the good old days, and that pesky letter "shee" (formerly "shch")

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Helen Halva wrote:

> I think there really might be an issue here.  I was taught here, in
> the US, in the 1960's, by native speakers, that it was Sh ch, as in
> fresh cheese.  In the 1990's, in intensive courses in Russia, I was
> taught that fresh cheese was no longer current, that the sh letter
> had a harder sound and the formerly sh-ch letter was like a very soft
> shh, pronounced at the front of the mouth.  How are modern linguists
> weighing in on this?

Щ has always been entirely soft, from start to finish. The question here 
is not whether any part of it is hard or soft (the rendition "шч" would 
be misleading only because of the Russian convention that ш is always 
hard), but whether there's a "hitch" or something in the middle. In the 
fastest and most casual speech, we typically hear a long soft [ɕ:], 
whereas in more careful or deliberate speech speakers will often make a 
break. Whether that's an instantaneous pause, a brief drop in volume, or 
a slight affrication at the beginning of the second half of the sound 
will have to be left to others with more sophisticated instrumentation 
than I possess. In my experience, all three are valid possibilities.

It makes good sense in many contexts to conceptualize щ as two 
consonants -- for example, as сч. I regard it as spelling convention 
that we write ищу and not исчу but щёки and not счёки. This is probably 
why it has survived as a long/double consonant all these years.

-- 
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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