What is the difference between Ш and Щ?

These comments were originally written on Duolingo Russian forum in "What is the difference between Ш and Щ?" thread.

by piguy3

"sh" in English "ship" in phonetic terms is a voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant

If you start pronouncing "ship" but hold at the "sh" for a while, you will feel that the front part of your tongue is up near the top of your mouth. With reference to that sound getting to ш and щ represent two distinct changes.

ш is a voiceless retroflex sibilant That means it's a sound a lot like "sh" but with only the tip of the tongue near the top of the mouth, not the whole front of the tongue like in "sh." Basically, just try to produce the "sh" sound just by pointing the tip of your tongue toward the top of your mouth [as if you were going to pronounce an American English "r": h/t va-diim], and I think you'll get close.

щ is a voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant Again, what that means isn't really the point here. But I'm putting the names just to give an idea of how closely they are related. The only difference between "sh" and щ is that the first is "palato-alveolar" and the second is "alveolo-palatal." Basically all that means is that you get even more of your tongue up near the top of your mouth than with "sh."

You might have heard of "palatalized" sounds in Russian. Well, the palate is the top of your mouth, "palatalized" just means the tongue is up by the palate. щ is the "palatalized" version of ш because the whole tongue is up by the palate, whereas for ш it's just the tip.

Obviously I don't write this as a native Russian speaker with an inherent understanding of these sound differences. Nor am I somebody who actually has any linguistics background. I've just read Wikipedia articles and have found them immensely helpful in learning to understand how to pronounce sounds outside my native English. So all those better informed, please correct me!

by TomvanderV3

This video tutorial was very usefull for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tENgvnbf-Iw

At about 5:25 they explain the pronunciation of ш and щ

by alanvoe

I recommend the video about Russian consonants of the same Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/zltpo15toe0. Ш and щ are better explained there, at 7:58.

by Shady_arc

Listen to these two words I once recorded to make it easier to grasp this exact difference: ШУБА / ЩУКА

In Russian, Щ represents a longer and more hissy sound than the English "sh"; a Ш is a less hissy sound. Shch only reflects the historical pronunciation, still used in some remote villages but not much anywhere else (also, sh + ch is the letter's standard pronunciation in Ukrainian).

So, the English sound is not really a good model for either because it sounds like something inbetween. However, when all you want is transliteration into English, "shch" is better than nothing.

Your tongue in Щ is raised high up, and the consonant itself is longer. For Ш, think of an R in American English, and spoon your tongue back somewhat (not much, really).

It is also important to consider how the four Russian hushes relate to each other:

  • Щ is a very noisy and long hush, similar to German "ch" but moved forward
  • Ш is a hush with relatively little noise, with your tongue low. Щ and Ш sound clearly different. Your first concern should be to feel that difference and represent it in your pronunciation (even if it turns out a bit exaggerated)
  • Ж is the same as Ш but voiced
  • Ч is like English "ch" in "cheese" but whereas the articulation of the English sound is connected to the articulation of English "sh", the Russian sound releases its ч to a щ-like hush.

by gabzerbinatoEng

Ш: A retroflexed "sh" sound. Just like the English sh, but a little bit further in the mouth. IPA /ʂ/

Щ: It's called Voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant. I know it's quite a long name, but in the end it is a mixture of the English sh with the German ch in the word "Ich". When heard, it sounds like a higher pitched sh. IPA /ɕ:/

This is the Russian pronunciation for the letters. The Ukrainian one has only one difference: instead of the /ɕ:/ sound for Щ, there is a "shch" one. It can be found in consonant clusters like "fresh cheese" in English.

by KaramataBG

Except for the difference in pronunciation, these sounds have different origins. They both have arisen from palatalization of certain consonants - ш (sh) comes from the proto-sounds *sj and *hj, and щ (shch) comes from *tj, *skj, *ktj / *gtj. Strictly speaking, these palatalization rules apply only for Church Slavonic and Bulgarian, but since Standard Russian was constructed by mixing Church Slavonic with Moscovity Russian, щ has remained in modern Russian. The native Russian equivalent of щ (shch) is ч (tsh) - e.g. свечa = 'candle' /of Russian origin/, освещенность = 'illumination' /of Church Slavonic origin/, светлый (m.) = 'bright' /non-palatalized root/. An example for a ш-word is шить (inf) = 'to sew', both coming from the ancient root *syuH- ;)

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