Re: Japanese orthography (was: Korean politeness levels ( wasRe: Tonal Languages taken to extremes))

Andreas Johansson wrote:


> But if I got your scheme right (note that I know very little of Chinese),
> {Xian} could be interpreted as either "Xi2'an2" or "Xian2" (whether or not
> these actually mean anything). Am I missing something?

Not a thing.  It just so happens that Xiiaan can't be misinterpreted,
but Xian and Xi'an are certainly still both needed.  Indeed, Tonal
Spelling HYPY needs more apostrophes than HYPY, because of problems
with 'h' as a tonal letter vs. 'h' as a true initial, meaning [x] ~ [h].

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