Re: Cantonal spelling, take 3

>From: Jän-Køs Lars?Giirtingäär <Kvasir_postia@...>
>Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 07:23:59 -0700
>
>erm... no offense... but as a native speaker of cantonese i think i
>should finally say something: The 3 takes look horrible. Don't EVER
>combine 2 words together... it's not done in cantonese, or chinese for
>that matter... there is no break in speech between terms nor there is a
>break when it's written.
>
Actually, Hanyu Pinyin DOES combine words.  LOTS of them.  Every compound is
combined.  Personal names are combined.  Place names are combined.  You even
get strings of three or four characters romaninzed into one long word.  And
it makes total sence because those three or four characters are FUNCTIONING
as a single unit of meaning.  The same thing is of course tru in Cantonese
though it doesn't seem to be traditional to recognize that in Romanizations.
  I have no problem with the use of c and z in the Cantonal spelling scheme.
  It's just the doubbling of consonants and unpronounced finals that get me.
  This one was better than the last one, but still pretty high on my
weird-out scale.

Adam

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