Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: PLEA: Chinese names

From: Ivan A Derzhanski <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 16:36:23 +0300

Alfred W. Tueting (Tüting) wrote:
> --- In [email-masked], Ivan A Derzhanski <iad@M...> wrote:
> > Using /r/ doesn't seem to be a good idea, because syllabic
> > (retroflex) /r/ does exist in Mandarin -- _shi_ and _shir_
> > are different syllables (and _shi_ is different from _she_,
> > although _shir_ and _sher_ sound the same).
[...]
> _shir_ doesn't seem to exist (it's py: shi /cr/); sher is py:
> she-er /cy,r/ (/cy/+/yr/)

Disclaimer: I have to rely on other people's phonet/mic analysis
of Chinese, (a) because I haven't heard it spoken long enough, or
often enough, and (b) because I don't have too good an ear for
phonetic detail, and my perception of the sounds of any language,
even the ones I'm most familiar with, tends to be informed by
my reading. In this case my main source is a Chinese textbook
by T P Zadoenko and Huang Shuying, Moscow, 1993.

I'm led to understand that:

(1) There is the syllable _she_, as in _she2_ `tongue', in which
the vowel is adequately described as schwa, [@] in ASCII.
(2) There is also the syllable _shi_, as in _shi2_ `stone', _shi4_
`affair, matter', in which the vowel is not like anything in any
other language, nor is it covered by mainstream IPA, but Sinologists
use a graphic modification of iota (with hooks at both ends); it is
a vocalic (voiced) extension of the preceding consonant, [z.]-like
in this case.
(3) The addition of the suffix _er_ to _she_ and _shi_ yields
respectively _sher_ and _shir_, which though distinguished in
writing are pronounced the same, and though written as two
characters are pronounced as a single syllable, whose coda
(alias final) sounds as [@r.].

So that's three different (sequences of) sounds to handle.

What of all this do you say isn't true?

I suppose it would be possible to lojbanise _shi_ as {cr}
if _she_ is {cy} and _shir_=_sher_ is {cyr}.

--Ivan