Re: USAGE: Chinese Romanization (was: USAGE: Help with Chinese phrase)

On 8 Sep 2004 Ray Brown <ray.brown@FRE...> wrote:

> But I must confess that I saw nothing particularly Germanic in |c|
> = [ts_h] and [z] = [ts]. It may be because I am familiar with too
> many languages. I think there are other ways the designers of
> Pinying could have arrived at this (even via Volapük and
> Esperanto).
  I am also familiar a number of languages, therefore, this fact
could not be the origin of your point of view. I think the
probability cannot be disregarded: it is a bit less probable that
|z| would be chosen from Volapük and |c| from Esperanto while
leaving out of consideration of a wide-spread language which knows
both solution.

  However, if we would conclude that Volapük gave |z|, my original
statement -- "heavily _influenced_ by German" -- would be still
true. Indirect influence is also influence.


> > Here I see an important point: all the systems, except Russian,
> > uses a _third_ variant for the two merged syllables.
>
> No - Latinxua doesn't and according to my information the French
> system doesn't.
  Probably, you misunderstood me here: my statements were about non-
historical transcriptions, like Wade-Giles, German, Russan etc.
French system, Latinxua etc. do not have this "merged syllable"
problem because they are based on historic principles.


> whatever the actual position of Mao at the time, was strictly
> communist and not exactly pro-western. That's why I am skeptical
> about any direct influence from any one western source.
  Creating a Latin-based transcription is a fairly western thing.
They could have cancelled Latinxua and designed a pro-communist
Cyrillic one to avoid pro-western manners. But I do not know that
there would be an "official" Chinese Cyrillic transcription.
Chinese are very practical, if they design a Latin-based system,
they use western sources. Who could use this kind of transcription
but the Western Word and its colonies (I do not think that we --
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Croatia, Slovenia -- here between
the Soviet Union and Germany, and Cuba would have been a
significant "target".)
  (And, as the for the intials, the basics were elaborated in
Latinxua during a "less communist" era.)


> My point was that I do not see |c| = [ts] as particularly German. I
> would more readily describe it as Slav usage
  The real Slav usage is Cyrillic, indeed. Before WWII, nearly
almost nations under the Soviet domination were forced to use
Cyrillic orthography instead of their previous Latin traditions;
even Rumanians living in Soviet Moldova.
  I hardly see what kind of mediators would transfer the periferic
orthography of these peripheric Eastern Central European nations
into China.


> No doubt - but it was way back a few centuries. German influence
> may persist in central Europe - but China?
  Pro primo: There was a German concession until 1914 in China. Pro
secundo: If I would intend to design a transcription of my non-
Latin script, I would prefer to study previous solutions of
significant languages, including English, French, Spanish, German
etc. (and not Czech, Polish). AFAIK Latinxua was designed in 1930-
1940, during the German revival. The Olympic Games were in Berlin
in 1936 and a number of people was fascinated by Germans even among
later enemies.


> > Their native bias was German. (Even Zamenhof's: the /g/ ~ /h/ ~
> > /x/ triplet of Esperanto reflects German phonemicity, not
> > Slavonic.)
>
> Didn't it occur in his native Polish?
  His was a Jew. His native was Litvak (Litvanian Yiddish) and
German. In Podlasie (Bialystok area), an intermediate Polish-
Northern Ukrainian-Bielorussian dialect was spoken (not
distinguishing between /g/ and /h/) and the official language was
Russian (without /h/). Of course he knew standard Polish and Polish
has /h/ but it is a rare phoneme in borrowings. I did no find any
Polish |h| letter in the Polish version of Fundamento.


> > if there would be significant Russian Slavonic contribution.
>
> But there isn't AFAIK.
  Maybe my memory deceives me but I remember you mentioned Dragunov
in connection with design of Latinxua. The features in question --
e.g. |z|, |zh| -- were present already in Latinxua.


> In that case we ought to treat English |ch| = [tS] as a monograph.
> Personally, I don't and would treat Russian |d.zh| a monograph.
  I was only benign with Russian contribution theory in Latinxua
(etc.) and my argumentation was limited only to this particular
sequence of ideas. However, they could be replace it with a true
monograph within the scope of their orthographic. Could English
speakers do a similar replacement?


> By the 1950s the convention of u-umlaut = [y] is found in too many
> places to make it specifically German.
  The mentioned ones of these places were exluded by you (e.g.
Osmanli Turkish), except Volapük. They cannot be so much if only
Volapük remained on the list...


> Indeed, the u-umlaut was used in the "English" Wade-Giles system!
  It is a good point but this proves rather a German influence on
Wade-Giles system. (There is a strong correlation here between
English and German transcription which would be hard to deny. And
it is not too likely that German Lessing-Othmer would borrow
umlauts from the Wade-Giles system...)


> They would be so orphaned, but that didn't stop Gwoyeu Romatzyh
> doing just that.
  The question was the phonemicity, not the principles behind
Gwoyeu Romatzyh. In Russian /1/ and /j/ are not in significant
contrast, therefore a number of Latin transcriptions use the same
|y| letter for them; the same is for /'a/ ~ /ia/ = |ia| in other
systems etc. None of this transcriptions prove phonemicity of these
sounds.
  Moreover, there are not palatal glide codas after initials |ts|,
|tz|, |s|, as well as |k|, |g|, |h| in GR, therefore the synchronic
"phonemicity" was not elaborated even in this system.


>  From the 1890s in fact. A scheme by a Chinese scholar called W·ng
> Zh o gained some official support in 1900.
  It remained isolated despite of that support. The real interest
is more recent.


> > And it became extinct in Latin systems, except German.
>
> Is there definite evidence that this was so?
  I think, the opposite opinion should be confirmed by evidences.
It is a natural way to collect the present solutions and compare
them in order to get a better one. The only vivid Latin-based
system I know that used voiced-unvoiced contrast was the German in
those days. If you know any other that would be an evidence against
my suppositions. (I acknowledge Ricci's system but it was already a
historic curiosity, however, presumably coherent with German.
nevertheless, someone may contradict me and show evidences of
contemporary currency of Ricci's system.)


> Are you saying both Gwoyeu Romatzyh and Beifang Latinxua decided to
> adopt this scheme specifically from the German system?
  I am saying that some important elements were adopted from the
German system. The most significant transcriptions used unvoiced
letters with or without apostrophe in those days. What could be the
reason to discontinue this tradition and to use a much less
familiar convention? Did Chinese designers really re-invent this
voiced-unvoiced contrast? Did they excavate Ricci's system but did
not see the contemporary German system used in Kiaochow concession?

  I think they studied all contemporary systems and chose German
(or Ricci-German if you like) solution to render aspirate-
unaspirate contrast, because this was more elegant than apostrophe.
And if they adopted this feature, why they should not consider
German (Ricci-German) solutions in other design problems?

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