Editing Slavic languages (section)

===Consonants===
The following table shows the inventory of consonants of Late Common Slavic:{{sfn|Schenker|2002|loc=p. 82}}

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
|+ Consonants of Late Proto-Slavic
|-
!
! colspan="2" | [[Labial consonant|Labial]]
! colspan="2" | [[Coronal consonant|Coronal]]
! colspan="2" | [[Palatal consonant|Palatal]]
! colspan="2" | [[Velar consonant|Velar]]
|-
! [[Nasal consonant|Nasal]]
| colspan="2" | {{IPA link|m}}
| colspan="2" | {{IPA link|n}}
| colspan="2" | {{IPA link|nʲ}}
| colspan="2" |
|-
! [[Plosive consonant|Plosive]]
| {{IPA link|p}}
| {{IPA link|b}}
| {{IPA link|t}}
| {{IPA link|d}}
| {{IPA link|tʲː}}
| {{IPA link|dʲː}}
| {{IPA link|k}}
| {{IPA link|ɡ}}
|-
! [[Affricate consonant|Affricate]]
| colspan="2" |
| {{IPA link|ts}}
| {{IPA link|dz}}
| {{IPA link|tʃ}}
|
| colspan="2" |
|-
! [[Fricative consonant|Fricative]]
| colspan="2" |
| {{IPA link|s}}
| {{IPA link|z}}
| {{IPA link|ʃ}}, ({{IPA link|sʲ}}<sup>1</sup>)
| {{IPA link|ʒ}}
| {{IPA link|x}}
|
|-
! [[Trill consonant|Trill]]
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" | {{IPA link|r}}
| colspan="2" | {{IPA link|rʲ}}
| colspan="2" |
|-
! [[Lateral consonant|Lateral]]
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" | {{IPA link|l}}
| colspan="2" | {{IPA link|lʲ}}
| colspan="2" |
|-
! [[Approximant consonant|Approximant]]
| colspan="2" | {{IPA link|ʋ}}
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" | {{IPA link|j}}
| colspan="2" |
|}

<sup>1</sup>The sound {{IPA|/sʲ/}} did not occur in West Slavic, where it had developed to {{IPA|/ʃ/}}.

This inventory of sounds is quite similar to what is found in most modern Slavic languages. The extensive series of [[palatal consonant]]s, along with the [[affricate]]s *ts and *dz, developed through a series of [[Palatalization (sound change)|palatalization]]s that happened during the [[Proto-Slavic]] period, from earlier sequences either of [[velar consonant]]s followed by [[front vowel]]s (e.g. *ke, *ki, *ge, *gi, *xe, and *xi), or of various consonants followed by *j (e.g. *tj, *dj, *sj, *zj, *rj, *lj, *kj, and *gj, where *j is the [[palatal approximant]] ({{IPA|[j]}}, the sound of the English letter "y" in "yes" or "you").

The biggest change in this inventory results from a further [[History of the Slavic languages#General palatalization|general palatalization]] occurring near the end of the Common Slavic period, where ''all'' consonants became palatalized before front vowels. This produced a large number of new palatalized (or "soft") sounds, which formed pairs with the corresponding non-palatalized (or "hard") consonants{{sfn|Comrie|Corbett|2002|loc=p. 6}} and absorbed the existing palatalized sounds {{IPA link|*lʲ *rʲ *nʲ *sʲ}}. These sounds were best preserved in Russian but were lost to varying degrees in other languages (particularly Czech and Slovak). The following table shows the inventory of modern Russian:

{| class="wikitable nowrap" style="text-align: center;"
|+ Consonant phonemes of Russian
|-
! rowspan="2" |
! colspan="2" | [[Labial consonant|Labial]]
! colspan="2" | [[Dental consonant|Dental]] & <br> [[Alveolar consonant|Alveolar]]
! colspan="2" | [[Postalveolar consonant|Post-<br>alveolar]]/<br>[[Palatal consonant|Palatal]]
! colspan="2" | [[Velar consonant|Velar]]
|-
! <small>hard</small>
! <small>soft</small>
! <small>hard</small>
! <small>soft</small>
! <small>hard</small>
! <small>soft</small>
! <small>hard</small>
! <small>soft</small>
|-
! [[Nasal consonant|Nasal]]
| {{IPA link|m}} || {{IPA link|mʲ}}
| {{IPA link|n}} || {{IPA link|nʲ}}
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
|-
! [[Stop consonant|Stop]]
| {{IPA link|p}} &nbsp; {{IPA link|b}} || {{IPA link|pʲ}} &nbsp; {{IPA link|bʲ}}
| {{IPA link|t̪|t}} &nbsp; {{IPA link|d̪|d}} || {{IPA link|tʲ}} &nbsp; {{IPA link|dʲ}}
| colspan="2" |
| {{IPA link|k}} &nbsp; {{IPA link|ɡ}} || {{IPA link|kʲ}} &nbsp; {{IPA link|ɡʲ}}
|-
! [[Affricate consonant|Affricate]]
| colspan="2" |
| {{IPA link|t͡s}} || ({{IPA link|t͡sʲ}})
| &nbsp; || {{IPA link|t͡ɕ}}
| colspan="2" |
|-
! [[Fricative consonant|Fricative]]
| {{IPA link|f}} &nbsp; {{IPA link|v}} || {{IPA link|fʲ}} &nbsp; {{IPA link|vʲ}}
| {{IPA link|s}} &nbsp; {{IPA link|z}} || {{IPA link|sʲ}} &nbsp; {{IPA link|zʲ}}
| {{IPA link|ʂ}} &nbsp; {{IPA link|ʐ}} || {{IPA link|ɕː}} &nbsp; {{IPA link|ʑː}}
| {{IPA link|x}} &nbsp; &nbsp; || {{IPA link|xʲ}} &nbsp;
|-
! [[Trill consonant|Trill]]
| colspan="2" |
| {{IPA link|r}} || {{IPA link|rʲ}}
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
|-
! [[Approximant consonant|Approximant]]
| colspan="2" |
| {{IPA link|ɫ|l}} || {{IPA link|lʲ}}
| &nbsp; || {{IPA link|j}}
| colspan="2" |
|}

This general process of palatalization did not occur in Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian. As a result, the modern consonant inventory of these languages is nearly identical to the Late Common Slavic inventory.

Late Common Slavic tolerated relatively few [[consonant cluster]]s. However, as a result of the loss of certain formerly present vowels (the weak [[yer]]s), {{failed verification span|the modern Slavic languages allow quite complex clusters, as in the Russian word {{lang|ru|'''взбл'''еск}} {{IPA|ru|vzblʲesk|}} ("flash"). Also present in many Slavic languages are clusters rarely found cross-linguistically, as in Russian {{lang|ru|'''рт'''уть}} {{IPA|ru|rtutʲ|}} ("mercury") or Polish {{lang|pl|'''mch'''u}} {{IPA|pl|mxu|}} ("moss", gen. sg.). The word for "mercury" with the initial ''rt-'' cluster, for example, is also found in the other East and West Slavic languages, although Slovak retains an [[epenthetic]] vowel ({{lang|sk|ortuť}}).|date=October 2020}}{{sfn|Nilsson|2014|loc=p. 41}}