Why the "H" is pronounced as "Sh" in some cases?


My first question is about the rules of pronunciation of the letter "H".

Some people pronounce the "H" as if it were "Sh". For example, "Shijutsu"
instead of "Hijutsu", or "Shiyori" instead of "Hiyori".

Is there any rule about it? Or is it just a matter of regional accent where
some southern Japanese people pronounce the "H" as "Sh"? Or maybe, the older
you get, the more you accentuate the letters.




The sound you hear in HI is not really a "sh" (as the English "sh"), but
neither is the sound SHI an "sh". While it's very easy to learn to pronounce
Japanese sufficiently, Japanese pronunciation does have its quirks, and you
have to get used to it. The "sh" situation (or fricative situation, as we'd
call it in linguistics lingo) is one of them.

Let's first consider the sounds in hand. SHI and HI are both just romanized
transcription of the Japanese hiragana letters し and ひ. These letters (like
most kana letters) represent a combination of a consonant (//h// or //s//) and
a vowel (//i//), but in Japanese, some of these consonant+vowel combinations
can make the consonant sound change drastically. We usually see it in the
common transcription system (Hepburn), so when we combine //h// and //u// we
get FU (ふ) and when we combine //s// and //i// we get SHI (し). But in the case
of //h//, although the pronunciation changes (and it changes _for everyone_ in
the standard dialect — you just don't always get to hear it), the
transcription system falls short of representing that change.

Now let's look at the combination //s// + //i//: the vowel //i// causes a
sound change that belong a very common class of sound changes called
[palatalization](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatalization). These changes
usually happen before front vowels (such as //e// or //i//) and this is the
origin of the "soft" C and G in English that usually come before an E or an I
(this palatalization originally occurred in Latin, so it has equivalent in
most European languages since they've all borrowed stuff from Latin, or are
direct descendants of it).

In Japanese, the palatalization we speak about occurs before //i// and //j//
(not before //e//). //j// here means the consonant that's usually
transliterated as Y (since it sounds like "y" in English), in combinations
such as RYO (りょ). When this consonant is combined with //s// we usually
transliterate it as sh, so しゃ (//s// + //j// + //a//) is transliterated SHA,
although you sometimes always find the transliteration SYA.

So how does this changed pronunciation really sounds? To the ears of an
English speaker (or most Westerners) this usually sounds exactly like the
English "sh" — but it is not. [The sound of the English
"sh"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_palato-alveolar_sibilant) is
pronounced with the tip of the tongue behind the teeth, but pointing toward
the palate (the roof of the mouth), while [the Japanese
SH](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolo-palatal_sibilant) is
pronounced somewhat similarly, but the tip of the tongue is not pointing up,
and the "sh"-like sound is actually produced by the having back of the tongue
raised against the palate. These sounds _are_ different, and some languages
may distinguish between them. As it happens with English in Japanese though,
it doesn't matter, and we'd just perceive the first one as "English accent"
and the second as "Japanese accent". Linguists mark the first (English) sound
as [ʃ] and the second (Japanese) sound as [ɕ].

With that settled, we can move to what happens with HI. In essence, it's very
similar to SHI — we also have palatalization that happens in the same way (so
it also occurs in HYA, HYO and HYU, although it is not reflected in the
transcription), but //h// is palatalized to something slightly different. This
consonant is called [palatal
fricative](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_palatal_fricative), and it's
theoretically simpler to pronounce — you just raise your back of the tongue
against the palate (you don't do anything with the tip, as opposed to the
Japanese SH). This sounds a lot like a softer, more fluid version of "h".

Learning to differentiate between all these sounds takes practice, but I
suggest listening to the recordings at the Wikipedia articles and trying to
see the difference yourself. The articles themselves are highly technical, but
they also contain a list of examples from other languages where you may find
these sounds.




The sound you hear in HI is not really a "sh" (as the English "sh"), but
neither is the sound SHI an "sh". While it's very easy to learn to pronounce
Japanese sufficiently, Japanese pronunciation does have its quirks, and you
have to get used to it. The "sh" situation (or fricative situation, as we'd
call it in linguistics lingo) is one of them.

Let's first consider the sounds in hand. SHI and HI are both just romanized
transcription of the Japanese hiragana letters し and ひ. These letters (like
most kana letters) represent a combination of a consonant (//h// or //s//) and
a vowel (//i//), but in Japanese, some of these consonant+vowel combinations
can make the consonant sound change drastically. We usually see it in the
common transcription system (Hepburn), so when we combine //h// and //u// we
get FU (ふ) and when we combine //s// and //i// we get SHI (し). But in the case
of //h//, although the pronunciation changes (and it changes _for everyone_ in
the standard dialect — you just don't always get to hear it), the
transcription system falls short of representing that change.

Now let's look at the combination //s// + //i//: the vowel //i// causes a
sound change that belong a very common class of sound changes called
[palatalization](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatalization). These changes
usually happen before front vowels (such as //e// or //i//) and this is the
origin of the "soft" C and G in English that usually come before an E or an I
(this palatalization originally occurred in Latin, so it has equivalent in
most European languages since they've all borrowed stuff from Latin, or are
direct descendants of it).

In Japanese, the palatalization we speak about occurs before //i// and //j//
(not before //e//). //j// here means the consonant that's usually
transliterated as Y (since it sounds like "y" in English), in combinations
such as RYO (りょ). When this consonant is combined with //s// we usually
transliterate it as sh, so しゃ (//s// + //j// + //a//) is transliterated SHA,
although you sometimes always find the transliteration SYA.

So how does this changed pronunciation really sounds? To the ears of an
English speaker (or most Westerners) this usually sounds exactly like the
English "sh" — but it is not. [The sound of the English
"sh"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_palato-alveolar_sibilant) is
pronounced with the tip of the tongue behind the teeth, but pointing toward
the palate (the roof of the mouth), while [the Japanese
SH](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolo-palatal_sibilant) is
pronounced somewhat similarly, but the tip of the tongue is not pointing up,
and the "sh"-like sound is actually produced by the having back of the tongue
raised against the palate. These sounds _are_ different, and some languages
may distinguish between them. As it happens with English in Japanese though,
it doesn't matter, and we'd just perceive the first one as "English accent"
and the second as "Japanese accent". Linguists mark the first (English) sound
as [ʃ] and the second (Japanese) sound as [ɕ].

With that settled, we can move to what happens with HI. In essence, it's very
similar to SHI — we also have palatalization that happens in the same way (so
it also occurs in HYA, HYO and HYU, although it is not reflected in the
transcription), but //h// is palatalized to something slightly different. This
consonant is called [palatal
fricative](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_palatal_fricative), and it's
theoretically simpler to pronounce — you just raise your back of the tongue
against the palate (you don't do anything with the tip, as opposed to the
Japanese SH). This sounds a lot like a softer, more fluid version of "h".

Learning to differentiate between all these sounds takes practice, but I
suggest listening to the recordings at the Wikipedia articles and trying to
see the difference yourself. The articles themselves are highly technical, but
they also contain a list of examples from other languages where you may find
these sounds.

