Akanye

Akanye (Russian: аканье [ˈakənʲjɪ]) or akanje (Belarusian: аканне [ˈakanʲːe]; lit. 'a-ing') is a sound change in Slavic languages in which the phonemes /o/ or /e/ are realized as more or less close to [a]. It is a case of vowel reduction.

The most familiar example is probably Russian akanye (pronounced but not systematically represented orthographically in the standard language). Akanye also occurs in:

• Standard Belarusian (represented orthographically)
• Northern (Polissian and Slobozhan) Ukrainian dialects
• Slovene dialects (e.g., Lower Carniolan dialects),
• Some subgroups of the Kajkavian dialect of Croatian
• Bulgarian dialects (e.g., the Rhodope dialects, including the Smolyan dialect).
• Polish dialects (Podlasie, Kresy)