Re: New to the list

On Fri, 16 Jun 2000 22:56:30 +0200, Christophe Grandsire
<Christophe.Grandsire@...> wrote:

>At 10:55 16/06/00 -0400, you wrote:
>>
>>Basilius,
>>who has never been sure how his name is spelled in Esperanto...
>>
>
>Well, if you take the latinised version, it would certainly be esperantized
>as Basilio /basi'lio/.
Or Basiljo? or Baziljo?

>As for the Russian version (I guess Vasiliy Chernov
>is pronounced something like /vasjiljij tSernof/, tell me if I'm wrong, as
>I have only a very very basic knowledge of Russian phonology), it would
>certainly be semi-esperantized as Vasilij Cxernov (x-convention for the
>c-circonflex).
Well, to begin with, the first (atonic) vowel in Vasilij is something
like the vowel in English _cut_. For Russian it is natural to identify
it with [a], but how can I be sure about a different language?

Next, the palatalized [s'] and [l']. Both stand before [i], so I cannot
figure out if they will be perceived as [sj], [lj] or simply [s], [l].

Finally, is the tautosyllabic [ij] allowed? That's not obvious. And if
it is, does this mean that English _fee_ (or, say, German _Vieh_) will
be perceived as [fij] (as it happens e. g. in Bulgarian)?

Still worse with my surname: the [t_S'] is palatalized, and an unstressed
/e/ between a palatalized and non-palatalized (that is, in fact, quite
utterly *velarized*) consonants becomes a rather complex diphthongoid,
something like quick gliding from [i] to [e] to [@] or even [8] (all
very narrow). Besides, [t_S'], like all Russian shuffling sounds, tends
to be slightly labialized.

So it wouldn't be much wonder if a person suited to a different phonology
transcribed my surname as e. g. _Cxjurnof'_ ...

Indeed, I don't intend to criticize Esperanto as such. Actually, I think
it could be a nice *artlang* ;) .  Rather, I wonder about the lack of
inter-phonological concerns with what is intended to be *international*
langs. And that all transcription rules are so oriented to graphics rather
than to potential colloquial borrowings.

I have the feeling that many artlangers intuitively understand their
invented phonologies better. But I don't remember anybody to discuss
cross-linguistic phonologies e. g. of a multinational conworld, with
languages borrowing words from each other. Am I wrong?


Basilius