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]

Of course the 'e' in чего adds to the palatalization.

Actually, no, it doesn't. Just as ш is always hard in Russian, ч is always soft.

Would you spell Qin as Чин in Russian?

That would be a good representation of the sound, but I don't know if it's a standard way of transcribing it. (Just as neither Zhang nor the older Chang is a very intuitive transcription of the Chinese name, I wouldn't be surprised if transcription of Chinese into Russian is often "idiosyncratic".)

I believe I've seen Chinese words with q- transcribed into Russian with тсь in an old dictionary, but I have no idea how common that transcription is now.