Re: Proposal: Sound Change Documentation Project

On Sunday 28 April 2002 10:37, Raymond Brown wrote:

> Ruen Ren chao makes a similar observation in "Language and Symbolic
> Systems".  He shows how ancient Chinese /ni/ "two" has become /a/ in the
> Yanghow dialect, detailing all the intermediate steps (most of which are
> still attested somewhere in existing 'dialects' and which the restrictions
> of ASCII prevent my showing very easily); and then adds:
> "If /ni/ can change into /a/, then practically anything can change into
> anything"
        That's great--but what's important is the steps. That is exactly the kind of
thing I want to document; how one sound changes over time into a completely
unrelated sound. I assume you still have the book/article? Could you either
make a stab at transcibing it into ASCII (your choice of transcription, just
tell me what you are using) or scan it and send it my way?

> >Nevertheless, this is a very interesting idea, and well worth doing.
>
> I agree on both accounts - but 'twill involve much time & effort.  If Peter
> has finished it when I retire, perhaps it's something that could occupy me
> ;)
        Well, I'm going to write up the proposal in a more detailed fashion and then
post it; hopefully, something can get started this week. Last night, in the
middle of a freak snow storm (be warned, kiddies, Minnesota is no place to
live if you don't have a sense of humor when it comes to the weather), I
typed up about the vowels and consonants represented by single characters in
the IPA (thus [p] but not [p_h]), so I'm just about ready to plug in changes.
More to follow.
        :Peter

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