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

Re: Part 1

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

Thank you... Still a little confusing and it brings up a few more questions, and leaves one unanswered:

• привет - the /r/ and /v/ are soft, here, right? Does that mean that (hypothetically, if it were a word) пръивъет would be pronounced as прывэт?
  
• Should I assume that all consenents are hard when they do not preceed a vowel? Using привет again, the /p/ is hard because it is followed by an /r/ and not by a vowel? Thus филм is pronounced /fьilъmъ/ so the ь sign is necessary to make the /l/ soft?
  
• What's the deal with Нью (as in Нью Йорк) when Ну is closer to the sound in English and the ю makes it soft anyway?!
  

Re: Part 1

[kasak.livejournal.com]

пръивъет would not be pronounced прывэт. Here's why.

When you put a hard sign in front of a soft vowel, like in the word въезд. The в is hard, but the e is still a e. How it is distinguished is you add a tiny tiny pause between saying в and езд, so that the в is not softened.

On your second question, a consonant is softened whenever a soft vowel comes after it. In привет, the р and the в are both soft, because they are followed by soft vowels. If it were прыв(й)эт, the all the consonants would be hard because they are affected by hard vowels.

And regarding Нью Йорк...

Think of how someone with an Oxford English accent saying "New York." They would pronounce it like "Nyoo York." We Americans just pronounce it like Ну Йорк. The Russians were talking with the British long before they started talking to us, so they Russified New York as Нью Йорк because that's how the British pronounced it. English is weird like that. We can pronounce our entire language differently, change vowels and such, and still have it be the same word and the same language. If you did that in Russian, people would be really confused.

Re: Part 1

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

Thank you for explaining the "Нью Йорк" thing, and the rest of it :D

Re: Part 1

[kasak.livejournal.com]

Also, if you want to know why the л in фильм is soft, here's my theory.

Russians borrowed plenty of words from the Germans in their time: маршрут (originally meaning "marching route" now it just means "route"), картофель (potato), холм (originally meaning "island" now it means "hill," since I guess hills are islands of the steppes), кино (cinema/movies).

Taking this into account, and judging from my knowledge of the German language, I can make a guess on why the л in фильм is soft. The /l/ sound in German is different than the /l/ in English and several other Western European languages. Ours is more of a "dark" /l/, meaning that it sounds murkier compared to theirs. Their "light" /l/ sounds almost like a ль, but stops just short of the palatalization mark. All German /l/ sounds are pronounced thusly. It's not quite soft, but it's definitely a more delicate sound than the English /l/.

Again, this is just a theory. I really don't know if it's valid or not. Just my inturpretation of its Russification roots.

Re: Part 1

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

Another person theorized that it comes from French word (since мьуви is closer to the more commonly used English word) and the French /l/ is a little different from the English /l/. Thanks for all your info!

Re: Part 1

[corriel.livejournal.com]

What kasak said about the German /l/ is also true for the French /l/, thus written in Russian it also ends up as "ль".

Re: Part 1

[yers.livejournal.com]

you add a tiny tiny pause between saying в and езд
Not a pause, but a [j] sound.

Re: Part 1

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

So, (this is hypothetical... I have no idea if these are actually words) these would be pronounced like this:

дя → dja
дъа → dja
дья → da
да → da

Re: Part 1

[ekeme-ndiba.livejournal.com]

Nope. Here's the rule: hard sign "ъ" is used only before "compound" vowels (я, е, ё, ю) to indicate that the preceeding consonant is not palatalized, while the vowel itself is yotized ([j] sound added). So, your hypothetical "дъа" is totally impossible combination, it's simply meaningless, so "ъ" is never used before а, и, о, у, ы and э. On the other hand, when soft sign "ь" occurs between a consonant and a vowel (again, usually "compound" one - the "ьо" and "ьи" exceptions are described below) it indicates that the preceeding consonant is palatalized and the following vowel is yotized. Finally, when there's neither hard nor soft sign between a consonant and a "compound" vowel (or "и"), it means that the precceding consonant is palatalized but the vowel is not yotized. So, here's the most frequent mistake of native English speakers: they say привъет instead of привет (i.e. they don't palatalize "v" but yotize "e" while it's supposed to be done vice versa). Just think of the difference between British "t" in "tin" (not palatalized) and "t" in "teen" (palatalized). Pronouncing "привет" as "привъет" is kinda like saying "tyin" insted of "teen". Now a few words about the exceptions - they're "ьо" and "ьи". Both combinations are found in loanwords (mostly French ones) only. In fact, "ьо" is identical to "ьё" (that we use in native words such as "сырьё" and "бельё"), and "ьи" combination has no native counterpart, it's supposed to be pronounced as "ьйи" - [ji] with the palatalization of the preceeding consonant. Examples: монсеньор - monseigneur , Монсиньи - Monsigni. Sorry for such a long and clumsy explanation.

Re: Part 1

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

So, here's the most frequent mistake of native English speakers: they say привъет instead of привет (i.e. they don't palatalize "v" but yotize "e" while it's supposed to be done vice versa).

Are you saying that there's no [j] sound before the [e] in привет? I'm not expert so I'm a little hesitant to do this, but I have to disagree with you. I've heard a native speaker pronounce it as [privjet] and in this entry (http://www.livejournal.com/community/learn_russian/18671.html) people confirmed that привет is indeed pronounced privjet.

Re: Part 1

[ekeme-ndiba.livejournal.com]

No way, I'm a native speaker myself. Palatalization may be confused with yotization, if the speech is expressly overemphasized (and I think that's the case). But just keep in mind that in fact you have to add [j] only if a compund vowel (я, е, ё, ю) 1) starts a word or follows 2) another vowel or 3) hard/soft sign. In any other case these vowels only affect the quality of a preceeding consonant, staying unyotized themselves. The most confusing thing is that j/y's are often used in transliteration to represent palatalization.

Re: Part 1

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

Interesting, you should inform the other native speakers here (http://www.livejournal.com/community/learn_russian/18671.html) of this, because they seem to disagree with you.

Re: Part 1

[ekeme-ndiba.livejournal.com]

It's a shortcoming of transliteration/transcription, so karakal's and oblomov's comments are somewhat incorrect and may have lead you to misunderstanding. Please read again irkin's comment on the same page, she's absolutely right when she emphasizes the absence of [й] after consonants (and that's a quite common rule, there are even no dialects that add [й] in such cases).

Re: Part 1

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

Re: Part 1

[ekeme-ndiba.livejournal.com]

And the second supposition. In Russian, е/э aren't that close [e], they represent another, open sound (unfortunately, I have no IPA - but it's epsilon, Unicode 0x025B). So, you might mix it up with [je].

Re: Part 1

[ataltane.livejournal.com]

That's excellent. You've described it wonderfully clearly. Thanks!

Am I right in thinking that "ьо" and "ьи" are used for borrowing rounded front vowels, namely those represented in IPA by [ø] and [y] ?

Re: Part 1

[ekeme-ndiba.livejournal.com]

First of all, I'd like to make a correction - "ьи" can be found in Russian words as well. I was thinking of stems only, and forgot junctions of stem and endings. So, there are свиньи pigs/swines, семьи families, скамьи benches and so on.
Now, your question. French "u" [y] is usually transliterated as "ю" - it's pretty far from the original pronunciation, but we haven't anything closer. And additional difficulties occur when this [y] starts a word, so Hubert can be transliterated as Юбер or Убер, both versions seem terrible to me. However, despite the fact that [y] sound doesn't exist in Russian and thus cannot be properly transliterated, it's still not totally alien to the Russian phonetics, so, for example, news readers pronounce it correctly in the French proper names such as Hubert Vedrine. And consonant+"ью" might be used to transliterate French consonant+"iu", but I'm not sure whether such a combination exists in French (sorry, I don't know French at all ;-). As for French [o/] and [oe] (sorry, no IPA) - they're both tranliterated as "ё" (fleur - флёр, Montreaux - Монтрё), and there's the same problem when they start a word. So, eau de cologne is одеколон in Russian. And whenever these sounds are preceeded by "i" or "gn", "ьо" or "ьё" are used (monseigneur - монсеньор, adieu - адьё). Again, I don't know French, so this explanation is quite rough (and maybe inaccurate).
P.S. This article (http://people.ucsc.edu/~padgett/locker/russpal.pdf) may be interesting for you , it concerns Russian and Irish palatalization phenomenon, as well as emerging of [i] sound.

Re: Part 1

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that [ju] is used to transliterate [y]... I guess it works, but simply using [u] is probably closer to the original sound, thust жури is pronounced more like French /jury/ than жюри is.

Re: Part 1

[ekeme-ndiba.livejournal.com]

Really? I think the Russian "ж" is a way harder than the French "j" is (just like Russian "ш" is much harder than the American English "sh" which is closer to "щ" but shorter), so "ю" is more suitable here: Russian normative pronunciation of "жюри" requires slight softening (or palatalization, if you like) of "ж" which is normally always hard in Russian (except "дрожжи", "вожжи" and so on).
P.S. I have an idea to write a comprehensive post about the occasional sounds in Russian that ususally aren't described in reference books, such as voiced [h], voiced [x] or gamma, palatalized [3], [ae] etc.

Re: Part 1

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That would be very helpful.

Re: Part 1

[ataltane.livejournal.com]

That article looks really fascinating. Thanks for the link!

[yers.livejournal.com]

and the ю makes it soft anyway?!
This comment (http://www.livejournal.com/community/learn_russian/18671.html?thread=149743#t149743) by irkin sums it all up beautifully. The difference is that ню is two sounds and нью is three, with a [j] in the middle.
As if that weren't enough, Нью-Йорк is written with a hyphen. :)