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Temat: Podstawowe zasady dotyczące pisowni i wymowy – miękkość spółgłosek

Lesson three. Subject: Basic rules concerning the spelling and the pronunciation – softness of consonants

Klucz do ćwiczeń z poprzedniej lekcji

(Key to exercises from the previous lesson)

Words hidden in the diagram: bat, Bogdan, buk, dam, dom, głowa, koza, mama, noga, ona, oto, tamto, woda. Note that you can also find additional words, e.g. on within ona.

What does “soft” mean?

In the phonetics of each Slavic language there are so called “hard” and “soft” consonants. You must pay your attention that these terms do not mean the same what in some English books where t, p are called “hard” while th, f – “soft”. The softness in our sense lies in completely different matter.

When you pronounce i, the middle part of your tongue goes up, to your palate. In Polish, like in other Slavic languages, there are consonants pronounced with similar upward movement of the tongue. They are called palatalized consonants or soft consonants. All the others are called hard (or non-palatalized). English consonants are, as a rule, hard (also th and f – in this sense).

An important rule of the Polish phonetics says that a consonant is always soft before the vowel i. No true hard (ie. non-palatalized) consonants are possible there. Now I will try to teach you such pronunciation.

Say the (not real) word ifi and try to feel what the back of your tongue is doing. If it is changing its position between both i’s – you are pronouncing a hard variety of f. Now try stop this moving of your tongue – while you are speaking f, it should have the same position as it has during pronouncing i. Have you managed to do this?

Now try to speak f and i in the same time – whispering, because f is voiceless. Done? Now say normal f. Can you here the difference? Normal f is hard but while spoken with whispered i in the same time – it is soft. Repeat your trials until you can change your pronouncing between hard and soft f’s without any trouble. Now try the group ufi with the soft f. If you manage to do it, you will be able to read sufit ‘ceiling’ correctly.

I will not use any special symbol to mark hard consonants – all consonants you have learnt so far of are hard. But I will use the [′] symbol to mark softness when needed. It means I may omit this symbol before i because in this position each consonant has to be soft. So, I may write [sufit] instead of [suf′it] because the hard variety of f is impossible in Polish in this word due to its positon before i. But if you want to speak Polish really correctly, you mustn’t forget about the softness of f here.

Do you remember the word kij? Of course we have the soft k in it. Here “softness” means unusual articulation of k. When you are speaking a normal k, the back of your tongue touches your palate in the point A. When you are speaking i, the back of your tongue goes up towards the point B that is in front of the A. When you are speaking soft k ([k′]), your tongue touches your palate in the point C that lies between A and B. So, we call i (and j) palatal, [k′] – prevelar and [k] – velar.

Here is the resume of that boring lecture. “Soft” means pronounced with i-
like sound in the same time. But when you are speaking one of velar consonants (like k), it means pronounced at the front of the usual position (palatalized velars means prevelars). I hope that all this is clear for you… Soon it will be an occasion to practice.

Softened labials: pi, bi, fi, wi, mi

The labials (and labio-velars) p, b, f, w, m are always soft before i, e.g. piwo ‘beer’, pisk ‘squeal’, pismo ‘official letter’, biskup ‘bishop’, figa ‘fig’, wino ‘wine’, winda ‘lift’, Wisła ‘The Vistula’ (name of the biggest Polish river), miła ‘nice, pleasant’ (e.g. girl). They must be hard before a consonant and word-finally. But before the vowels e, a, o, u/ó they can be both hard or soft. To mark their softness we will be using the digraphs pi, bi, fi, wi, mi. Notice that here the letter i do not mark a separate vowel (or a separate syllable). In fact, there is a short, transient sound between the soft labial and the following vowel – but it is not j!!! You do wrong when you read piasek ‘sand’ in “English way” as “pyaseck” – there are words with real groups [pj] in Polish too, and the groups sound different than normal pi. Some examples for softened labials with the transient “palatalizing element” (not j): pies ‘dog’ (one syllable: [p′es]), piesek ‘doggie, small dog’, obiad ‘dinner’ (traditionally eaten at midday or in the afternoon, not evening; [ob′at]), fiołek ‘(sweet) violet’, wiem ‘I know’, miasto ‘town, city’.

The groups pi, bi, fi, wi, mi may mark [pj, bj, fj, wj, mj] as well – but only in many foreign words (well, in a great number of them…) – among them in geographical names. We do not use j after labials – and hence the problem. I will tell you about such a pronunciation every time it will be necessary.

The difference between [p′] and [pj] is that in [pj] there is no palatalization (or very slight only) of p and you can hear normal j, not a transient sound only. Examples for j: Gambia, Namibia, Nubia, Sofia. There can be hesitation in reading some words: you can pronounce fiołek as both [f′ołek] or [fjołek] (but not in the others you have just learnt). Words change the groups with j into softened labials when people begin to feel they are native, not borrowed.

The groups ti, di

They are present only in loanwords. We have only two instances here:

• when before a consonant or word-finally they build a separate syllable: tik ‘tic’, adidas ‘sporting shoe’;
• when they are before a vowel, they mark [tj, dj] – similarly to labials (in loanwords): diabeł ‘devil’ ([djabeł]), amnestia ‘amnesty’ ([amnestja]).

Softness of t, d is present but unimportant in Polish – we can even say that there are not real soft t, d.

The groups ki, gi

They are similar to labials. We have three instances here:

• before a consonant or word-finally they denote separate syllables (with soft k, g of course): gigant ‘giant’, długi ‘long’, ptaki ‘birds’ (can you say the pt cluster correctly?), gips ‘plaster, gypsum’;
• before the vowel e, a, o, u/ó they mark just soft [k′, g′] with no j or anything in this style: kieł ‘canine tooth’ ([k′eł]), giełda ‘stock exchange’;
• before the vowel i, e, a, o, u in foreign words (and still felt as such) we read [kj, gj] (where [k, g] can be soft): magia ‘magic’ ([magja]), makia ‘macchia, brushwood in Italy’ ([makja]).

General conclusion

The letter i is “magic” in Polish:

• it sometimes denotes a vowel,
• sometimes it is only a mark for softness of the preceding consonant,
• it sometimes denotes the consonant [j].

Let our rules be as simple as possible – keep them always in your mind:

• before a consonant or word-finally we have always the vowel i: piwo, długi,
• before a vowel the symbol i does not mark a vowel but softness of the preceding consonant: kieł, pies, miasto.

All other instances (when i denotes j, like in diabeł, magia or Nubia) will be treated as irregularities and I will give you the pronunciation when you meet them for the first time.

Find hidden words

The following diagram contains at least 15 Polish words, written horizontally, vertically or diagonally, in any direction (so, words written from right to left or from bottom to top are also possible). Can you find them all? The list of these words is given in the next lesson.

Have you reached your learning goals?

• You know what mean the terms “hard” and “soft” in the Polish phonetics.
• You know what phonetic values can be represented by the character i.
• You can read the following new Polish words and you know what they mean: adidas, amnestia, biskup, diabeł, długi, figa, fiołek, Gambia, giełda, gigant, gips, kieł, magia, makia, miasto, miła, Namibia, Nubia, obiad, piasek, pies, piesek, pisk, pismo, piwo, ptaki, Sofia, tik, wiem, winda, wino, Wisła.

Please repeat the material until you are sure you can do all what you should.