What is "akanye"

Akanye or akanje (, ) is a phonological phenomenon in Slavic languages in which the phoneme or is realized as more or less close to . It is a case of vowel reduction. The most familiar example is probably Russian akanye (pronounced but not represented orthographically in the standard language). Akanye is also found in standard Belarusian (represented orthographically) as well as in northern (Polissian) Ukrainian dialects, Slovene dialects (e.g., Lower Carniolan dialects), some subgroups of the Kajkavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian dialects (e.g., the Rhodope dialects, including the Smolyan dialect).