# Polish, Russian: (dis)similarity of sibilants



## Sobakus

Ben Jamin said:


> The correct pronounciation of palatal sibilants (ć ś ź dź) is certainly a challenge too.



Well, Russian has all of them except for dź, which most Russians learn at school at the English class anyway or can pronounce by analogy with ź. I personally think that the nasal vowels would cause the most difficulties because it's sometimes quite hard to stop nasalising all of them once you've started


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## vianie

> Russian has all of them except for dź, which most Russians learn at school at the English class anyway or can pronounce by analogy with ź.



Polish equivalents for Russian *ч ш Ж* are rather *cz sz ż*.
The Evolution of sibilants in Polish and Russian

In regard of the comparatively large inconsistencies of English pronunciation, Polish equivalent for English *g* (in "gym") or *j* (in "DJ") can be *dż* as well as *dź*.



> I personally think that the nasal vowels would cause the most difficulties because it's sometimes quite hard to stop nasalising all of them once you've started



Wrote you not about the Slovak case unwittingly? 
For my taste, Slovak has generally a more nasal sound than a Polish.


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## Sobakus

vianie said:


> Polish equivalents for Russian *ч ш Ж* are rather *cz sz ż*.
> The Evolution of sibilants in Polish and Russian


Yeah, but there are also щ, which is basically the soft long ш, and жжь, the voiced version of щ which is an allophone of ждь with some speakers, and in Russian ч is always soft, while cz is the hard one. I hear they pronounce it the Polish way closer to the border, though. And thanks for the link, I'll certainly look through it.



> Wrote you not about the Slovak case unwittingly?
> For my taste, Slovak has generally a more nasal sound than a Polish.


I'm surprised to say that of the little Slovak I've heard none was nasal at all  Moreover, everything that could be nasalised has already been nasalised in Polish, so I can't really imagine doing it even more :O It'd be really great to hear some examples of it!


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## Ben Jamin

Sobakus said:


> Well, Russian has all of them except for dź, which most Russians learn at school at the English class anyway or can pronounce by analogy with ź. I personally think that the nasal vowels would cause the most difficulties because it's sometimes quite hard to stop nasalising all of them once you've started


 
This is not quite so. The Polish *ć ś ź* are not the same as *ть сь зь,* even if pronouncing them the Russian way causes no misunderstanding and sounds OK to a Polish ear. The problem is when some misguided "experts" on the Polish language in Russia transliterate them as *чь, шь* and *жь,* making the people pronounce them in that artificial way,which sounds terrible.


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## Sobakus

Ben Jamin said:


> This is not quite so. The Polish *ć ś ź* are not the same as *ть сь зь,* even if pronouncing them the Russian way causes no misunderstanding and sounds OK to a Polish ear.



Certainly ть сь зь are very distinct  from ć ś ź, at least for a Russian. But if WIkipedia and my ears don't blatantly lie, then the Polish sounds are 100% the same as the Russian ones I described in my previous post.


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## Duya

Sobakus said:


> Certainly ть сь зь are very distinct  from ć ś ź, at least for a Russian. But if WIkipedia and my ears don't blatantly lie, then the Polish sounds are 100% the same as the Russian ones I described in my previous post.



Um, which Russian ones exactly? I'm not aware that Russian has phonetic equivalents of ś and ź. (IPA /ɕ/ and /ʑ/). 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_phonology#Consonants

does mention /ɕɕ/ and /ʑʑ/ but claims that those are  "marginal phonemes", I suppose in connection with *щ *and* жж? *I don't think that Russian *щ* can be simply described as a /ɕ/, and I suppose that /ʑ/ would sound alien to Russians .

Not that I think that any of those are particularly challenging for pronunciation, though.


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## phosphore

Duya said:


> Um, which Russian ones exactly? I'm not aware that Russian has phonetic equivalents of ś and ź. (IPA /ɕ/ and /ʑ/).
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_phonology#Consonants
> 
> does mention /ɕɕ/ and /ʑʑ/ but claims that those are "marginal phonemes", I suppose in connection with *щ *and* жж? *I don't think that Russian *щ* can be simply described as a /ɕ/, and I suppose that /ʑ/ would sound alien to Russians .
> 
> Not that I think that any of those are particularly challenging for pronunciation, though.


 
The sound [ɕɕ] may be represented orthographically as <сч>, <зч> and <щ> and while I'm not sure what exactly they mean by "marginal", I wouldn't call it that because it is very much existant in the contemporary language. The sound [ʑʑ] may be represented orthographically as <сж>, <зж> and <жж> but, as stated in the article, today it is often pronounced as [ʐʐ].


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## Sobakus

Yeah, pretty much what phosphore wrote. While ʑ can be called marginal(it can be a way to pronounce зж, жж and ждь), ɕ is the only way щ is pronounced and сч is often merged into it as well.


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## Ben Jamin

Sobakus said:


> Certainly ть сь зь are very distinct from ć ś ź, at least for a Russian. But if WIkipedia and my ears don't blatantly lie, then the Polish sounds are 100% the same as the Russian ones I described in my previous post.


Well,  ть сь зь are quite distinct from ć ś ź not only for a Russian, but also for a Pole. They might however sound quite the same for an English native speaker who is not a trained phonetician.
But what do you exactly mean with the next sentence?  Which Polish sounds are 100% the same as which Russian ones?  They are quite many of them.
By the way, ć originated from a palatalized t (t'):тебя - ciebie (ci=ć).


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## phosphore

Ben Jamin said:


> But what do you exactly mean with the next sentence?


 


Sobakus said:


> Yeah, but there are also щ, which is basically the soft long ш, and жжь, the voiced version of щ which is an allophone of ждь with some speakers, and in Russian ч is always soft, while cz is the hard one.


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## Orlin

Phosphore, šta imaš u vidu o tome što si citirao?


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## phosphore

Ben Jamin je pitao šta je Sobakus hteo da kaže rečenicom "the Polish sounds are 100% the same as the Russian ones I described in my previous post". Sobakus kaže da su poljski glasovi _ć, ś, ź_ isti kao ruski glasovi _ч, щ, жж_. (Priča je krenula od toga da su poljski glasovi _ć, ś, ź_ strancima teški za izgovor, imaš na prethodnoj strani.)


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## Orlin

phosphore said:


> Ben Jamin je pitao šta je Sobakus hteo da kaže rečenicom "the Polish sounds are 100% the same as the Russian ones I described in my previous post". Sobakus kaže da su poljski glasovi _ć, ś, ź_ isti kao ruski glasovi _ч, щ, жж_. (Priča je krenula od toga da su poljski glasovi _ć, ś, ź_ strancima teški za izgovor, imaš na prethodnoj strani.)


 
Izvinjavam se!Možda bi trebao samo da se to upiše u post pod citatima, a ja ću izbrisati pitanje koje sam ti postavio.
Po temi: ja ne govorim poljski, ali čini mi se da je polj. _ć _otprilike kao rus. _ч _dok su 
polj. _ś _i _ź _približno rus. _щ _i _жж_ rsp. *bez dužine*. U svakom slučaju bih rekao da je to problem učenja polj./rus. jezika nego njihove uzajamne razumljivosti.


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## Sobakus

Ben Jamin said:


> But what do you exactly mean with the next sentence?


See phosphore's post(thank you, phosphore, by the way).


> By the way, ć originated from a palatalized t (t'):тебя - ciebie (ci=ć).


Yeah, I figured that out looking at the polish infinitive


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## Duya

...and Sokol could kindly move everything from post #333 onwards into a new thread... 

Side question: when a thread discusses Polish-Russian intelligibility, does it belong to Polish, Russian, or "All Slavic" subforum?


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## Sobakus

Well, I guess if threads titled "all Slavic" belong to this subforum, then it's the place where all Slavic languages and their relations can be discussed.


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## sokol

Mod note:

Split off from the mutual intelligibility thread.
A Polish-Russian combination may be posted either in Polish or in Russian forum as well as in Other Slavic languages.


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## Ben Jamin

Sobakus said:


> Well, Russian has all of them except for dź, which most Russians learn at school at the English class anyway or can pronounce by analogy with ź. I personally think that the nasal vowels would cause the most difficulties because it's sometimes quite hard to stop nasalising all of them once you've started


If this is the posting which has caused the debate, and if you maean that ć ś ź are equivalent to ч ш ж (or was it чь шь жь ?) then I am perplexed.
The Polish ź is most similar to Spanish 'll' in 'llamar' in most South American countries, but more sibilant. The ś is the unvoiced equivalent, and the ć is articulated at the same place, but as a stop/affricate. I can record the sounds for you and send them at your private address.
When I was taught Russian at school we got imprented the rule "ш and ж are never "soft" (palatalized), i.e. they are not affected by the the letters и, е, я, ё, ю, and a ж before и is pronounced exactly as before ы (if such spelling was ever used). Is all this obsolete? 
In Polish ć ś ź and cz sz ż are contrasting phonemes, not allophones, and it brings about much hilarity when foreigners say "ja sze czeszę" instead of "ja się cieszę" (I comb my hair/ I am glad).


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## Orlin

Ben Jamin said:


> When I was taught Russian at school we got imprented the rule "ч ш ж are never "soft" (palatalized), i.e. they are not affected by the the letters и, е, я, ё, ю, and a ж before и is pronounced exactly as before ы (if such spelling was ever used). Is all this obsolete?


 
I was taught that _ч_, _ш_ and _ж_ don't form "hard-soft" pairs and:
1. _Ч_ is always soft but traditionally/coventionally _у_, _а_ is written instead of _ю_, _я_ after it.
2. _Ш_ and _ж_ are always hard, but spelling conventions/traditions require writing _и_ instead of _ы_ after them.


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## Ben Jamin

Orlin said:


> I was taught that _ч_, _ш_ and _ж_ don't form "hard-soft" pairs and:
> 1. _Ч_ is always soft but traditionally/coventionally _у_, _а_ is written instead of _ю_, _я_ after it.
> 2. _Ш_ and _ж_ are always hard, but spelling conventions/traditions require writing _и_ instead of _ы_ after them.


 Yes, you are right about _Ч_. I remembered wrong, it was so long ago.


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## Sobakus

Ben Jamin said:


> If this is the posting which has caused the debate, and if you maean that ć ś ź are equivalent to ч ш ж (or was it чь шь жь ?) then I am perplexed.



Uh, looks like you didn't read my and phosphore's previous posts that carefully, but all right:
ć ś ź are equivalent to ч щ жжь. ш and щ, as well as ж and жжь don't form an opposition like other soft-hard pairs, but they are soft and hard versions of each other. Щ is usually geminate(long), and so is it's voiced sister(hence two ж's), because they originate from consonant combinations like the ones i described in my post #8. Жжь isn't a distinct phoneme, while щ is. I hope this covers all your possible questions


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