Palatilaziation - Ь and Ъ

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

Can someone help me with ь (soft sign) and ъ (hard sign) [or do I have them reversed?]. My first question is, how do you know when a letter is going to be hard or soft? It seems like in English we only use the soft sounds, because borrowed words almost always take a soft sound. In other words, the Russian tendency is to make hard sound and the English tendency is to make a soft sound (thus film → фильм* ; New → Нью). I'm sure this is completely off base, it's just a trend that I've noticed.

I once read—perhaps on in this community—that the sound is very different to Russian ears, but the subtle difference sounds the same to English ears. It was compared to the final sound in the words bed and bet vs the words угил and угиль. Russians cannot distinguish between "bed" and "bet" but I find that very hard to believe... Would a Russian pronounce бэд and бэт the same way?

Anyway, if someone could explain this process of palatilazation to me I would be very greatful.

*Film may have come from French, but the same principle applies.

Comments

Part 2

[ataltane.livejournal.com]

So the borrowing of foreign vowels is more likely to use the 'more natural' of each vowel pairs: namely и е а о ю. Of course there are complications: ы is often chosen и over since it represents a different vowel sound which may be a better representation of the foreign sound. And э might be chosen over е the unusualness of э in Russian might make that sound very distinctively heard in foreign words (like the way I hear foreign accents are sometimes represented in Russian).

I once read - perhaps on in this community - that the sound is very different to Russian ears, but the subtle difference sounds the same to English ears.

There's a lot of FUD around this issue. The fact is that English has similar (though not exactly the same) difference. Say in 'toon' versus 'tune' .... uh... if you're American, your mileage might vary on that one :). But in my part of the world (Ireland, but also true in Britain), the first is 'тун' and the second is 'тюн' (bordering on 'чун', actually).Hey, maybe I just find them easy because Irish has the same system...


Russians cannot distinguish between "bed" and "bet" but I find that very hard to believe... Would a Russian pronounce бэд and бэт the same way?

I've always read that final voiced consonants are pronounced unvoiced, but from listening to Russian (both among native speakers and on tuition tapes) it doesn't sound like that to me. The issue is complicated, though: speakers of most kinds of English can't distinguish the final sounds of 'bet' and 'bed' from each other per se: rather, the clue lies in the length of the preceding vowel (before a voiced consonant the vowel is a fraction longer). Without those clues (which are in English, but not necessarily other language, which may have different ways of distinguishing them [like actually making the 't' and 'd' more different :)]), I can't really trust what I hear when it comes to voicing of single consonants.


Anyway, if someone could explain this process of palatilazation to me I would be very greatful.


Incidentally, in my experience of literature about Russian (in English), 'palatalisation' is used to refer to a different phenomenon: the way, for example, the way the 'с' in 'писать' ("to write") changes to 'ш' in 'пишу' ("I write"). The palatalisation we're talking about is less of a process and more of a fact of life, so I guess that's ok :)

*Film may have come from French, but the same principle applies.

The principle does indeed apply, but with the opposite conclusion: there's a 'ь' in 'фильм' because that's the way it sounds in French. (it's a hard 'l' in English). Remember that the 'i' in French is like the the 'i' in machine (or even more front), not like the 'i' in English 'film'. Pronounce the French word with that in mind, and you'll see what I mean. In fact, using Cyrillic as a phonetic alphabet :), we have approximately: 'фильм' is the French and 'фылм' is the English. (Though in Dublin, 'филлым' is what you usually hear :)

The other use of the hard/soft signs is to start a new syllable, flavouring the preceding consonant with hardness or softness as appropriate. Actually, I can't explain this area very well, since I'm a bit hazy on the hows and whys, but there's not always a new syllable: in the 'New' of 'New York' (as you've said), it's 'Нью'. AFAIK, this means "Нь + ю", while the apparently more obvious 'Ню' means 'Нь + у'. This is quite subtle to my ears, though over a syllable boundary it's quite clear: 'семья' = 'семь + я', while the (presumably made up) word 'семя' is 'семь + а'. Similar (but even more mind-boggling) things happen with the hard sign. A good example is where you have a verb like 'есть' (this being the infinitive of the verb 'to eat', not the verb 'to be', which is a different 'есть' ;) ... a common Indoeuropean conundrum..) and you want to attach the word 'с' to the front: you can't write 'сесть' because that means 'сь + эсть'. So you write 'съесть', which means 'с + есть', just like 'сьесть' means 'сь + есть'. Phew. Maybe I do understand it (though pride cometh before a fall).



s.

Re: Part 2

[yers.livejournal.com]

семя isn't made-up, it means "seed".

I've always read that final voiced consonants are pronounced unvoiced, but from listening to Russian (both among native speakers and on tuition tapes) it doesn't sound like that to me.
Really? Russian-speaking Ukrainians pronounce the final в as [v] rather than [f] as in standard Russian, but that's about all I can think of. But another issue comes in here, the voicing of final consonants before a word that starts with a voiced consonant. But they're indistinguishable again, there's an identical [d] in обед готов ('dinner is ready') and обет безбрачия ('oath of celibacy').

Re: Part 2

[ataltane.livejournal.com]

семя isn't made-up, it means "seed".

Purely fortuitous, I assure you. :)

Nice to hear (if I understand you correctly) that the textbooks are wrong on yet another thing that didn't match my experience (like the myth about the pronounciation of 'щ') :)

As for before a word that starts with a voiced consonant, I can hear that ok.

Off topic warning: linguistic ramblings ahead

Interesting. This reminds me of nothing more than Irish: Compare

her coat: 'a cóta' ('а кота', ignoring some inaccuracy with the vowels)

his coat: 'a chóta' ('а хота')

their coat: 'a gcota' ('а гота').

The reason for this is in the indoeuropean sources for the words:

a meaning 'his' < eyso
a meaning 'her' < eysos
a meaning 'their' < eysom

In Irish, consonants between vowels were lenited (weakened: typically stops became fricatives), and consonants between a nasal and a vowel were make voiced (or became nasals themselves).

In Irish though, the final s and m of the disappeared after affecting the following consonant, and the merely phonetic accommodation became grammaticised. OK, completely off topic I know, but it's a similar kind of thing to what happens in Russian (except it's still merely phonetic there)

Another Irish/Russian connection: Irish has series of hard and soft consonants too, though we use a writing system more akin to the Polish method to mark it. Personally, I think Irish should be written in Cyrillic (http://ataltane.net/conlangs/sampla-ga.pdf) :).

(Cross posted to mothertonguemothertongue)

Re: Part 2

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

Ай лайк райтинг Энглиш ин Сариллик. :D

Re: Part 2

[ataltane.livejournal.com]

хе хе... фор мор зайнинесс, лоок хер:


http://www.livejournal.com/community/ru_ireland/18781.html?thread=82781#t82781

Re: Part 2

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

Cool, thanks for the link.

Re: Part 2

[ekeme-ndiba.livejournal.com]

Hmm... Usually Ukrainians tend to pronounce the final "в" as [w]. But you're right, in general they don't devoice final consonants. I have an everyday chance to hear my Urkainian coworker saying "б..дь" with a distinct [d'] ;-)