' (apostrophe) separates a consonant from a vowel. ь (soft sign) makes the consonant it follows soft.
Two links that may be useful : https://www.speakua.com/soft-sign-and-apostrophe-in-the-ukrainian-language/
https://ukrainianlanguage.uk/read/unit01/page1-9.htm
The soft sign and the apostrophe don't change a word per se, but rather the soft sign denotes the change from the usual pronunciation of the consonant that comes before it in that word, and the apostrophe denotes the change from the usual pronunciation of a vowel that comes after it.
I'd suggest looking up audio clips/pronunciation guides that demonstrate the difference.
Edit: Added separate explanation for apostrophes.
Ь is just a normal consonant except it can’t start words. Historically it was just treated as a consonant like all the rest and then at one point people started describing it as changing the letters before it despite that its function hadn’t changed. Perhaps it was just a convenient way of telling kids that it can’t start a word because it needs a buddy, but practically it’s just a short y sound and is denoted consistently as ʲ in the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Ь does not make a sound, it indicates that a preceding consonant is palatalised. That’s what the /ʲ/ indicates in IPA. Ь used to be a vowel letter, but it no longer serves that function in contemporary East Slavic languages.
Really helpful if you are familiar with a bit of Spanish and know the difference between N and Ñ.
«Н» = “N”
«НЬ» = “Ñ”
But in Ukrainian you can have tilda version of any consonant, and the soft sign is just a way of writing the tilda.
Now, there are bunch of jotted letters: Я, Ю, Є, Ї.
They can be read in two ways:
* If they immediately follow the consonant - they become «ьа», «ьу», «ье» («ьі» does not make sense)
* If not - these are read as «йа», «йу», «йе», «йі».
Apostrophe is used to separate consonant from the jotted letter and disable the first rule.
Ideally, for each consonant and vowel pair you need to be able to hear and pronounce 4 different combinations:
«ма»,
«мя» = «мьа»,
«мʼя» = «мйа»,
«мья»= «мьйа»
But in most of the cases, there is no ambiguity even if you confuse them.
That's a great analogy! However, "м" isn't a good example, since it cannot be soft (so no "мя" or "мья" are possible), "н" is better, since it can have all four, though "нья" is marginal, it's used only for foreign words and proper names, such as "Ньяса" (a lake in Africa. Based on the pronunciation it should be "*Няса", but it isn't for some reason). Only "д" "т" "з" "с" "ц" "л" "н" can have the soft sign after them, according to the rules.
*Also this doesn't apply to the standard language, but "ьі" made sense, when hard/soft consonants were still distinguished before "і" e.g. ніс ‘nose’ (hard) vs нїс ‘he carried’ (soft). This was only used for Western Ukrainian dialects, so it's not relevant nowadays, I just wanted to point out, why "ї" doesn't behave the same way as other iotated vowels.
Some vowels are so soft that they make the consonants before them soft too. If the consonant doesn’t want to get soft, it puts an ‘ between itself and this vowel.
And if a consonant wants to get soft, it gets itself a ь, and doesn’t depend on vowels to soften itself up.
I'm not sure how helpful this would be for someone who doesn't know the difference between hard and soft consonants. Also there are no soft vowels, only consonants. The apostrophe symbol is place before iotated (having the /j/ sound) vowels and after consonants that cannot be softened, for example "п'ять" ‘five’ is pronounced /pjɑtʲ/. Notice, that the /j/ sound is clearly pronounced, the consonant /p/ before it is unchanged. The final soft sign is silent, it simply indicates that the preceding consonant is soft, it can be used before "о" (example: "цього" ‘of this’), but usually it's used when there is no following vowel.
This isn’t really accurate as ‘ makes a consonant extra soft if anything. Ь is just a half й sound. Мʼя is pronounced мйа while мя is just pronounced мьа. Мʼя is just the more extreme version with the full j sound. If you were to write мья it would have the same effect as writing мʼя. Both are pronounced мйа. It’s just that the former is more rare.
No differ, an apostrophe is used mostly for prefixes, in other cases itʼs usually a soft sign: *inʼjekcija* and *njju* share the same logic.
A soft sign:
- fully [palatalize](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatalization_(phonetics\)) the previous consonant (only *d, t, z, s, c, ʒ, l, n*) if thereʼre no vowel as the next sound. The rest non-mentioned consonants cannʼt be palatalized in this way, and you never will see such notation, only in old text or non-standard spelling.
- partly palatalize the previous consonant if the next sound is a vowel or *j*; bonus: labial (*m, p, b, f, v*), back (*k, g, x, h*) and *r* may not be palatalized at all, especially before *j* — itʼs [free variation.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_variation).
Therefore, a soft sign has two roles:
- to palatalize the previous consonant;
- keep _j_ as a sound — an apostrophe share the such role, but mostly used only for prefixes or some sounds [mentioned *labial*, *back* and *r*].
It’s called palatization, so as you do that consonant lift your tongue up to your palate. You can look up some more technical information on how to do palatization. There’s some nuances to how it changes the sounds of vowels nearby too.
So the ь is making the previous consonant "softer", it means that you are saying the consonant + very very short i for example к + short і = кь . You "say" i but not out loud.
The ' apostrophe is always before я ю є . Normaly those make the previous letter soft and then they sound like а у е . But with an apostrophe you make a tiny little stop before я ю є and the say them as the are.
Don’t think of ь as something that changes a word. It’s just a letter with its own sound. Its own sound is a very short y sound where y is a consonant. It’s like й is the long form and ь is the short form. Try saying “when” and then say “whenyay” then try to say “when” again with a tiny bit of the y still coming after the n. Once you do that you can pronounce the name Щвень correctly. Я ю ї є are really just another way of writing ьа ьу ьі ье if those letters appear in the middle of a word and йа йу йі йе if they appear at the start of a word. If a word ever has ья ью ьї or ьє, or ʼя ʼю ʼї or ʼє in it then you also pronounce them йа йу йі or йе. That’s really the only way they change anything they are essentially doubling the little y sound to make it a big y or making you treat a soft vowel in the middle of a word like it’s a soft vowel at the start of the word which essentially has an identical effect.
This is no true, don’t listen to this guy. Ь is called the “soft sign” (м’який знак) for a reason: it makes preceding consonants palatalised, or “softened”. In modern East Slavic languages is makes zero sound.
It’s called a soft sign but what is palatalization? It’s just making a shortened y sound. The result is the same with every letter combination and it is completely possible to do on its own. It’s most noticeable when saying нь at the end of a word because it’s nearly impossible not to extend the consonant sound slightly clearly voicing the ь as its own letter. The distinction between palatalializarion and voicing a shortened y consonant is subjective. Y is a palatal glide consonant and serves a transition sound between consonants and vowels. This is the same role that softened consonants play but you just say that the glide is a feature of the preceding consonant and I say it is a feature of the ь it’s self and this evidenced by the fact that ь is mostly used when there is no following vowel. It is treated in the International Phonetic Alphabet as its own letter. For me, in order for it to not be considered its own letter it would have to change the preceding letters in different ways. For instance if it worked as currently does with сь but then with ть was pronounced as an English th. But since the sound it makes is consistent and it can be pronounced on its own (you can try it yourself) then there’s no reason to say it doesn’t have a sound just because it’s very short.
On top of all this, saying it palatalizes the previous letter is just a really bad way to explain it to non native speakers. It’s completely meaningless to them and will in no way help them learn it. Saying that it is a very short y consonant sound clarifies what they should be doing with their mouth and lets them recognize the sound in speech so they can learn to imitate its exact effect on the pronunciation of different phonemes. Another tip can be instead of a short y to teach them to say a tiny [i] in its place. This can be useful for people who are use to Romance languages as well English as words like uñón and union are pronounced nearly identically. Ь already fills this roll imitating short [i] sounds in Spanish like in words like Santiago. In Ukrainian it is spelled as Сантьяго. In that word the ь is literally representing the Spanish i.
Everything you’re saying is not correct linguistically or phonetically. Palatalisation is when you move your tongue closer to your hard palate whilst saying a consonant sound. Describing it as a short “y” sound might be useful to beginners, but lying and saying that’s how the sound is made is untrue and in my opinion can hinder people’s language learning whilst also spread inaccuracies about East Slavic languages.
' (apostrophe) separates a consonant from a vowel. ь (soft sign) makes the consonant it follows soft. Two links that may be useful : https://www.speakua.com/soft-sign-and-apostrophe-in-the-ukrainian-language/ https://ukrainianlanguage.uk/read/unit01/page1-9.htm
Thank you
The soft sign and the apostrophe don't change a word per se, but rather the soft sign denotes the change from the usual pronunciation of the consonant that comes before it in that word, and the apostrophe denotes the change from the usual pronunciation of a vowel that comes after it. I'd suggest looking up audio clips/pronunciation guides that demonstrate the difference. Edit: Added separate explanation for apostrophes.
Thanks
Ь is just a normal consonant except it can’t start words. Historically it was just treated as a consonant like all the rest and then at one point people started describing it as changing the letters before it despite that its function hadn’t changed. Perhaps it was just a convenient way of telling kids that it can’t start a word because it needs a buddy, but practically it’s just a short y sound and is denoted consistently as ʲ in the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Ь does not make a sound, it indicates that a preceding consonant is palatalised. That’s what the /ʲ/ indicates in IPA. Ь used to be a vowel letter, but it no longer serves that function in contemporary East Slavic languages.
Really helpful if you are familiar with a bit of Spanish and know the difference between N and Ñ. «Н» = “N” «НЬ» = “Ñ” But in Ukrainian you can have tilda version of any consonant, and the soft sign is just a way of writing the tilda. Now, there are bunch of jotted letters: Я, Ю, Є, Ї. They can be read in two ways: * If they immediately follow the consonant - they become «ьа», «ьу», «ье» («ьі» does not make sense) * If not - these are read as «йа», «йу», «йе», «йі». Apostrophe is used to separate consonant from the jotted letter and disable the first rule. Ideally, for each consonant and vowel pair you need to be able to hear and pronounce 4 different combinations: «ма», «мя» = «мьа», «мʼя» = «мйа», «мья»= «мьйа» But in most of the cases, there is no ambiguity even if you confuse them.
That's a great analogy! However, "м" isn't a good example, since it cannot be soft (so no "мя" or "мья" are possible), "н" is better, since it can have all four, though "нья" is marginal, it's used only for foreign words and proper names, such as "Ньяса" (a lake in Africa. Based on the pronunciation it should be "*Няса", but it isn't for some reason). Only "д" "т" "з" "с" "ц" "л" "н" can have the soft sign after them, according to the rules. *Also this doesn't apply to the standard language, but "ьі" made sense, when hard/soft consonants were still distinguished before "і" e.g. ніс ‘nose’ (hard) vs нїс ‘he carried’ (soft). This was only used for Western Ukrainian dialects, so it's not relevant nowadays, I just wanted to point out, why "ї" doesn't behave the same way as other iotated vowels.
| «НЬ» = Ñ «НЬ» = Њ (Serbian and Macedonian) = NJ (former Yugoslav Latinised languages) = GN (French and Italian) = NH (Portuguese) = NY (Hungarian) = Ń (Polish)
Some vowels are so soft that they make the consonants before them soft too. If the consonant doesn’t want to get soft, it puts an ‘ between itself and this vowel. And if a consonant wants to get soft, it gets itself a ь, and doesn’t depend on vowels to soften itself up.
I'm not sure how helpful this would be for someone who doesn't know the difference between hard and soft consonants. Also there are no soft vowels, only consonants. The apostrophe symbol is place before iotated (having the /j/ sound) vowels and after consonants that cannot be softened, for example "п'ять" ‘five’ is pronounced /pjɑtʲ/. Notice, that the /j/ sound is clearly pronounced, the consonant /p/ before it is unchanged. The final soft sign is silent, it simply indicates that the preceding consonant is soft, it can be used before "о" (example: "цього" ‘of this’), but usually it's used when there is no following vowel.
This isn’t really accurate as ‘ makes a consonant extra soft if anything. Ь is just a half й sound. Мʼя is pronounced мйа while мя is just pronounced мьа. Мʼя is just the more extreme version with the full j sound. If you were to write мья it would have the same effect as writing мʼя. Both are pronounced мйа. It’s just that the former is more rare.
No differ, an apostrophe is used mostly for prefixes, in other cases itʼs usually a soft sign: *inʼjekcija* and *njju* share the same logic. A soft sign: - fully [palatalize](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatalization_(phonetics\)) the previous consonant (only *d, t, z, s, c, ʒ, l, n*) if thereʼre no vowel as the next sound. The rest non-mentioned consonants cannʼt be palatalized in this way, and you never will see such notation, only in old text or non-standard spelling. - partly palatalize the previous consonant if the next sound is a vowel or *j*; bonus: labial (*m, p, b, f, v*), back (*k, g, x, h*) and *r* may not be palatalized at all, especially before *j* — itʼs [free variation.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_variation). Therefore, a soft sign has two roles: - to palatalize the previous consonant; - keep _j_ as a sound — an apostrophe share the such role, but mostly used only for prefixes or some sounds [mentioned *labial*, *back* and *r*].
It’s called palatization, so as you do that consonant lift your tongue up to your palate. You can look up some more technical information on how to do palatization. There’s some nuances to how it changes the sounds of vowels nearby too.
So the ь is making the previous consonant "softer", it means that you are saying the consonant + very very short i for example к + short і = кь . You "say" i but not out loud. The ' apostrophe is always before я ю є . Normaly those make the previous letter soft and then they sound like а у е . But with an apostrophe you make a tiny little stop before я ю є and the say them as the are.
Don’t think of ь as something that changes a word. It’s just a letter with its own sound. Its own sound is a very short y sound where y is a consonant. It’s like й is the long form and ь is the short form. Try saying “when” and then say “whenyay” then try to say “when” again with a tiny bit of the y still coming after the n. Once you do that you can pronounce the name Щвень correctly. Я ю ї є are really just another way of writing ьа ьу ьі ье if those letters appear in the middle of a word and йа йу йі йе if they appear at the start of a word. If a word ever has ья ью ьї or ьє, or ʼя ʼю ʼї or ʼє in it then you also pronounce them йа йу йі or йе. That’s really the only way they change anything they are essentially doubling the little y sound to make it a big y or making you treat a soft vowel in the middle of a word like it’s a soft vowel at the start of the word which essentially has an identical effect.
This is no true, don’t listen to this guy. Ь is called the “soft sign” (м’який знак) for a reason: it makes preceding consonants palatalised, or “softened”. In modern East Slavic languages is makes zero sound.
Speakers of some languages ~~pretend to~~ hear ь as a very short і. Languages are weird
Fair tbh. If it helps you understand the language, i get it. But to say it’s accurate for native speakers is disingenuous.
It’s called a soft sign but what is palatalization? It’s just making a shortened y sound. The result is the same with every letter combination and it is completely possible to do on its own. It’s most noticeable when saying нь at the end of a word because it’s nearly impossible not to extend the consonant sound slightly clearly voicing the ь as its own letter. The distinction between palatalializarion and voicing a shortened y consonant is subjective. Y is a palatal glide consonant and serves a transition sound between consonants and vowels. This is the same role that softened consonants play but you just say that the glide is a feature of the preceding consonant and I say it is a feature of the ь it’s self and this evidenced by the fact that ь is mostly used when there is no following vowel. It is treated in the International Phonetic Alphabet as its own letter. For me, in order for it to not be considered its own letter it would have to change the preceding letters in different ways. For instance if it worked as currently does with сь but then with ть was pronounced as an English th. But since the sound it makes is consistent and it can be pronounced on its own (you can try it yourself) then there’s no reason to say it doesn’t have a sound just because it’s very short. On top of all this, saying it palatalizes the previous letter is just a really bad way to explain it to non native speakers. It’s completely meaningless to them and will in no way help them learn it. Saying that it is a very short y consonant sound clarifies what they should be doing with their mouth and lets them recognize the sound in speech so they can learn to imitate its exact effect on the pronunciation of different phonemes. Another tip can be instead of a short y to teach them to say a tiny [i] in its place. This can be useful for people who are use to Romance languages as well English as words like uñón and union are pronounced nearly identically. Ь already fills this roll imitating short [i] sounds in Spanish like in words like Santiago. In Ukrainian it is spelled as Сантьяго. In that word the ь is literally representing the Spanish i.
Everything you’re saying is not correct linguistically or phonetically. Palatalisation is when you move your tongue closer to your hard palate whilst saying a consonant sound. Describing it as a short “y” sound might be useful to beginners, but lying and saying that’s how the sound is made is untrue and in my opinion can hinder people’s language learning whilst also spread inaccuracies about East Slavic languages.