Re: Using word generators (was Re: Semitic root word list?)

Herman Miller wrote:


> Patrick Littell wrote:
>
> > /sr\/ is fine with me, although I can think of only one other word in
> > which I have it: [sr\IndZ].  You know, what you inject yourself with.
>
> "Srebrenica" has it. I don't remember ever hearing that with /Sr/.
I think some of our less-tutored newsreaders used [Sr], if they managed to
get the word out at all......

But
> Wikipedia says "Sri Lanka" is from ශ්‍රී ලංකා śrī lankā, so if that "ś" is
> something like [s\] (anyone know Sinhalese?), it could go either way in
> an English borrowing.
_IIRC_ s-acute is one standard romanization for most Indic abugidas' palatal
/S/ (the other is c-cedil.); s-dot is usual for (retroflexed) /s\/. Either
one would sound like [S] to English speakers, no?

Javanese (and Indonesian) have borrowed that honorific "sri" as well, but
it's pronounced [sri], and sometimes written "seri" and pronounced as
[s@'ri]. (The Old Jav. abugida had characters for the entire Indic retroflex
series, but only t., d. and perhaps n., are used nowadays)

I once saw, prominently displayed in a restaurant window in Ann Arbor,
"Fresh Today!!  Srimp"  ;-))))

Reply