Re: Refining Minza

On 16.7.2007 Herman Miller wrote:
 > One thing I'm wondering is if it's unusual to have a
 > retroflex series (which in this case I'm using /ň š ž/
 > to represent) without one or more stops. Minza has
 > affricates /tš/, /dž/, but these may be clusters.

Upper-class Lhasa Tibetan has (or had?) /t`s`/, /t`s`_h/,
/n`d`z`/, /s`/ but no plain retroflex stops, while lower-
class pronunciation has/had plain stops instead of the
affricates. I don't know how well the Chinese goverment
romanization with {ch, zh} reflects the prevalent modern
pronunciation, or if it's only using the closest thing
Pinyin got -- theoretically {th, dh} for [t`], [d`] might
make sense in a Pinyin context.


/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch atte melroch dotte se
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Truth, Sir, is a cow which will give [skeptics] no
more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull."
                            -- Sam. Johnson (no rel. ;)