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Re: Bopomofo and pinyin

From:John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Date:Monday, January 24, 2000, 21:17
BP Jonsson wrote:

> What about cr, sr, zr, then,
Plausible.
> and cj, j, sj, y, zj, instead of q, y, x, ü, j?
With q, x, j there is only one set of minimal pairs with ch, sh, zh namely qi/chi, xi/shi, ji/zhi. GR uses chi/chy, shi/shy, zhi/zhy for this. As far as ü, it appears only in lü and nü in Pinyin, as all other phonological /y/ is written u except the null-initial, which is yu. So lyu, nyu would probably be good. Using y for /j/ is a sort of tradition in Chinese romanizations which I don't want to upset. On doubling vowels: presumably the vowel doubled is the full one. However, in some cases, full "e" is omitted, thus Pinyin "dui" for "*duei" /dwej/. In this case, "doubling" could consist of restoring the e. So here's what we have so far (based on Kou's little sample of multi-v Chinese): Wooh zaih Zrongguoo dahluh zruh le sih niaan, zaih Taaiwan zruh le chi niaan. Gohngchaahnzruuhyih wahnsuih! New apostrophes would be needed whenever tonal h was immediately followed by a vowel. -- Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis vom dies! || John Cowan <jcowan@...> Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau, || http://www.reutershealth.com Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau, || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan Und trank die Milch vom Paradies. -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)