Pronunciation of 'Сегодня'

Question

According to the spelling of the word, I would think it would be pronounced
Seguhdnya - Сегодня

However, i've seen several lessons in Russian where it would be pronounced
SeVuhdnya - (but spelled Сегодня)

Is there a reason why it's pronounced like this? Would a Russian speaker consider this incorrect pronunciation?

Все русские говорят или sivOdnya или syOdnya (СивОдня, Сёдня.) — , Apr 26 '13 at 17:41

Yellow Sky · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-06T09:51:10.637

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The adverb cегодня is derived, like many other Russian adverbs, from a noun phrase, cего дня ("[on] this day"). Both words in this noun phrase are in the Genetive case, the first one having a typical pronominal declension endinhg -его, in which г is written, but в is pronounced:

сего - pronounced as [си'во],

его - pronounced as [йи'во]

синего - pronounced as ['синива]

(the same rule applies to the variant of this ending, -ого - большого - pronounced as [баль'шовa])

The pronunciation of the letter e as [и] in these words is due to the rule of the reduction of unstressed vowels. According to this rule, the letter e in the syllable that precedes the stressed syllable is pronounced as [и].

So, the IPA for cегодня is [sʲɪˈvodʲnʲə], practical Russian transcription is [сиˈводьня]. Also, you can listen to the recording of this word pronounced by a native speaker of Russian.

Pronunciation with [г]/[g] is incorrect.

edited Apr 06 '13 at 09:51

answered Apr 06 '13 at 09:30

Yellow Sky

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What transcription system do you use? It seems it is not what usually accepted for Russian. It does not indicate which consonants are soft. And the stress is indicated as in English. -1. – Anixx Apr 06 '13 at 13:12
@Anixx - At least it shows the stressed vowel, which isn't the case with your transcription. Also, the palatalisation of д is missing in your transcription. – Yellow Sky Apr 06 '13 at 17:41
д is not palatalized here, you are wrong. – Anixx Apr 06 '13 at 21:38
@Anixx - I cannot agree with you about д. I cannot imagine this word pronounced with a "hard" д. – Yellow Sky Apr 06 '13 at 21:43
And I cannot imagine it pronounced with soft "д". Such pronunciation is grossly wrong http://www.verbo.ru/verbe13.php – Anixx Apr 06 '13 at 22:01
@Anixx - Just listen to the audio I gave a link to in my answer. Is it a good pronunciation? The girl pronounces a definitely soft "д". – Yellow Sky Apr 06 '13 at 22:08
No, she pronounces hard "д". This is indeed a correct pronunciation. Your "IPA" transcription is incorrect. – Anixx Apr 06 '13 at 22:12
@Anixx - Look, you're wrong, she pronounces a soft "д", and talking with you this way is boring, if you cannot hear what's obvious. Have a look, that's from Ushakov's dictionary: http://i.imgur.com/WaAcPii.jpg – Yellow Sky Apr 06 '13 at 22:29
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I can of course easy distinguish which sound is soft and which is not, unlike you. Ushakov dictionary is very old (first half of XX century). This is what writes Litnevskaya texbook http://www.gramota.ru/book/litnevskaya.php?part1.htm : "В речи некоторых носителей (в современном языке это скорее исключение, чем правило) возможно позиционное смягчение и в некоторых других сочетаниях, например: дверь [д’в’эр’], съем [с’й’эм]." So at best it is a hard dialectism. Even more, if one can imagine "дверь" with soft д, although unnatural, it is impossible to imagine soft д in сегодня or дневной – Anixx Apr 06 '13 at 22:55
Again, the record you linked, pronounces clear hard д. – Anixx Apr 06 '13 at 22:56
Thanks for the answer! The noun-phrase concept is becoming more and more clear as i learn russian. This makes sense. – ddavison Apr 07 '13 at 03:03
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@Anixx - I have cut off the -ня at the end of that record so that you could clearly hear that it's the soft д there: https://soundcloud.com/olexa108/ru – Yellow Sky Apr 07 '13 at 03:18
@sircapsalot - You are welcome. – Yellow Sky Apr 07 '13 at 03:24
@sircapsalot take in the account that the IPA transcription is incorrect here. – Anixx Apr 07 '13 at 03:39
@sircapsalot - The transcription is correct. – Yellow Sky Apr 07 '13 at 03:41
Specially for you [с'эводн'а] and [с'эвод'н'а] produced with speech synthesizer: http://arxiv.hotbox.ru/Sounds/sev1.wav http://arxiv.hotbox.ru/Sounds/sev2.wav – Anixx Apr 07 '13 at 04:31
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@Anixx - Г. А. Тихомирова. Фонетика русского языка. Теория и практика. 2009. http://www.rsu.edu.ru/files/e-learning/Tihomirova_Phonetic/70.html – Yellow Sky Apr 07 '13 at 11:06
@Yellow Sky that book does not say anything concrete about this case, stating that the rules are vague. – Anixx Apr 26 '13 at 18:21
Hey @YellowSky thanks again for the answer. I was reading my Grammar book and found the section that describes why it's pronounced this way. Take a look at my answer :) – ddavison Dec 23 '13 at 05:10
@Anixx I don't any softening described in your verbo.ru link, nor it's done in modern common South dialect as I hear it. OTOH this kind of assimilation is typical for native East (mainly Suzdal) and could have stably affected Moscow. Anyway I guess it's minor issue. – Netch Dec 23 '13 at 08:01
Palatalisation is not to be there. It is a dialectical thihg, whereas normal form of d is hard. – Viridianus Feb 25 '14 at 16:54

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 15 '13 at 02:10

I don't think that Russian native speakers should be too hard on English speaking people trying to learn Russian :) If one is not a linguist giving IPA [sʲɪˈvodʲnʲə] would not help a bit. Here is an alternative pronunciation for English native speakers for "сегодня": "S'ehvohdn'a", where apostrophe indicates palatalization.

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 23 '13 at 05:09

The reason that this is pronounced "сиводня" is because дня, meaning day is part of the genitive case of on this (сиво) and the rule is:

The Letter Г in the masculine and neuter genitive singular ending is pronounced like the English V

This is the authoritative answer I was looking for :)

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Oct 09 '20 at 19:51

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It is NOT pronounced "seVuhdnya" - there are NO "u" and "y" sounds in this word.

The pronunciation is [с'эводн'а] or [с'иводн'а] - these pronunciations are correct and allophonic. Pronunciation with [г] is incorrect.

edited Oct 09 '20 at 19:51

Glorfindel

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answered Apr 06 '13 at 06:39

Anixx

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I guess "uh" is an attempt to apply spelled pronunciation – default locale Apr 08 '13 at 08:55
It's not incorrect: I can imagine [с'егодн'я] when talked slow and official like Левитан did. – alamar May 21 '13 at 08:57
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@alamar Levitan had possibly an outdated pronunciation. – Anixx May 21 '13 at 10:21
I'm just saying that in Russian no pronunciation is wrong when it matches the spelling. Even if nobody is talking that way right now, reversal is quite possible: See дождь that used to be pronounced [дощ] and now it's universally [дожд'] or [дошт'] – alamar May 22 '13 at 18:58

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 15 '13 at 21:10

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It's pronouncing like this: "Sevodnya" or (in Cyrillic) "Сиводня".

answered Apr 15 '13 at 21:10

volter9

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Welcome to Russian Language and Usage. Your answer is very short and repeats other answers. Please change it so that your contribution is more obvious. If you agree with somebody's else answer, just upvote it, there is no need to repeat it unless you wish to give a more detailed explanation than the answers of other community members. – Olga Apr 16 '13 at 06:27

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 07 '14 at 18:00

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The pronunciation is [s'ivodn'i] with stressed o and apostrophee for palatalisation. There is [v] because it comes from сего дня, where -его is ending of pronoun which is always pronounced with [v] instead of [g].

answered Feb 07 '14 at 18:00

Viridianus

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score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 07 '14 at 21:49

I would say that Moscow version of today will sound likе "Sevodnya". Where "o" is somewhere between "o" and "а" in its sound. And "ya" means short soft "n" together with "ya" sound like in nyan cat. "Sego" sounding like Sega with "o" on the end is not used in actual spoken language for close to 100 years. Even in written language you will not see "sego" separately in last hundred of years.

Pronunciation of 'Сегодня'

7 Answers7