From JSL Part 1, Introduction: Consonant before "i", pronounced with a "y" sound?


After a few years away from study, I was re-reading JSL (Japanese: The Spoken
Language) Part 1, Introduction, Pronunciation, and for several consonants,
call them X, it suggests pronouncing "Xy" and "X before i" similarly.

For example, it suggests that "ky" and "k before i" should be pronounced like
the "c" in "cute." This is in direct contrast to "k before a, u, e, o", which
it suggests should be pronounced like the "c" as in "coot".

This is very odd to me. Is this to suggest that "き" should be pronounced
something like "kyi" in English? I've never heard this, but it wouldn't be the
first time there was some subtlety I wasn't hearing correctly at first.

It suggests this for "k", "g", "n", "h", "p", "b", and "m". I've never heard
it for any of these.

Is there something obvious that I'm missing?




This doesn't refer to pronouncing a separate consonant sound between the "k"
and "i" sound.

Rather, it refers to a modified pronunciation of the consonant itself. This is
something that many people will do to some extent automatically (for example,
English speakers do not use exactly the same consonant sound in "coot" and
"keep"), so I think it's a bit questionable how useful it is to make explicit
mention of it.

We can call this modification "palatalization" and it can be represented in
the International Phonetic Alphabet with a small superscript ʲ, which is used
as a diacritic to represent a modified pronunciation of the preceding
consonant symbol.




This doesn't refer to pronouncing a separate consonant sound between the "k"
and "i" sound.

Rather, it refers to a modified pronunciation of the consonant itself. This is
something that many people will do to some extent automatically (for example,
English speakers do not use exactly the same consonant sound in "coot" and
"keep"), so I think it's a bit questionable how useful it is to make explicit
mention of it.

We can call this modification "palatalization" and it can be represented in
the International Phonetic Alphabet with a small superscript ʲ, which is used
as a diacritic to represent a modified pronunciation of the preceding
consonant symbol.

