PHONEME SYSTEMS IN RUSSIAN AND UZBEK: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES

Abstract

This article compares the phoneme inventories and core oppositions of Russian and Uzbek within a descriptive–typological framework. We examine vowel and consonant phoneme systems, the role of secondary articulations, the behavior of phonemes in prosodically weak positions, and phonological processes affecting contrast maintenance. Russian is characterized by a six-vowel analysis with extensive unstressed reduction and a robust palatalized vs. non-palatalized consonant contrast, alongside obligatory final devoicing and regressive assimilation of obstruents. Uzbek, in turn, presents a six-vowel system with relatively stable quality across stress conditions, lacks a general palatalization opposition, and contrasts velar vs. uvular series (/k ~ q/, /g ~ g‘/, /x/) that Russian does not possess. The comparison highlights convergences such as shared affricates and fricatives through borrowing, as well as divergences arising from agglutinative morphology and syllable structure preferences in Uzbek versus the morphophonemic alternations driven by stress and reduction in Russian. Implications are drawn for phonological description, second-language acquisition, and orthography-phonology mapping.