I love that he name checks and quotes Chkalov. Not that I expect anyone to know who Chkalov was, but there's a Chkalov Drive in Vancouver WA, and I went down the "how do I pronounce that, who is it named for" rabbit hole a few years ago, so his name always makes me smile. The Vantucky locals typically say Chuckalov or similar, and look blankly at anything close to ˈtɕkaləf
You don't need a t there (native Russian speaker), it's a clear ch like in check.
This is a common mistake when transliterating the Russian ч (ch), t doesn't add anything. In fact, t makes it more difficult to pronounce it while it's an easy sound for most people to say.
What’s happening here is that /tɕ/ is a single sound — I’d transcribe it /t͡ɕ/, with a little tiebar to make that clear. This sound is an ‘affricate’, meaning that it’s pronounced by starting with a /t/ and releasing it with the tongue so that it finishes with a /ɕ/ sound. /ɕ/ alone would be the sound written in Russian as ⟨щ⟩, which is of course different. Incidentally English ⟨ch⟩ is also affricated, although it’s pronounced slightly differently, as /t͡ʃ/ rather than /t͡ɕ/.
> This sound is an ‘affricate’, meaning that it’s pronounced by starting with a /t/ and releasing it with the tongue so that it finishes with a /ɕ/ sound.
I don't agree. I don't start with a /t/ when I'm about to say any Russian word that starts with ч (ch). The tongue is in a different place altogether.
With т, the tongue is closer to teeth than when I start with ч (ch). This should be true for all since we're talking about more or less the same sound – ч and /ch/.
Of course for French and English speakers /ch/ represents two different sounds.
I don't speak Russian so I'm somewhat reluctant to quarrel with someone who does on this point, but the phenomenon of <ч> being used to write an affricate sound that starts with a dental stop is super-well documented in linguistics literature -- on the basis of extensive studies with, and often by, native Russian speakers.
That dental stop might or might not be exactly the same sound as any of those that are written with Russian <т> or English <t> (which, per Wikipedia, are themselves slightly different in place of articulation). English-speakers might be misled into thinking the <ч> is a familiar English sound if it's transcribed as [t͡ʃ]; Russian Wikipedia, for example, suggests it's actually [t̠̪͡ʲɕ̪] (different in three different respects from [t͡ʃ]!). But /t/ is also the closest we can probably get in English to what may be actually be, say, [t̪ʲ], even though it does have a slightly different place of articulation.
I think it would be fair to say, considering evidence from both English and Russian Wikipedias, that the Russian <ч> does start with a "t-like" sound from the English perspective, yet that sound is at least not precisely identical to that written with English <t>.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with a Vietnamese speaker about the word "đúng" which means "right" or "correct".
To my English ears it sounds like "doom" (Southern Dialect). The "ng" ending sounds like an "m". But to this Vietnamese speaker, they said "no, 'ng' makes a sound like the English word 'sung'"
And the vocalization you mentioned for the Russia sound is similar. "ng" in Vietnamese is the same "ng" sound in English but you close your mouth at the end and purse your lips like the "m" sound in English.
But I think we're both right, it's just that each person hears the same sound in different ways due to the language we grew up with.
> You don't need a t there (native Russian speaker), it's a clear ch like in check.
English can inherit some of its spellings historically from French, the language of diplomacy prior to the wars. In French the tch is necessary for pronunciation, like tchécoslovaquie. Also, American English gets various spellings from a number of different Slavic and German immigrant groups. There just isn't "a way" to spell many of these place names and terms, like borsch/borscht/borshch
That t is not entirely useless (non-native Russian speaker here). Even the pronunciation of 'check' has a starting t sound in it: tʃɛk. Without the starting t, you might end up with something that could be spelled sheck in English.
So I'd argue, that the t in transliterations helps people who don't speak Russian to get the ч sound right. Since the transliteration as 'ch' is ambiguous and doesn't appear to work for many of the inhabitants of Vancouver, WA. So ideally we should all use IPA or better yet, ask a Russian speaker.
> Without the starting t, you might end up with something that could be spelled sheck in English.
That might be true.
The truer thing though is, English speakers at least (unless they're a linguist or read IPA in the morning), go ahead and pronounce (or try to) the t and run into trouble every time because t-ch-kalof is a challenge they're not up to (Russians won't have a problem with it, even when drunk).
(Native Russian speaker here) I don’t really agree. The “t” and “ch” require very different tongue and jaw positions and combining them is awkward and would require a vowel in between when used in a real word.
English speakers are perfectly capable of pronouncing ch vs sh (e.g. chair vs share) whereas sh vs sh’ (ш/щ) might be more challenging.
Especially since there exist words in russian language that actually have "т" before "ч", and the sound it makes is different. Compare "отчёт" and "очки" (the closest similar word i could think of by the sound of the first half of it). If you try pronouncing the first word as if "т" wasn't there (or the second word, but as it "т" was there), it will sound both very different and wrong.
That (the IPA designations) could, and probably is, helpful for breaking down sounds on paper but taking that /t/ from what is a manual of sorts and dropping it into a foreign transliteration is the opposite of helpful.
Everybody expect the French won't have any problem reading out without stumbling Chkalov or Chmil. Supplying the /t/ is a copout to please the French and, as a bonus, to piss of the Russians (especially the Chekalovs ones).
I just cut and paste the IPA from Wikipedia! For actual pronunciation guidance I asked a native Russian speaker!
[Edit: I think it's possible in the IPA that the t is there to make it a harder ch sound like in check, rather than soft as in chagrin or chalet, kindof like the d in Django makes it the hard j common in English, as opposed to the soft j natural in French]
Don't know. When I think about it, all Russian ч (ch) pronunciations are consistent unlike some other sounds that vary depending who is talking. Not sure why they'd want to add anything to it. It's an easy sound from get go.
My personal pet hate is how Andrei Tchiml's[1] surname creates unnecessary difficulties for English (and other) speakers. It's a simple ch sound at the beginning and yet everyone stumbles on it trying to speak out a mouthful of consonants while they're not there to start with.
French, I think, are particularly having trouble with it.
