Re: Optimum number of symbols

En réponse à Lars Henrik Mathiesen <thorinn@...>:

>
> What does Japanese do with imported words like ring? There was a
> recent thriller that came up here with the romanized title Ringu (The
> Ring) --- would that reflect kana ri-n-gu /ri-n=-gM/, or just someone
> trying to make it look Japanese?
>
No, it indeed reflects the way Japanese people would pronounce the word in a
Japanese sentence (in fact, "ringu" is now part of the common vocabulary of
many Japanese speakers) and how it is written in katakana. English ending -ing
is always transcribed and pronounced as i-n-gu (I suppose the velar
articulation of the final nasal is well heard, but in Japanese doesn't exist
without a velar onset afterwards. This and probably also the way it's written
in English probably led to the pronunciation [iNg(M)] (remember that medial and
final /M/ is often dropped in Japanese, hence its common use to break consonant
clusters or write codas that are impossible in Japanese). This way, the velar
quality of the nasal can be kept, and the whole thing is not too unlike the
word it originated from.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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