шь & щ

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

Are шь and щ the same? Also, is this analogy correct:

щ : ш :: тщ : ч

Does the sound "тщ" (presumably as in Mandarin q) exist?

Comments

[beowabbit]

I should clarify that in my first paragraph above I was using ь as a phonetic symbol to indicate palatalisation of the sound written before it, even after ш. That's done sometimes in phonetics textbooks, but it's not what ь means after ш in normal written Russian.

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

OK, thank you.

[yers.livejournal.com]

Russian phonetics textbooks published in Russia always use the apostrophe to indicate palatalisation. At least, all the ones I've seen. Because the symbol ь in Russian phonetic transcription is what it originally was, the soft yer (a reduced vowel, such as е in страдалец).