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

[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".