View source for Hard (consonant)

In English, the [[consonant]]s '''c''' and '''g''' regularly have two clearly different sounds each. It has been traditional to describe these as '''hard''' and '''soft'''.
*The '''hard''' sound is the [[velar]] sound. For the letter '''c''', the hard sound is that of '''k''' (the [[unvoiced]] velar) as in 'can'; a '''hard g''' has the sound heard in 'get' and 'girl', the [[voiced]] velar. (These letters provide the symbols used to represent the 'hard' consonants in the [[IPA]]: /k/ and /g/.)

"In modern English G has the so-called 'hard' sound [/g/] at the end of a word, before a consonant or ''a'', ''o'', ''u'', (exc[ept] in ''gaol'', ''gaoler''), and in words of [[Teutonic]] etymology before ''e'' and ''i'', as in ''give'', ''get''; also in Hebrew proper names, as ''Gedaliah'', ''Gideon''. In words from Lat. or Romanic it has the 'soft' sound [/dʒ/] before ''e'', ''i'', ''y''; and at the end of a syllable, in words of whatever origin, the sound [/dʒ/] is represented always by ''dge'' or ''ge'', the letter J not being used in this position." " ''[[OED]]'', ''s.v.'' '''g'''.

*'''Soft c''' has the [[sibilant]] sound of '''s''', as in 'since'. '''Soft g''' sounds like '''j'''. To be more precise, in English it most usually has the sounds of '''d + j''', as in <nowiki>'</nowiki>'''j'''u'''dg'''e'.
:There is a tendency in English for both '''c''' and '''g''' to be pronounced 'soft' after the vowels 'e' and 'i', and hard after the other vowels. This is a rule of Italian spelling, and (less markedly) in other Romance languages; in Italian, however, the '''soft c''' is pronounced like the English '-tch-' in 'watch'. The Italian '''soft g''' is similar to to the English. 

[[category:pronunciation]]
[[category:foreign words]]