Re: Chinese Dialect Question

Joe sikyal:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...>
> To: <CONLANG@...>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2003 4:17 AM
> Subject: Re: Chinese Dialect Question
>
>
> > On Tue, Sep 30, 2003 at 10:56:39PM -0400, JR wrote:
> > > on 9/30/03 9:20 PM, H. S. Teoh at hsteoh@QUICKFUR.ATH.CX wrote:
> > [snip]
> > > > This is one of the things that turn me off about Pinyin.
> > >
> > > Am I the only one who likes it? It has a very distinctive look, and in
> some
> > > ways it's very well designed, IMHO. And you do get used to it after a
> little
> > > while. It's easier than memorizing thousands of hanzi anyway.
> >
> > To me, if you care about distinctive look, learn hanzi. :-) Romanization
> > should at least not deliberately be contrary to common Western phonetic
> > values for the letters.
>
> You mean English phonetic values?  Thare really aren't that many common
> western phonetic values.  Maybe some of the stops are near-universal, but I
> think that's about it.
Oh, there's more consistency than you think. Consider:

Consonants:

p, t, k, b, d, g are usually equal to their phonetic values, or differ
only non-distinctively. E.g. English {p} often represents [p_h], but
aspiration isn't distinctive in English, and Spanish {b} represents [B],
but [B] and [b] are allophones in Spanish.

f, s always represent at least [f] and [s], though some languages may also
use them for [v] and [z]. If {s} can have meanings other than [s] and [z],
it's [S], and usually this is conditioned by surrounding letters.

m, n always represent [m] and [n], though they can sometimes be used for
vowel nasalization.

h is either silent, [h], or [x], or a near variant thereof. If {h} is
sometimes silent, it may be used as a modifier on other letters.

l is a lateral. r is almost always a rhotic.

Languages may mix these values together, as English which uses {s} for
[s], [z], and [S] and possibly other things.

The only real wildcards are j, z, x, q, c, y.

Vowels:

Vowels are more variable. If you strip away accents, all of the
following are true in every language I know:

a is [a] or [A]
e is a mid front unrounded vowel
i is a high front unrounded vowel
o is a mid central/back vowel
u is a high central/back vowel

Vowels may have values other than these, but they at least sometimes have
these values.

I'm curious to see what inevitable exceptions people bring up.

--
Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/blog

Jesus asked them, "Who do you say that I am?"

And they answered, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground
of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our
interpersonal relationship."

And Jesus said, "What?"

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