beet soup

[Paul Johnston]

My understanding is that (1) there's variation in Russian in the
pronunciation corresponding to this letter; (2) the character written
with the "sh" character is always "hard"--not palatalized vs. the
single-sound pronunciation of the "shch" being "soft".  I know, how
can you palatalize a palato-alveolar?  But what I've heard (in
recordings and so on)--the first one sounds velarized and/or slightly
lip-rounded, lower-pitched, rather like some kinds of  German /S/,
the second one sounds more like a (long) English /S/.

Yours,
Paul Johnston
On Sep 14, 2007, at 9:41 AM, ronbutters at AOL.COM wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       ronbutters at AOL.COM
> Subject:      Re: beet soup
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> I was given the same advice. My instructors both pronounced it that
> way. One was a Serbian, the other a native of Moscow, born about
> 1900: she left Russia for the US in the 1930s. If the "shch" symbol
> was pronounced simply "sh" then why is there a separate symbol for
> it (as well as for "sh").
> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "David A. Daniel" <dad at POKERWIZ.COM>
>
> Date:         Fri, 14 Sep 2007 08:08:08
> To:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject:      Re: [ADS-L] beet soup
>
>
> One of my Russian profs very early on had a succinct explanation of
> the shch
> pronunciation. He said it was the same as the sh-ch in fresh
> cherries. Very
> easy to relate to.
> DAD
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of
> Wilson Gray
> Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 3:25 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: beet soup
> Isn't it the case that the Russo-Cyrillic letter transliterated as
> "shch" [SC] is actually pronounced as "shhh" [S:]? At least, that's
> the way that it was taught at the byvshaia Armeiskaia Shkola iazykov,
> fifty years ago. Darya?
>
> -Wilson
>
> On 9/13/07, RonButters at aol.com <RonButters at aol.com> wrote:
>>
>> In a message dated 9/13/07 11:46:01 AM, preston at MSU.EDU writes:
>>
>> I can't write cyrrilic here, I think, but I looked it up and 'beet
>> soup'
> is=20
>> phonetically [borStS] -- spelled with the symbols corresponding to
> sounds=20
>> represented in English by "b" "o" "r" "sh" (as in English "mash"
>> =3D --S)
> an=
>> d "ch"=20
>> (as in English "match" =3D --tS).=20
>>
>> Maybe we are just analyzing the final [tS] differently, i.e., an
> affricate=20
>> consists of a stop + fricative. It is still "sibilant", n'est-ce pas?
>>
>>> Nope; no final sibilant in Russian, and in Polish is just ends in
>>> three consonants=A0 - barszcz /rSC/.
>>> =20
>>> dInIs
>>> =20
>>> PS: Ron, good try for a non-Slav.
>>> =20
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
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