nyet"/"net"/"niet" thing is basically because Russian has two main "e"s: the "э", which is closer to the English e in "net" or "bet", and the "е", which is often stylized as "ye", but in actuality sounds like only the "e" part of "yet" or "yes". The difference between them being "hard"/"soft" or "low"/"high" - easiest explanation would be the difference between the German "u" and "ü". So the Russian word "нет" sounds like "nyet" if you took out the "y" but still pronounced the "e" in the same way as with the "y".
The "spasibo"/"spasiba" thing is a phonological issue with stress. Say in English, you have the noun "perfect" (pErfect) vs. the verb "to perfect" (perfEct) which, in most dialects, sound different because of which vowel you stress. Russian is similar, but with a caveat: in standard modern Russian (i.e. the dialects spoken in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and most other large cities), the vowels which are not stressed in a word are relatively "weak" sounds and sort of blend together, with "a"s and "o"s, and "i"s and "e"s that sound kind of the same or like some generic vowel in between. In "spasibo" (spasIbo), spelling rules aside, it doesn't matter if you make it "sposiba" or "spasibo" or "sposibo" or "spasiba" - as long as the "i" is clearly pronounced, the other two vowels really don't matter and will sound exactly the same when read out loud by a standard Russian speaker. Russian phonological tendencies like that are the basis of Russian memes and internet-speak, where people will intentionally misspell stuff because, hey, "privet" and "preved" sound exactly the same when read out by a normal Russian anyway!
That's not true of all dialects, and often for example someone who clearly enunciates their "o"s (regardless of stress in the word) is considered to sound "provincial". For example, my grandfather, who grew up in a village near Demyansk, pronounced his vowels very clearly and distinctly. But it wasn't the way they were written, either. For example, he always pronounced "ogorod" (vegetable garden) as a very clear and distinct "ugarod". Go figure!
tl;dr, Russian phonology is pretty funky
