Re: CHAT: IPA Question
| From: | John Cowan <jcowan@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, January 29, 2003, 17:53 |
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H. S. Teoh scripsit:
> Perhaps. I suppose it's a similar thing when Americans who have learned
> Mandarin walk up to me and start speaking to me in this unnaturally thick
> Beijing accent and wonder why I have trouble keeping myself from smiling.
Hey, at least you understand Mandarin. Here in NYC I would never assume
that an ethnic Chinese person spoke anything but highly old-fashioned
Taishan-style Cantonese, complete with the quadruple-long vowels
at the end of a sentennnnnnnnnnce.
> Then there are subtle things like Hokkien tone 2 being 35 instead of 52 in
> my hometown: pronouncing it as 52 is a "foreign accent" and no local
> would do such a thing. [...]
All languages have things like that. The question is, does everybody
agree on what the topmost pronunciation is or not?
--
John Cowan jcowan@reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan www.reutershealth.com
"If I have seen farther than others, it is because I am surrounded by dwarves."
--Murray Gell-Mann
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