Palatalization is a
historical-linguistic sound change that results in a
palatalized articulation of a
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...
or, in certain cases, a
front vowel. Palatalization involves change in the
place
Place may refer to:
Geography
* Place (United States Census Bureau), defined as any concentration of population
** Census-designated place, a populated area lacking its own municipal government
* "Place", a type of street or road name
** Often ...
or
manner of articulation of
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...
s, or the
fronting or
raising of
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s. In some cases, palatalization involves
assimilation or
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
.
Types
Palatalization is sometimes an example of
assimilation. In some cases, it is triggered by a palatal or palatalized consonant or front vowel, but in other cases, it is not conditioned in any way.
Consonant
Palatalization changes
place of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articula ...
or
manner of articulation of consonants. It may add palatal secondary articulation or change primary articulation from
velar
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum).
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...
to palatal or
alveolar, alveolar to
postalveolar.
It may also cause a consonant to change its manner of articulation from stop to affricate or fricative. The change in the manner of articulation is a form of
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
. However, the lenition is frequently accompanied by a change in place of articulation.
* > , , , , ,
Palatalization of
velar
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum).
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...
consonants commonly causes them to front, and
apical
Apical means "pertaining to an apex". It may refer to:
*Apical ancestor, refers to the last common ancestor of an entire group, such as a species (biology) or a clan (anthropology)
*Apical (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features loc ...
and
coronal consonants are usually raised. In the process, stop consonants are often spirantised except for palatalized labials.
Palatalization, as a
sound change, is usually triggered only by
mid and
close
Close may refer to:
Music
* ''Close'' (Kim Wilde album), 1988
* ''Close'' (Marvin Sapp album), 2017
* ''Close'' (Sean Bonniwell album), 1969
* "Close" (Sub Focus song), 2014
* "Close" (Nick Jonas song), 2016
* "Close" (Rae Sremmurd song), 201 ...
(high) front vowels and the
semivowel
In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the c ...
. The sound that results from palatalization may vary from language to language. For example, palatalization of may produce , etc. A change from to may pass through as an intermediate state, but there is no requirement for that to happen.
In the
Nupe language
Nupe (also known as ''Anufe, Nupenci, Nyinfe, Tapa'') is a Volta–Niger language of the Nupoid branch primarily spoken by the Nupe people of the North Central region of Nigeria. Its geographical distribution stretches and maintains pre-eminenc ...
, and are palatalized both before front vowels and , while velars are only palatalized before front vowels. In
Ciluba, palatalizes only a preceding , , or . In some variants of
Ojibwe
The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains.
According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...
, velars are palatalized before , but apicals are not. In
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily ...
, dentals and are palatalized when occurring in clusters before , but velars are not.
Vowel
Palatalization sometimes refers to
vowel shift
A vowel shift is a systematic sound change in the pronunciation of the vowel sounds of a language.
The best-known example in the English language is the Great Vowel Shift, which began in the 15th century. The Greek language also underwent a vow ...
s, the
fronting of a
back vowel or
raising of a
front vowel. The shifts are sometimes triggered by a nearby
palatal
The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity.
A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...
or palatalized consonant or by a high front vowel. The
Germanic umlaut is a famous example.
A similar change is reconstructed in the history of
Old French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intellig ...
in which
Bartsch's law
In historical linguistics, Bartsch's law or the Bartsch effect (french: loi de Bartsch, or ) is the name of a sound change that took place in the early history of the langues d'oïl ( 5th - 6th centuries AD), for example in the development of Old ...
turned
open vowels into or after a palatalized velar consonant. If it was true for all open vowels in Old French, it would explain the palatalization of velar plosives before .
In
Erzya, a
Uralic language
The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian (w ...
, the open vowel is raised to near-open after a palatalized consonant, as in the name of the language, .
In
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
, the back vowels are fronted to central , and the open vowel is raised to near-open , near palatalized consonants. The palatalized consonants also factor in how
unstressed vowels are reduced.
Unconditioned
Palatalization is sometimes unconditioned or spontaneous, not triggered by a palatal or palatalized consonant or front vowel.
In southwestern
Romance
Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to:
Common meanings
* Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings
* Romance languages, ...
, clusters of a voiceless
obstruent with were palatalized once or twice. This first palatalization was unconditioned. It resulted in a cluster with a palatal lateral , a palatal lateral on its own, or a cluster with a palatal approximant . In a second palatalization, the was affricated to or spirantized to .
*
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...
"to call" >
Aromanian /kʎimari/,
Aragonese /kʎamar/, Spanish , Italian
: >
Istriot
The Istriot language () is a Romance language of the Italo-Dalmatian branch spoken by about 400 people in the southwestern part of the Istrian peninsula in Croatia, particularly in Rovinj and Vodnjan. It should not be confused with the Istrian ...
, Portuguese
In the
Western Romance languages
Western Romance languages are one of the two subdivisions of a proposed subdivision of the Romance languages based on the La Spezia–Rimini Line. They include the Gallo-Romance and Iberian Romance branches. Gallo-Italic may also be included ...
, Latin was palatalized once or twice. The first palatalization was unconditioned: the was vocalized to or spirantized to . In a second palatalization, the was affricated to :
* Vulgar Latin "night" >
French ,
European Portuguese
European Portuguese ( pt, português europeu, ), also known as Portuguese of Portugal (Portuguese: português de Portugal), Iberian Portuguese (Portuguese: português ibérico), and Peninsular Portuguese (Portuguese: português peninsular), refer ...
, eastern
Occitan Occitan may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain.
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France.
* Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...
,
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
(Old Catalan ),
Mozarabic
Mozarabic, also called Andalusi Romance, refers to the medieval Romance varieties spoken in the Iberian Peninsula in territories controlled by the Islamic Emirate of Córdoba and its successors. They were the common tongue for the majority of ...
,
Galician
: > Spanish , western Occitan ,
Romansh ,
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese (' ), also Portuguese of Brazil (', ) or South American Portuguese (') is the set of varieties of the Portuguese language native to Brazil and the most influential form of Portuguese worldwide. It is spoken by almost all of ...
Effects
Allophony and phonemic split
Palatalization may result in a
phonemic split
In historical linguistics, phonological change is any sound change that alters the distribution of phonemes in a language. In other words, a language develops a new system of oppositions among its phonemes. Old contrasts may disappear, new ones ...
, a
historical change by which a
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
becomes two new phonemes over time through palatalization.
Old historical splits have frequently drifted since the time they occurred and may be independent of current phonetic palatalization. The
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
tendency of palatalized consonants (by
assibilation
In linguistics, assibilation is a sound change resulting in a sibilant consonant. It is a form of spirantization and is commonly the final phase of palatalization.
Arabic
A characteristic of Mashreqi varieties of Arabic (particularly Lev ...
and deaffrication) is important. According to some analyses, the lenition of the palatalized consonant is still a part of the palatalization process itself.
In
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
, allophonic palatalization affected the
dental plosives and , turning them into
alveolo-palatal
In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants, sometimes synonymous with pre-palatal consonants, are intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants, or which have simultaneous alveolar and palatal artic ...
affricates and before ,
romanized as ⟨ch⟩ and ⟨j⟩ respectively. Japanese has, however, recently regained phonetic and from
loanwords, and the originally-allophonic palatalization has thus become lexical. A similar change has also happened in
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
and
Belarusian. That would also be true about most dialects of
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese (' ), also Portuguese of Brazil (', ) or South American Portuguese (') is the set of varieties of the Portuguese language native to Brazil and the most influential form of Portuguese worldwide. It is spoken by almost all of ...
but for the strong
phonotactical resistance of its native speakers that turn dental plosives into post-alveolar affricates even in loanwords: McDonald's .
For example,
Votic has undergone such a change historically, ''*keeli'' → 'language', but there is currently an additional distinction between palatalized laminal and non-palatalized apical consonants. An extreme example occurs in
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
, whose palatalized (
'soft') has ended up as from a long process where Latin became palatalized to (Late Latin) and then affricated to (Proto-Romance), deaffricated to (Old Spanish), devoiced to (16th century), and finally retracted to a
velar
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum).
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...
, giving (c. 1650). (See
History of the Spanish language and
Phonological history of Spanish coronal fricatives
In Spanish dialectology, the realization of coronal fricatives is one of the most prominent features distinguishing various dialect regions. The main three realizations are the phonemic distinction between and ('), the presence of only alveo ...
for more information).
Examples
Palatalization has played a major role in the history of English, and of other languages and language groups throughout the world, such as the
Romance
Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to:
Common meanings
* Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings
* Romance languages, ...
,
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
,
Slavic,
Baltic,
Finnic,
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
,
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
,
Mordvinic,
Samoyedic,
Iranian
Iranian may refer to:
* Iran, a sovereign state
* Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran
* Iranian lan ...
,
Indo-Aryan,
Goidelic
The Goidelic or Gaelic languages ( ga, teangacha Gaelacha; gd, cànanan Goidhealach; gv, çhengaghyn Gaelgagh) form one of the two groups of Insular Celtic languages, the other being the Brittonic languages.
Goidelic languages historically ...
,
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
,
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
,
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
,
Albanian,
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
, and
Micronesian languages
The twenty Micronesian languages form a family of Oceanic languages. Micronesian languages are known for their lack of plain labial consonants; they have instead two series, palatalized and labio-velarized labials.
Languages
According to Jack ...
.
English
Anglo-Frisian
In
Anglo-Frisian
The Anglo-Frisian languages are the Anglic (English, Scots, and Yola) and Frisian varieties of the West Germanic languages.
The Anglo-Frisian languages are distinct from other West Germanic languages due to several sound changes: besides th ...
, the language that gave rise to English and the
Frisian languages
The Frisian (, ) languages are a closely related group of West Germanic languages, spoken by about 500,000 Frisian people, who live on the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany. The Frisian languages are the closest l ...
, the velar stops and the
consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...
were palatalized in certain cases and became the sounds , , , and . Many words with Anglo-Frisian palatalization survive in Modern English, and the palatalized sounds are typically spelled , , , and in Modern English.
Palatalization only occurred in certain environments, and so it did not apply to all words from the same
root
In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the su ...
. This is the origin of some
alternations in
cognate words, such as ''speak'' and ''speech'' , ''cold'' and ''chill'' , ''burrow'' and ''bury'' , ''dawn'' and ''day'' . Here originates from unpalatalized and from unpalatalized .
Some English words with palatalization have unpalatalized
doublets from the
Northumbrian dialect
The Northumbrian dialect refers to any of several English language varieties spoken in the traditional English region of Northumbria, which includes most of the North East England government region. The traditional Northumbrian dialect is a ...
and from
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlemen ...
, such as ''shirt'' and ''skirt'' , ''church'' and ''kirk'' , ''ditch'' and ''dike'' .
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
only underwent
/ʃ/">palatalization of : ''cheese'' and ; ''lie'' and ; ''lay'' and ; ''fish'' and .
The pronunciation of as with a hard is a
spelling pronunciation
A spelling pronunciation is the pronunciation of a word according to its spelling when this differs from a longstanding standard or traditional pronunciation. Words that are spelled with letters that were never pronounced or that were not pronounc ...
, since the actual Old English pronunciation gave rise to ''witch''.
Other
Others include the following:
*Palatisation of /s/ to /ʃ/ in modern English
In some English-speaking areas, the sound /s/ changed to /ʃ/, like for example in the words Worcestershire (/wʊs.tɚ.ʃiɹ/ to /wʊʃ.tɚ.ʃiɹ/) and Association (/əˌsoʊsiˈeɪʃən/ to /əˌsoʊʃiˈeɪʃən/).
Various other examples include ''Asphault'', ''(to) assume''.
*Rhotic palatalization:
:This is found in non-rhotic dialects of New York City, according to Labov, triggered by the loss of the
coil–curl merger. It results in the palatalization of /ɝ/. (Labov never specified the resultant vowel.)
*In
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
and some other urban Scottish accents, is given an
apico-alveolar
An apical consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the tip of the tongue (apex) in conjunction with upper articulators from lips to postalveolar, and possibly prepalatal. It contrasts with laminal cons ...
articulation, which auditorily gives an impression of a
retracted pronunciation similar to .
Semitic languages
Arabic
= Historical
=
While in most Semitic languages, e.g.
Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
,
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
,
Ge'ez the
Gimel
Gimel is the third letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Gīml , Hebrew Gimel , Aramaic Gāmal , Syriac Gāmal , and Arabic (in alphabetical order; fifth in spelling order). Its sound value in the original Phoenician and in all d ...
represents a , Arabic is considered unique among them where the Gimel was palatalized in most dialects to Jīm an affricate or further into a fricative . While there is variation in Modern Arabic varieties, most of them reflect this palatalized pronunciation except in
Egyptian Arabic
Egyptian Arabic, locally known as Colloquial Egyptian ( ar, العامية المصرية, ), or simply Masri (also Masry) (), is the most widely spoken vernacular Arabic dialect in Egypt. It is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family, and ...
and a number of
Yemeni
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...
and
Omani
Oman ( ; ar, عُمَان ' ), officially the Sultanate of Oman ( ar, سلْطنةُ عُمان ), is an Arabian country located in southwestern Asia. It is situated on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and spans the mouth of t ...
dialects, where it is pronounced as . It is not well known when this change occurred or if it is connected to the pronunciation of Qāf as a , but in most of the
Arabian peninsula which is the homeland of the Arabic language, the represents a and represents a , except in western and southern
Yemen
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...
and parts of
Oman
Oman ( ; ar, عُمَان ' ), officially the Sultanate of Oman ( ar, سلْطنةُ عُمان ), is an Arabian country located in southwestern Asia. It is situated on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and spans the mouth of ...
where represents a and represents a , which shows a strong correlation between the palatalization of to and the pronunciation of the as a as shown in the table below:
= Modern Arabic dialects
=
Some modern Arabic varieties developed palatalization of (turning into , , , or ), (turning into or ) and (turning into ), usually when adjacent to front vowel, though these palatalizations also occur in other environments as well. These three palatalizations occur in a variety of dialects, including
Iraqi, rural
Levantine varieties (e.g. rural
Palestinian
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
), a number of
Gulf Arabic
Gulf Arabic ( ' local pronunciation: or ', local pronunciation: ) is a variety of the Arabic language spoken in Eastern Arabia around the coasts of the Persian Gulf in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, southern Iraq, eastern Sa ...
dialects, such as
Kuwaiti,
Qatari
Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...
,
Bahraini, and
Emarati, as well as others like
Najdi Najdi may refer to:
*People of Najd
* Najdi (surname)
* Najdi Arabic, a variety of the Arabic language,
* Najdi (sheep), a breed of sheep
*Najdi!
Najdi! ( mk, Најди!, meaning "Find!") is a search engine specialized in Republic of Macedonia ...
, the southern dialects of Saudi Arabia, parts of Oman and Yemen and various
Bedouin dialects across the
Arab World
The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western A ...
. Examples:
* ('dog') > Iraqi and Gulf , and traditional Najdi .
* ('rooster') > rural Palestinian
* ('
Sharjah
Sharjah (; ar, ٱلشَّارقَة ', Gulf Arabic: ''aš-Šārja'') is the third-most populous city in the United Arab Emirates, after Dubai and Abu Dhabi, forming part of the Dubai-Sharjah-Ajman metropolitan area.
Sharjah is the capital ...
') > Gulf while other neighboring dialects pronounce it without palatalization.
* ('new') > Gulf
* ('water container') > traditional Najdi , although this phenomenon is fading among the younger generations where is pronounced like in most other dialects in Saudi Arabia.
Palatalization occurs in the pronunciation of the second person feminine singular pronoun in those dialects. For instance:
Classical Arabic 'your eye' (to a female) is pronounced:
* in Gulf, Iraqi, and rural levantine dialects (e.g. rural Palestinian)
* in traditional Najdi and a number of
bedouin dialects.
* or in some southern dialects in Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
Speakers in these dialects that do not use the palatalization would merge the feminine and masculine suffix pronouns e.g. ('your eye' to a male/female) as opposed to Classical Arabic ('your eye' to a male) and ('your eye' to a female) and most other modern urban dialects (to a male) and (to a female).
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic
Suret ( syr, ܣܘܪܝܬ) ( su:rɪtʰor su:rɪθ, also known as Assyrian or Chaldean, refers to the varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) spoken by ethnic Assyrians, including those identifying as religious groups rather than eth ...
features the palatalization of
kaph (turning into ),
taw (turning into ) and
gimel
Gimel is the third letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Gīml , Hebrew Gimel , Aramaic Gāmal , Syriac Gāmal , and Arabic (in alphabetical order; fifth in spelling order). Its sound value in the original Phoenician and in all d ...
(turning into ), albeit in some dialects only and seldom in the standardized version of the language.
*In the Upper
Tyari
Tyari ( syr, ܛܝܵܪܹܐ, Ṭyārē) is an Assyrian tribe and a historical district within Hakkari, Turkey. The area was traditionally divided into Upper (''Tyari Letha'') and Lower Tyari (''Tyari Khtetha'')–each consisting of several Assyrian ...
dialects, in a stressed syllable is palatalized and replaced with (e.g. ''beta'', 'house' ).
* may be palatalized to among Assyrians who originate from
Urmia
Urmia or Orumiyeh ( fa, ارومیه, Variously transliterated as ''Oroumieh'', ''Oroumiyeh'', ''Orūmīyeh'' and ''Urūmiyeh''.) is the largest city in West Azerbaijan Province of Iran and the capital of Urmia County. It is situated at an al ...
; Iran; and
Nochiya, southeastern Turkey.
*In Urmian and some Tyari dialects, is palatalized to .
Romance languages
The
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...
developed from
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...
, the colloquial form of
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
spoken in the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...
. Various palatalizations occurred during the historical development of the Romance languages. Some groups of the Romance languages underwent more palatalizations than others. One palatalization affected all groups, some palatalizations affected most groups, and one affected only a few groups.
Gallo-Romance
In
Gallo-Romance
The Gallo-Romance branch of the Romance languages includes in the narrowest sense the Langues d'oïl and Franco-Provençal. However, other definitions are far broader, variously encompassing the Occitano-Romance, Gallo-Italic, and Rhaeto-Roman ...
, Vulgar Latin * became * very early, with the subsequent deaffrication and some further developments of the vowel. For instance:
* "cat" >
* "bald" (fem.) >
* * "white" (fem.) >
* "chain" >
* "dear" >
Early English borrowings from French show the original affricate, as ''chamber'' "(private) room" < Old French < Vulgar Latin ; compare French "room".
Mouillé
Mouillé (, "moistened") is a term for palatal consonants in the Romance languages. Palatal consonants in the Romance languages developed from or by palatalization.
''L'' and ''n mouillé'' have a variety of origins in the
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...
. In these tables, letters that represent or used to represent or are bolded. In French, merged with in pronunciation in the 18th century; in most
dialects of Spanish,
has merged with into the new phoneme of . Romanian formerly had both and , but both have either merged with or got lost: > > Romanian "woman"; > > Romanian "vineyard".
Satem languages
In certain Indo-European language groups, the
reconstructed "palato-velars" of
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...
() were palatalized into
sibilants. The language groups with and without palatalization are called satem and centum languages, after the characteristic developments of the PIE word for "hundred":
*PIE >
Avestan ''satəm'' (palatalization)
::
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
' (no palatalization)
Slavic languages
The
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the ...
are known for their tendency towards palatalization.
In
Proto-Slavic
Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium B.C. through the 6th ...
or Common Slavic times the
velars
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum).
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive an ...
*k *g *x experienced three successive palatalizations. In the
first palatalization they were fronted to *č *ž *š before the front vowels *e *ē *i *ī. In the
second palatalization, the velars changed to *c, *dz or *z, and *s or *š (depending on dialect) before new *ē *ī (either from
monophthongization
Monophthongization is a sound change by which a diphthong becomes a monophthong, a type of vowel shift. It is also known as ungliding, as diphthongs are also known as gliding vowels. In languages that have undergone monophthongization, digraphs ...
of previous
diphthongs or from borrowings). The third palatalization, also called the progressive palatalization, was triggered by a preceding *i or *ī and had the same outcomes as the third palatalization.
In the process of
iotation various sounds were also palatalized in front of the
semivowel
In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the c ...
*j. The results vary by language.
In addition, there were further palatalizing sound changes in the various Slavic languages after the break-up of Proto-Slavic. In some of them, including
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
and
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
, most sounds were palatalized by a following front vowel, causing the rise of a phonological opposition between ''hard'' (unpalatalized) and ''soft'' (palatalized) consonants. In
Kashubian and the neighboring Polish dialects the reflexes of PS velars *k *g were palatalized a fourth time before front vowels, resulting in palatal
affricates.
Sinitic languages
In many
varieties of Chinese
Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of ma ...
, namely
Mandarin
Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to:
Language
* Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country
** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China
** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
,
Northern Wu
Taihu Wu () or Northern Wu () is a Wu Chinese language spoken over much of southern part of Jiangsu province, including Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, the southern part of Nantong, Jingjiang and Danyang, Jiangsu, Danyang; the municipality of Shanghai; a ...
, and several others scattered throughout China, the
velar
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum).
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...
series, , were palatalized before the
medials and shifted to
alveolo-palatal series . Alveolo-palatal consonants occur in modern
Standard Chinese and are written as in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally writte ...
.
Postal romanization does not show palatalized consonants, reflecting the
dialect of the imperial court during the
Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-spea ...
. For instance, the name of the capital of
China was formerly spelled ''Peking'', but is now spelled ' , and ''Tientsin'' and ''Sian'' were the former spellings of ' and ' .
See also
*
Iotation, a related process in Slavic languages
*
Labio-palatalization
A labio-palatalized sound is one that is simultaneously labialized and palatalized. Typically the roundedness is compressed, like , rather than protruded like . The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet for this secondary articulation i ...
*
Index of phonetics articles
*
Manner of articulation
*
Palatalization in Standard Chinese
*
Palatalization in Tatar
*
Palatalization in Vulgar Latin
*
Soft sign
The soft sign (Ь, ь, italics ) also known as the front yer, front jer, or er malak (lit. "small er") is a letter of the Cyrillic script. In Old Church Slavonic, it represented a short (or "reduced") front vowel. As with its companion, the b ...
, a Cyrillic grapheme indicating palatalization
References
Bibliography
* Bynon, Theodora. ''Historical Linguistics''. Cambridge University Press, 1977. (hardback) or (paperback).
*
*
*Crowley, Terry. (1997) ''An Introduction to Historical Linguistics.'' 3rd edition. Oxford University Press.
*
*{{cite book , last=Stieber , author-link=Zdzisław Stieber , first=Zdzisław , date=1989 , title=Zarys gramatyki porównawczej języków słowiańskich , language=pl , location=Warszawa , publisher=
Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe
Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN (''Polish Scientific Publishers PWN''; until 1991 ''Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe'' - ''National Scientific Publishers PWN'', PWN) is a Polish book publisher, founded in 1951, when it split from the Wydawnictwa Szkolne i P ...
, isbn=83-01-00663-3
External links
Erkki Savolainen, Internetix 1998. ''Suomen murteet – Koprinan murretta''.(with a sound sample with palatalized t')
Assimilation (linguistics)
Vowel shifts
Historical linguistics
Palatal consonants