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I'm discussing how to pronounce [ç] with a friend and have described it as "similar to but not exactly like [ʃ]." Is this correct?

I always considered it an sh-like sound, but it would be better to describe it like a /hj/ sound or the tongue closer to the roof of the mouth more than /j/ and without vibrating the thraot/h-like.

Yes, I've always tried to pronounce it as /hj/ as in English huge (for people who don't simplify this cluster to /j/) or voiceless [j]; while technically it isn't, I think it's similar to how people impressionistically describe [ɬ] as voiceless /l/ (even though technically it isn't). When people try to pronounce voiceless equivalents to voiced approximants, there's a tendency to use more friction I think.

I don't think it's like [ʃ] at all. You're probably thinking of the replacement of [ç] by [ʃ] in some dialects of German.

My suggestion, based on Catford, is to pronounce and stop voicing. You should get a fricative (pretty much what people are saying with [hj]). Then raise your tongue very slightly to increase the fricative quality, and you've got [ç].

Sumelic wrote:Yes, I've always tried to pronounce it as /hj/ as in English huge (for people who don't simplify this cluster to /j/) or voiceless [j]

When I'm tutoring German, I typically have people start with "Hugh". Once they have the sound isolated, I work on moving it to the end of a word.

I have an impression German /ç/ sounds like my, Polish, /ɕ/, more than any Asian /ɕ/'s, which to me are either [sʲ] or [ʃ]. Is just our /ɕ/ even more palatal and that's why German /ç/, when distinguished from /x/, is taught to be /ɕ/?

Honestly, in the context of Asian languages, I'm usually skeptical that they have /ɕ/ rather than just /ʃ/. However, have you ever heard /ɕ/ in Malayalam?

I had heard claims that some Americans had [ç] for /ʃ/. I only half-believed it until a few days ago when I was transcribing an interview, and the interviewee had this feature. I thought she was saying he until I discovered the antecedent of her pronoun was female, and she was in fact saying [çi]. This is the only word, however, where I noticed this; in other contexts it sounded like [ʃ]--but she pronounced she with [ç] consistently.

Vijay wrote:However, have you ever heard /ɕ/ in Malayalam?

I started searching for pronunciation guides right after seeing your post . It sounds very /ɕ/-like, but I think Polish sound is more soft than yours.

As a native speaker of German, I can assure that [ç] is quite different from [ʃ], and also quite different from [ɕ]. Sumelic was not too far off the mark in characterizing it as a voiceless [j], but it has a little more constriction - it is a palatal non-sibilant fricative, while [j] is an approximant.