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Polish pronounciation of: cz vs ć/ci, sz vs ś/si, ź vs ż and dż vs dź/dzi - how to make these sound diff [79]
@Chemikiem
the biały bjały equality is not reflected for all consonants - c,s,dz,z behave differently in this respect - ciał (a plural genetive of ciało) is not the same as cjał as in the word potencjał - Marsjanin (a Martian) sounds different from Marsianin (a made up word) - ciał sounds the same as ćał, siano can be transribed as śano and działo as dźało - so yes in a way i disappears as a sound here - instead it's just used to denote the soft c,s,dz,z before other vowels
to make things more complicated in words like cisza, sito, dzik, zima the i both makes the preceeding consonants soft and is and audible sound itself -
to make things even more complicated there are borrowed words with 'si' where i doesn't denote the softening of s - like say sial (the outermost layer of the earth - a geologiacal term - sounds like sjal in pronounciation but is by convention trascribed as sial) or silos (silo) (silos =/= śilos)
(there is also a chemical term or rather a prefix cis that is pronounced without softening of 'c' in Polish - as opposed to the Slavic word cis (yew) which is pronounced as ćis)
the similiar situation (as with c,s,dz,z) is with n - niania (nanny) sounds as ńańa, nie (no) can be transcribed as ńe, nic (nothing) as ńic - however there are words that are traditionally spelled with - nia and pronounced as - ńja - mania (mania), unia(union), Hiszpania (Spain), Dania(Denmark), Rumunia(Romania) etc - this leads to some ambiguities: Dania(Denmark) is pronounced differently to dania(dishes) and mania (mania) is pronounced differently to Mania (a nickname for Maria)
