Editing Iotation (section)

{{Short description|Type of sound change in Slavic languages}}
{{about|palatalization in Slavic languages|iotated vowels in Korean|Korean phonology#Diphthongs and glides}}

In [[Slavic languages]], '''iotation''' ({{IPAc-en|j|oʊ|ˈ|t|eɪ|.|ʃ|ən}}, {{IPAc-en|ˌ|aɪ|.|oʊ|ˈ|t|eɪ|.|ʃ|ən}}) is a form of [[palatalization (phonetics)|palatalization]] that occurs when a consonant comes into contact with the [[palatal approximant]] {{IPA|/j/}} from the succeeding phoneme. The {{IPA|/j/}} is represented by [[iota]] (ι) in the [[early Cyrillic alphabet]] and the [[Greek alphabet]] on which it is based. For example, ''ni'' in [[English language|English]] ''onion'' has the sound of iotated ''n''. Iotation is a phenomenon distinct  from [[Slavic first palatalization]] in which only the front vowels are involved, but the final result is similar.