# Dutch nautical > Russian: s > sh



## rushalaim

Why did Dutch nautical words with s-sound when settle in Russian then were changing into sh-sound? For example, braad*s*pil > bra*sh*pil, *s*tuurwiel > *sh*turwal, boeg*s*priet > bu*sh*prit, achter*s*teven > ahter*sh*teven. Did Russian change Dutch sounds or old Dutch pronounced words another way than modern Dutch?


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## pollohispanizado

The consonant clusters sp- and st- at the beginning of a root in Dutch (and German) are pronounced exactly as you describe, [ʃp] and [ʃt].


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## bearded

pollohispanizado said:


> The consonant clusters sp- and st- at the beginning of a root in Dutch (and German) are pronounced exactly as you describe, [ʃp] and [ʃt].


  
Cf. the name of the famous film director  Ėjzenštejn (sorry, I have no cyrillic keyboard), originally a German name: Eisenstein. St=sht.


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## berndf

pollohispanizado said:


> The consonant clusters sp- and st- at the beginning of a root in Dutch (and German) are pronounced exactly as you describe, [ʃp] and [ʃt].


"Exactly" is maybe a bit of an exaggeration. The Dutch /s/ is an apical consonant with no contrasting /ʃ/ phoneme, like the Spanish or Greek /s/. For speakers of languages with /s/-/ʃ/ contrast the Dutch /s/ (again like the Spanish and Greek /s/) can drag into /ʃ/-territory of the their own languages and in certain consonant clusters more than in other contexts. If you listen to the three pronunciations of _steen_ on Forvo, one sounds more like [ʃte:n] and the others more like [ste:n]. In Dutch this difference is irrelevant.

German originally had phonemic contrast between apical and dorsal /s/ and some of the originally apical /s/ have shifted to /ʃ/ when the latter became a separate phoneme so that today only the contrast /s/-/ʃ/ is left, spelled /s/=<s>/<ß> and /ʃ/=<sch> (cf. German _Schnee_, dutch _sneeuw_, English _snow_) but in the clusters /ʃt-/ and /ʃt-/ the spelling has remained <st-> and <sp->.


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## Ben Jamin

rushalaim said:


> Why did Dutch nautical words with s-sound when settle in Russian then were changing into sh-sound? For example, braad*s*pil > bra*sh*pil, *s*tuurwiel > *sh*turwal, boeg*s*priet > bu*sh*prit, achter*s*teven > ahter*sh*teven. Did Russian change Dutch sounds or old Dutch pronounced words another way than modern Dutch?


The explanation is probably that the Dutch words came to Russian via German.


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## berndf

Ben Jamin said:


> The explanation is probably that the Dutch words came to Russian via German.


Quite possible.


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## Catagrapha

I have a s>sh question: Wikipedia says _liskis _became _Lischke _from Old Prussian to German - is it normal?
Can -ski become -schki from Russian or Polish to German?


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## berndf

No, not really. The loaning from Old Prussian happened in MHG (I believe 13th or maybe 14th century), i.e. before the the _s/ß_-merger and the creation of the <sch> phoneme in German.


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## rushalaim

Ben Jamin said:


> The explanation is probably that the Dutch words came to Russian via German.


How? If Russians invited a German _*s*chipper_  (Russian "*sh*kiper") why would he call names of sails in Dutch?


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## rushalaim

pollohispanizado said:


> The consonant clusters sp- and st- at the beginning of a root in Dutch (and German) are pronounced exactly as you describe, [ʃp] and [ʃt].


Dutch _*s*chipper_ > Russian _*sh*kiper_ (here is not any st- sp- models).


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## rushalaim

I still can hear some Russian dialects are pronouncing _"babu*s*ka"_ instead of TV Russian _"babu*sh*ka"_. Maybe s > sh is Russian problem?


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## berndf

rushalaim said:


> How? If Russians invited a German _*s*chipper_  (Russian "*sh*kiper") why would he call names of sails in Dutch?


_Bugspriet, Achtersteven, _... All of those are also the German names of those sail. German has loaned nautical terms are mainly from Low German which has heavily been influenced by Dutch. Russian loaned from both, High German and Low German.


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## Awwal12

rushalaim said:


> I still can hear some Russian dialects are pronouncing _"babu*s*ka"_ instead of TV Russian _"babu*sh*ka"_. Maybe s > sh is Russian problem?


No it is not. There is no Russian dialect which doesn't contrast hushing and hissing sibilants. If anything, bábushka and babúsya (>> babús'ka?) are two different words using different affective morphological models. Pronouncing bábushka as "bábuska" could only be a personal defect of speech.


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## rushalaim

berndf said:


> _Bugspriet, Achtersteven, _... All of those are also the German names of those sail. German has loaned nautical terms are mainly from Low German which has heavily been influenced by Dutch. Russian loaned from both, High German and Low German.


By the way, English *s*kipper < Dutch _*s*chipper_, but English has _*sh*ip_. Similar, English _*s*chool_ but Russian _*sh*kola_.


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## rushalaim

Awwal12 said:


> No it is not. There is no Russian dialect which doesn't contrast hushing and hissing sibilants. If anything, bábushka and babúsya (>> babús'ka?) are two different words using different affective morphological models. Pronouncing bábushka as "bábuska" could only be a personal defect of speech.


_Babu*s*ka_ in Russian dialects of Räzan not TV _babu*sh*ka_.


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## berndf

rushalaim said:


> By the way, English *s*kipper < Dutch _*s*chipper_, but English has _*sh*ip_.


Not quite. It is from _scipper_. English _skipper _is a loan from Middle Dutch, before the Dutch /sk-/ shifted to /sx-/.


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## Awwal12

rushalaim said:


> _Babu*s*ka_ in Russian dialects of Räzan not TV _babu*sh*ka_.


Ryazan dialects contrast /s/ and /š/ in all positions perfectly. For the rest, see above.


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## Ben Jamin

rushalaim said:


> By the way, English *s*kipper < Dutch _*s*chipper_, but English has _*sh*ip_. Similar, English _*s*chool_ but Russian _*sh*kola_.


School and Школа are from Greek, not from Dutch.


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## rushalaim

Ben Jamin said:


> School and Школа are from Greek, not from Dutch.


English _*s*chool_ is from Dutch _*s*cola_ (Russian _*sh*kola_) school - Wiktionary


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## berndf

Ben Jamin said:


> School and Школа are from Greek, not from Dutch.


Ultimately yes. But the immediate source is Polish szkola which in turn is from Latin. The question is now what Polish has imported the <s> as <sz>.


rushalaim said:


> English _*s*chool_ is from Dutch _*s*cola_ (Russian _*sh*kola_) school - Wiktionary


No, it is from Latin. You are confusing two unrelated words: a school where people learn (from Latin, ultimately from Greek) and a school of fish (from Middle Dutch).


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## Awwal12

berndf said:


> The question is now what Polish has imported the <s> as <sz>.


Szkola may reflect OHG scuola.
P.S.: On the other hand, OHG could've influenced Old Polish pronunciation of Latin words in general. Cf. Tomasz, Janusz, Tadeusz etc., which seem to support the idea. (Sadly, I have a pretty fragmentary knowledge of the history of Polish.)


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## Ben Jamin

rushalaim said:


> English _*s*chool_ is from Dutch _*s*cola_ (Russian _*sh*kola_) school - Wiktionary


Check the source once more. The entry is about "a school of fish", not the education institution.


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## rushalaim

Ben Jamin said:


> Check the source once more. The entry is about "a school of fish", not the education institution.


The point is that Russian got nautical words and school from Dutch (not Latin) when navy school in Petersburg was established. The question is why Russian changed Dutch words' sounding if education was in Dutch? Or modern Dutch changed but Russian preserved older pronunciation?


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## Awwal12

rushalaim said:


> The point is that Russian got nautical words and school from Dutch


Russian did NOT loan школа from Dutch.  The word is first attested in 1388.


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## berndf

rushalaim said:


> The point is that Russian got nautical words and school from Dutch (not Latin) when navy school in Petersburg was established. The question is why Russian changed Dutch words' sounding if education was in Dutch? Or modern Dutch changed but Russian preserved older pronunciation?


I think you still haven't understood what we were trying to explain to you. _School_ is *not* from Dutch, neither in English nor in Russian!

There is a completely unrelated word also spelled _school_ in English which is of Dutch origin. And that is the word you have looked up in Wiktionary. But this word has absolutely nothing to do with Russian _школа_.


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