Şapa (Шапа) - frog Üpĕte (Ӳпĕте) - monkey, Ükerçĕk (Ӳкерчĕк) - drawing Jiraf (Жираф) - giraffe, Juk (Жук) - beatle, Jyuri (Жюри) - jury Energi (Энерги) - energy, Etem (Этем) - human, Epĕr (Эпĕр) - we Yuman (Юман) - oak, Yur (Юр) - snow Yalav (Ялав) - flag, Yapala (Япала) - thing Jomkăś (Ёмкăҫ) - container, Jorşik (ёршик) - brush Wăylă (Вăйлă) - strong, Wiśśĕ (Виҫҫĕ) - three Transliteration of the Chuvash alphabet 1873–1938 The modern Chuvash alphabet was devised in 1873 by school inspector Ivan Yakovlevich Yakovlev. In 1938, the alphabet underwent significant modification which brought it to its current form. Previous systems The most ancient writing system, known as the Old Turkic alphabet, disappeared after the Volga Bulgars converted to Islam. Later, the Arabic script was adopted. After the Mongol invasion, writing degraded. After Peter the Great's reforms Chuvash elites disappeared, blacksmiths and some other crafts were prohibited for non-Russian nations, the Chuvash were educated in Russian, while writing in runes recurred with simple folk. Phonology Consonants The consonants are the following (the corresponding Cyrillic letters are in brackets): The stops, sibilants and affricates are voiceless and fortes but become lenes (sounding similar to voiced) in intervocalic position and after liquids, nasals and semi-vowels. Аннепе sounds like annebe, but кушакпа sounds like kuzhakpa. However, geminate consonants do not undergo this lenition. Furthermore, the voiced consonants occurring in Russian are used in modern Russian-language loans. Consonants also become palatalized before and after front vowels. However, some words like пульчӑклӑ "dirty", present palatalized consonants without preceding or succeeding front vowels, and should be understood that such are actually phonemic: , , . can have a voiced allophone of . Vowels According to Krueger (1961), the Chuvash vowel system is as follows (the precise IPA symbols are chosen based on his description since he uses a different transcription). András Róna-Tas (1997) provides a somewhat different description, also with a partly idiosyncratic transcription. The following table is based on his version, with additional information from Petrov (2001). Again, the IPA symbols are not directly taken from the works so they could be inaccurate. The vowels ӑ and ӗ are described as reduced, thereby differing in quantity from the rest. In unstressed positions, they often resemble a schwa or tend to be dropped altogether in fast speech. At times, especially when stressed, they may be somewhat rounded and sound similar to and .