Re: Chinese Dialect Question

JS Bangs scripsit:

> Sheesh. That defeats most of the purpose of a Romanization, as {Quan}
> gives me about as much information about the proper pronunciation as the
> original character does.
>
> So I guess the "awful Romanization" theory is correct.
It's a whole lot better than the romanization of English.  The point of
romanization is to get a Latin-alphabet representation of the language.
It's not primarily a phonetic representation for foreigners' benefit.
If Portuguese uses x for /S/, contrary to most other languages, it
isn't so bad to use q for /tS_h/.

You can also think of it as a slightly malformed Cyrillic "che", if you like.

--
John Cowan  www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.reutershealth.com  jcowan@reutershealth.com
We want more school houses and less jails; more books and less arsenals;
more learning and less vice; more constant work and less crime; more
leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of
the opportunities to cultivate our better natures.  --Samuel Gompers

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