Talk:Polish phonology

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Regarding the following change, do you have any references for this? My sources say otherwise...

 09:38, 31 August 2006 82.139.47.117 (Talk) (→Consonants - Polish fricatives and affricatives 
 sz, cz, ż, dż are retroflex - they also are listed as such in examples in other parts of the article)

I really like this page and I think it should be linked with the polish IPA page (which is in a bad shape right now). Anyways, I'd like to use it in the future as a reference on the Polish transcription. Do you think it would be bad if another column with the transcription in Polish SAMPA was added? SAMPA is very popular in the few Polish corpora that exist, so it would be very useful...

--62.121.64.90 14:39, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

please notice that (at least in some regions) one could tell "h" from "ch" by the sound. Ch is soft (like in english 'loch'); H is hard (as in english 'hard' or 'horrible') - more 'from the back of your throath'

ok, but now even this difference is rather theoretical

Not really. In my family we still distinguish h from ch and it does not sound bizarre. Halibutt 20:11, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, the difference between "h" and "ch" was based on the voicing, i.e. - "h" was voiced (IPA: ɣ), whereas "ch" - voiceless (IPA: x). Today, you rarely hear that difference - maybe at school, presented by your Polish teacher, or by some older actor. Most people, when producing e.g. words "huta" and "strach" will make no distinction between those two:

"huta" -> ['xutɐ] "strach" -> [strɐx]

...or at least they won't find it awkward in any way.

Actually, there is another tendency you can observe - regardless of whether it's "h" or "ch", you are more likely to produce it as [[Voiceless glottal fricative|h] if it is followed by a vowel of any other approximation than 'close', which is caused by the common process of assimilation - economy of articulator movements. e.g.

"chata" -> ['hɐtɐ] "Hanna" -> ['hɐnnɐ]

...but then again in the proper name "Bohdan", "h" is pretty commonly pronounced as [ɣ] or for many, who don't feel comfortable with this dying-out-sound, as [g].

I think, that the best sollution would be to keep them separate in the table (in adjacent rows) and add the alternative pronounciations for each. Michau 02:37, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Polish "y" is not IPA [ɨ]

I'm strongly convinced, that Polish "y" is much more like [ɪ] and saying that it's being pronounced as [ɨ] seems simply ridiculous. It's "i", that is sometimes possibly produced this way, but definitely not "y"! Michau 02:53, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Frankly speaking, it all depends on whom you ask. AFAIK there's no single accepted IPA chart for the Polish language as the polonists are pretty immune to such novelties and until recently many of them preferred to stick either to their own systems or to some approximations. However, when it comes to this particular case, I can't really say whether the Polish "y" is closer to near-close near-front unrounded vowel or to close central unrounded vowel. The difference between them is so tiny that it's hard to tell anyway. Any specialists here? //Halibutt 22:34, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

According to what I've been learned, Polish "y" is definitely ɨ; Do you mean, by suggesting that it's pronounced like "ɪ", that English "ship" and Polish "szyb" have the same vowel? That's not possible. agnus 23:31, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Polish retroflexes are not laminal - [ɕ],[ʑ],[ʨ] and [ʥ] are

As the title reads.

...and yes, I read the retroflex consonant article stating otherwise, but I still oppose to that idea.

If a native Polish speaker pronounces retroflexes over-correctly, which is of course incorrect, then their tongue is curled quite notably(so not laminal).

In the case of the correct, mainstream pronounciation the sound is apical or slightly curled- not laminal.

There is another error of prounounciation - when the thongue tip is too far front and a whistling sound is produced. It is called "seplenienie" (infinitive "seplenić) - it's a speech impairment, still even then, although retroflex no more, it's rather apical. Maybe there are laminalizing versions of this impairment and maybe the people who first came up with the idea of Polish laminal retroflex consonants, examined one of those poor souls suffering from it. Who knows...

...anyway being a native Polish speaker I can assure you that I don't "laminate" my retroflexes and I don't think I know anyone who does. I would notice - assuming from the experiments with my tongue that I just carried out under influence of these articles.

Michau 03:35, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what to tell you. Stanisław Puppel, Jadwiga Nawrocka-Fisiak, & Halina Krassowska (1977) have X-ray images of all three sibilant series, and they're all obviously laminal. I rather doubt they'd use anyone with a speech impediment, or who spoke a non-standard dialect, but who knows. kwami 01:20, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronounciation

I always have a beef with pronounciation guides, and this one is no different :). This is mostly because the guide is dependent on not-so universal pronounciations in a language. For example, "what's your", "would you" and the like are fine and good, and in fact I agree with their usage, but it might not be entirely obvious to some speakers what is meant, esp. if the speaker pronounces "what's your" as [wats jor], as I do. Similarly, "loch" is never pronounced as a voiceless velar fricative in most English dialects, but rather [lak]. We should perhaps make a note of this in ths text somehow. True, the IPA symbols are given, but not everyone knows IPA, and then the examples in the IPA page probably reflect the pronounciations here, etc. Any suggestions on how to improve this? I think that for ć, "cheap" would be clearer (the same sound is produced, and the ability to distinguish the ć with cz is no different). --Vegalabs 23:19, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I see a problem in the vowels section for American readers: "cot" and "caught" are used as examples for two different Polish vowels; they can have identical pronunciation for some speakers. See Phonological history of English low back vowels#Cot-caught_merger--Theodore Kloba 20:36, 6 October 2006 (UTC)