There is no absolute agreement on the number of phonemes; rarer or contextually variant sounds are included by some scholars.
The primary differences are:[1] Unlike in Russian but like in Ukrainian, Belarusian spelling closely represents surface phonology rather than the underlying morphophonology.
[6] The consonants of Belarusian are as follows:[7] The rare phonemes /ɡ/ and /ɡʲ/ are present only in several borrowed words: ганак [ˈɡanak], гузік [ˈɡuzik].
In addition, [ɡ] and [ɡʲ] are allophones of /k/ and /kʲ/ respectively, when voiced by regressive assimilation, as in вакзал [vaɡˈzal] 'train station'.
This evolved historically from a form with /l/ (as in Russian: ду́мал) which vocalized like the Ł in Polish (cognate dumał, "he mused").