Vowel Reduction

Vowel reduction is very common in many languages. It refers to changes in the acoustic quality of vowels. These changes include duration, loudness, sonority and vowel quality. Many reduced vowels occur in unstressed position.

Vowel reduction often involves centralization of the vowel. In vowel centralization, tongue movement is reduced. The most common reduced vowel is the schwa. This vowel can be heard in the unstressed positions of the English words ago, bullet and carrot.

In addition to English, vowel reduction is common in many other languages. They include German, Dutch, Norwegian, Catalan, Russian and Portuguese. However, vowel reduction is far more common in European Portuguese than in Brazilian.

Russian is a language with significant vowel reduction. For example, the word ostrov (island) is pronounced ['ostraf]. Stress is word-initial, so the first vowel is not reduced but the unstressed vowel is. The word-final consonant is devoiced. The plural ostrova (islands) is pronounced [astrava']. The stress is word-final, so the initial vowel is now reduced to [a]. In Russian the vowel [o] can only occur in stressed position.

The process of vowel reduction occurs in many languages. English also has many examples of vowel reduction. In unstressed position, the schwa is very common in English and in many other languages.