# Hard and soft consonants



## C.S.Hy

Why do we need the concept Soft Consonants?
---- Confusion over hard and soft consonants

I've just begun my Russian learning with its alphabet. I think it's significant to make clear what sounds there are in Russian, what they sound like and how to articulate them. I have some confusion for present though. Pleaae check whether my analysis or understanding is wrong and give (detailed if you would like) explanation. Thank you very much.

1. if a soft consonant intails the vowel following it beginning with a semivowel /j/(this sound will make the tongue position for its preceding consonant move (from that for the normal one) more or less to the middle of your mouth), then we do not need the so-called soft consonants(or the soft sign) because the shift will automatically happen. And we have already had five Russian letters to indicate the vowels beginning with /j/, each for one vowel without, for example, the horizontally reversed R for A.

2. is the letter (soft sign) intended only for the soft consonants which do not have any vowels following(within a syllable in a word)? And >


3. how do you make the soft consonant /l(j)/ when it comes at the end of a word? It's awkward for the tongue tip because when you make /l/, it stays on the alveolar ridge, so it cannot touch the lower front teeth at the same time. And how about /g(j)/? And /r(j)/(the soft consonant indicated by the Russian letter P)?


----------



## Assiduous student

If you've started learning Russian and only got as far as the alphabet so far, I would recommend you to start learning the language in chapter 1 of any textbook, before trying to work out if there is a need for soft letters at all. Your post is quite hard to understand - I still don't know what you mean. Do you mean you don't know if there is a need for letters that are always soft like ч?


----------



## Maroseika

C.S.Hy said:


> 1. if a soft consonant intails the vowel following it begining with a semivowel /j/, which will make the tongue position for the preceding consonant move (from that for the relative hard consonant) more or less to the middle of your mouth, then we do not need the so-called soft consonants(or the soft mark) because the shift will automatically happen and we have five letters to indicate their beginning with /j/, each for one vowel without /j/ there, for example, the horizontally reversed R for A.


Not sure I understood your question completely, but just to specify that these words (clusters with soft consonants) are pronounced differently:
Ко́ля (personal name) and ко́лья (stakes)
се́мя (seed) and семья́ (family)



> 2. is the letter (soft marker) intended only for the soft consonants which do not have any vowels following(within a syllable in a word)?


We should differ here between phonetics and spelling. Normally we write коня (not коньа), везёт (not везьот).
But in the hyphened words and their derivatives and in some loned words vowel may follow soft sign: тельавивец (dweller of Тель-Авив), комедия дель-арте.
Also yotisized vowels often follow sodt sign. And the following words are prnounced differently:
Ко́ля (personal name) and ко́лья (stakes)
се́мя (seed) and семья́ (family).



> 3. how do you make the soft consonants /l(j)/ when it comes at the end of a word? It's awkward for the tongue tip because when you make /l/, it stays on the alveolar ridge, so it cannot touch the lower front teeth at the same time. And how about /g(j)/? And /r(j)/(the soft consonant indicated by the Russian letter P)?


No difference in producing soft consonants in the middle and at the end of a word.


----------



## Awwal12

C.S.Hy said:


> I've just begun my Russian learning with its alphabet.


...And have already made a lot of assumptions. 
1. Soft consonants are characterized by a distinct position of the tongue throughout their articulation. The common feature is that the space between the tongue and the hard palate is narrower than usual (hence "palatalization"), but the exact position of your tongue may be very different depending on the exact consonant (something you are apparently missing at the moment). With /lʲ/, for example, your tongue touches the alveolar ridge, with its middle part also raised. That is contrasted to /l/, which is obligatorily velarized (actually it's /lˠ/), so while the tongue touches the upper teeth, with its blade pressed against the alveolar ridge, the middle part is forcefully lowered - much like with the English "dark l" in the word "mall", taking a slightly different manner of articulation into account. /rʲ/  is a palatalized tap [ɾʲ] (the middle part is a bit raised compared to [ɾ], the sound is apical as usual).
2. The core of the Russian orthography is terribly old and obviously non-phonemic. Just remember that "iotated" vowel letters "е", "ё", "ю", "я" actually represent /jV/ combinations ("V" stands for a vowel phoneme) whenever they don't directly follow consonant letters. If they do, they only mean that the preceding consonant is palatalized (if that's possible, of course) and followed by the respective "pure" vowel. "Е" in loanwords and foreign names is a partial exception: it actually can follow hard consonants, and there is no way to exactly predict if the consonant is hard or soft (native speakers are often unsure themselves, or there may be variations; it's better to consult orthoepic dictionaries or listen to audio records if possible). Plus "e" may also simply replace "ё" in texts (and, in fact, it usually does). The most ambiguous letter.
The soft sign "ь" is used:
- to mark softness of paired consonants which aren't followed by vowels (note that if a consonant letter isn't followed by any of that, it doesn't necessary mean the sound is hard; aside of the 3 permanently soft consonants without hard pairs, there is also that regressive assimilation by softness in certain positions: e.g. the typical pronunciation of "снег" is [sʲnʲɛk] - but THAT is pure phonetics).
- to insert /j/ consonant (semivowel, if you want, but from the point of the Russian phonology it's a consonant indeed) between a soft (or unpaired hard) consonant and a vowel (even if the vowel letter isn't one of the "iotated" ones); e.g. "соловьи" /solovʲjí/ "nightingales", "шью" /ʂju/ "I sew".


----------



## Assiduous student

Awwal12, on this point, I am unclear if the consonant before ъ has to be hard or not. Eg. съесть - I've got the impression, but I've forgotten where from, that this can be either /sˠjesʲtʲ/ or  /sʲjesʲtʲ/. Can you tell me if anyone (a minority? or the majority? or no-one?) nowadays palatalises the /s/ in such words by attraction to the following /j/? How do you personally say it?


----------



## Awwal12

Assiduous student said:


> Awwal12, on this point, I am unclear if the consonant before ъ has to be hard or not.


It depends.  Since /t/ and /d/ remain consistently opposed to /tʲ/ and /dʲ/ before /j/, "д" and "т" before "ъ" always represent hard consonants. With other consonants it may vary. As for "съесть", I'd recommend  to pronounce it as /sʲjesʲtʲ/. Automatic palatalization of /s/ before /j/ is quite common.


----------



## Assiduous student

Thank you. I'll bear the /t/ and /d/ in mind!


----------



## C.S.Hy

Thank you, Assiduous and Maroseika.

Sorry for my clumsy English expression. I just tried to ask whether,  for example, тьа sounds all the same as тя.


----------



## Awwal12

Assiduous student said:


> Thank you. I'll bear the /t/ and /d/ in mind!


I'd like to add a minor correction: certain loanwords with "ъ" (like "адъютант") may be actually pronounced with soft consonants before it sometimes (I am not sure if it's a result of consistent misreads or a phonetic phenomenon). But as far as Russian morphemic  borders are concerned, "т" and "д" before "ъ" remain hard (so, for example, no one pronounces "отъехать" as [ɐtʲ'jɛxətʲ], it's always [ɐt'jɛxətʲ]) .


----------



## Awwal12

C.S.Hy said:


> Thank you, Assiduous and Maroseika.
> 
> Sorry for my clumsy English expression. I just tried to ask whether,  for example, тьа sounds all the same as тя.


"Тьа" is an extremely unlikely combination of letters. I suppose it would read the same as "тья", i.e. as /tʲja/, and not like "тя" (/tʲa/).


----------



## C.S.Hy

Awwal12 said:


> "Тьа" is an extremely unlikely combination of letters. I suppose it would read the same as "тья", i.e. as /tʲja/, and not like "тя" (/tʲa/).


Thank you very much for your great explanation, Awwal12! 

Actually I hoped I had misunderstood the Russian consonants because that meant I had something that I had not understood (and thereby could not do well), but if I was "right", that would mean that there really is something illogical in the Russian phonology, so the confusion would go on and on. 

I had known something new and important from your explanation. But, to be honest, lots or most of other information I still have no idea of, although I think it must be valuable. I think I'll come back some times later to read your great explanation. Thank you!


----------



## Assiduous student

C. S. Hy, you probably have already noted the similarity, but Standard Chinese also has some soft consonants, notably j, q and x. For example, Russian щ is /ɕː/, and Chinese x (in Xi) is /ɕ/, so that щ is a longer version of the consonant represented in Chinese pinyin as x. I'm not sure if such IPA transcriptions represent the reality exactly - I lived in China for four years - and I'm not sure щи (apart from the length of the consonant) is 100% the same as the Chinese "xi", but it gives a clue anyway. In fact, most languages have soft consonants, whether phonemic or not. English gutturals are normally soft - eg in the word "king", both gutturals are soft - although the meaning wouldn't change if someone managed to pronounced them velarised - it would just sound strange.


----------



## Eirwyn

Assiduous student said:


> so that щ is a longer version of the consonant represented in Chinese pinyin as x


Does it really sound long to you?


----------



## Awwal12

Eirwyn said:


> Does it really sound long to you?


By default it is prolonged indeed.


Assiduous student said:


> For example, Russian щ is /ɕː/, and Chinese x (in Xi) is /ɕ/


Chinese "x" is usually rather [sʲ] than [ɕ] ([ɕ] is described as an orthoepic norm, but it becomes more and more marginal in speech, apparently under the influence of the Beijing dialect; most Chinese speakers don't even notice the difference). Nevertheless, it's a palatalized consonant anyway.


----------



## Maroseika

Awwal12 said:


> "Тьа" is an extremely unlikely combination of letters. I suppose it would read the same as "тья", i.e. as /tʲja/, and not like "тя" (/tʲa/).


At least in words junction, complex words and their derivatives it's really "тя": есть арбузы, открыть Америку, устьабаканец.


----------



## Awwal12

Maroseika said:


> At least in words junction, complex words and their derivatives it's really "тя": есть арбузы, открыть Америку, устьабаканец.


Wikipedia mentions "усть-абаканец" as the local demonym.


----------



## Eirwyn

Awwal12 said:


> By default it is prolonged indeed.


I'd rather like to hear an opinion of a non-native on this topic. I've only heard the prolonged pronunciation of "щ" and "җ" in some records of dialectal speech, and I have a suspicion that believing them to be longer than the hard "ш" and "ж" has something to do with the orthoepic tradition rather than the phonetic reality.


----------



## Assiduous student

Awwal12 said:


> By default it is prolonged indeed.
> 
> Chinese "x" is usually rather [sʲ] than [ɕ] ([ɕ] is described as an orthoepic norm, but it becomes more and more marginal in speech, apparently under the influence of the Beijing dialect; most Chinese speakers don't even notice the difference). Nevertheless, it's a palatalized consonant anyway.



Yes, I think you're right there.


----------



## Assiduous student

Eirwyn said:


> I'd rather like to hear an opinion of a non-native on this topic. I've only heard the prolonged pronunciation of "щ" and "җ" in some records of dialectal speech, and I have a suspicion that believing them to be longer than the hard "ш" and "ж" has something to do with the orthoepic tradition rather than the phonetic reality.



Well, non-native speakers can't always hear things properly in a way that would reveal fine distinctions. I don't know if щи, with an initial щ, has a particularly long consonant, but защищать appears to linger twice in the middle of the word on the щ consonant. But then I could be overimagining that because of what I was taught. I would accept the verdict of native speakers on whether it was long or not.


----------



## C.S.Hy

I really have come back to read this thread. The words are the same, but I've obtained more than before,  I believe.  Maybe I'll come back still more times.


----------



## VCH250

Eirwyn said:


> I'd rather like to hear an opinion of a non-native on this topic. I've only heard the prolonged pronunciation of "щ" and "җ" in some records of dialectal speech, and I have a suspicion that believing them to be longer than the hard "ш" and "ж" has something to do with the orthoepic tradition rather than the phonetic reality.




I've spent a few years studying Russian phonetics and improving my pronunciation.
The rule is that it's doubled. But at most, it's 1.5 times longer, and in reality only slightly longer (1.2?). The same applies to situations where you have вв (в виду) and similar. It's not doubled in normal speech, but is just long enough so that it can be distinguished.

When speaking carefully, some people double the щ—in speeches and similar.
Also,  (Щ) is more likely to be doubled at the very beginning of a word.

I doubt anyone here doubles Щ in сущность or товарищ.


----------



## Awwal12

The simplified spellings like [ш'ш'] don't intend to mean that it literally has double length - the consonant is simply long by default (i.e. audibly longer than usual consonants). Of course, as you correctly noted, it also may be actually short depending on the speech rate, the speaker's individual features, the position where it occurs etc.


----------

