Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ    Attic   

Beijing, Zhongguo, etc. (was Re: 'out-' affix in conlangs?)

From:Herman Miller <hmiller@...>
Date:Wednesday, August 13, 2008, 4:10
Herman Miller wrote:
> > I've been thinking about "Beijing" for some reason lately :-) and ended > up calling it Beĭżiñ-vor ['bejdz\iN,vOr] in Tirelat, ta-Beidžiŋ > [ta'bejd`z`iN] in Minza. The /ż/ in Tirelat is typically [dz] but the > following /i/ causes it to be palatalized, so it's a good match for the > Chinese [ts\]. That would also work for "Jim" Żim ['dz\im], although > "John" Żaan ['dza:n] is less recognizable. Žaan ['Za:n] is another > possibility. (That's for an American "John" -- an English "John" would > be Żon or Žon.) I could always write Džaan or Džon, although /dž/ is not > a sequence that occurs in Tirelat. >
I looked at an older document and found that I already have a Tirelat version of Beijing: it was Beĭżiiŋ ['bejdz\i:N]. I think my intention with the long vowel must have been to put the stress on the second syllable, but according to the stress rules on the Tirelat web page, the first syllable gets the stress. (I may want to reexamine the Tirelat stress rules.) I also noticed that ż /dz/ is the typical equivalent of English /dZ/ as in Java (Żava), Georgia (the U.S. state, Żorża), and Jamaica (Żameĭka). So if I were to borrow the Chinese name for China (Zhōngguó), a good approximation would be Żuñgŭo-vor.

Reply

Eugene Oh <un.doing@...>