From sentto-44114-2893-959855298-mark=kli.org@returns.onelist.com Thu Jun 01 10:26:33 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: shoulson-kli@meson.org Received: (qmail 31763 invoked from network); 1 Jun 2000 10:26:32 -0000 Received: from zash.lupine.org (205.186.156.18) by pi.meson.org with SMTP; 1 Jun 2000 10:26:32 -0000 Received: (qmail 12798 invoked by uid 40001); 1 Jun 2000 10:28:20 -0000 Delivered-To: kli-mark@kli.org Received: (qmail 12795 invoked from network); 1 Jun 2000 10:28:19 -0000 Received: from c9.egroups.com (207.138.41.187) by zash.lupine.org with SMTP; 1 Jun 2000 10:28:19 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-44114-2893-959855298-mark=kli.org@returns.onelist.com Received: from [10.1.10.36] by c9.egroups.com with NNFMP; 01 Jun 2000 10:28:18 -0000 Received: (qmail 26047 invoked from network); 1 Jun 2000 10:28:15 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m2.onelist.org with QMQP; 1 Jun 2000 10:28:15 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO qg.egroups.com) (10.1.2.27) by mta1 with SMTP; 1 Jun 2000 10:28:14 -0000 Received: (qmail 7876 invoked from network); 1 Jun 2000 10:28:14 -0000 Received: from c9.egroups.com (10.1.2.66) by iqg.egroups.com with SMTP; 1 Jun 2000 10:28:14 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: Ti@fa-kuan.muc.de Received: from [10.1.10.113] by c9.egroups.com with NNFMP; 01 Jun 2000 10:28:14 -0000 To: lojban@egroups.com Message-ID: <8h5drr+6j5u@eGroups.com> In-Reply-To: <39344693.6DC772E4@bilkent.edu.tr> User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 X-Mailer: eGroups Message Poster From: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Alfred_W._T=FCting?=" MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list lojban@egroups.com; contact lojban-owner@egroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list lojban@egroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2000 10:28:11 -0000 Subject: [lojban] Re: Chinese names Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit --- In lojban@egroups.com, Robin wrote: > pycyn@a... wrote: > > > another set of voiceless, strong, and aspirated. In Chinese, the voiced > > voiceless contrast drops out (as in French, the aspirated/un- does, pretty > > much), though much of the patterning is otherwise the same. So the > > temptation -- and the more recent English -- at least -- scholarly usage has > > been to use English voiced for Chinese unaspirated with some minor exceptions > > . The older style system --even with all its diacritics(which no one ever > > uses all of) -- is just obscureon some issues. For example of relevance, is > > the "Ch" of "Chuangtzu" the affricate lb/dj/ or the fricative /j/? > > The new system seems to say the latter (and that "ts" is just /z/), but the > > latter is generally said to be wrong and so the former may be also. > > And many of thes issues get changed before "i", which is much li ke lb/y/but > > is very different after these fric/affric sounds (and so they are often > > spelled differently then). Something surely can be worked out within lb > > phonology. > > A lot depends on regional accents. Going on rather weak memory, my > Chinese teacher, who was from the North (and therefore had a standard > accent apart from the "r" attatched to every vowel!) pronounced "zh" > pretty close to Lojban "j" except further back, and tended to emphasise > the final "i", so "Zhuangzi" would be "juangzy" in Lojban (add the > consonant of your choice). .u'i however, given that BBC newsreaders > still haven't managed to pronounce "Beijing" rometely correctly, I don't > think it's a major issue. > > co'o mi'e robin. IMHO, lojbanizing Chinese (and every other language's) words to *cmene* has to follow certain standards, i.e. the 'high' language and not local variations. (Creating gismu, for sure is different, because due to far stronger changes to the linguistic base, the resulting word anyway isn't affected that much!). Without referring to Chinese dialects (i.e. different languages like Cantonese, Fujian=Hokkien language or Hoklo, Taiwanese, Hakka etc.) the differences in pronunciation are immense even in "Mandarin" from one village to the next. One should necessarily stick to *one* standard! For example, the German language's standard displayed in IPA is not exactly the language of one certain region, but attached to the rules of pronunciation of so-called "stage speech". It's okay giving the last word of how a certain cmene has to be pronounced, to the very bearer of the name respective. But should common names like Johnson, Mueller, Smith, Jack - or *Bob* follow individual rules?? I do not like at all seeing words like 'Bob', John etc. written lb: bab., djan. instead of bob. and djon. . The American way of pronunciation may be a bit different to the British accent, i.e. the o vowel pronounced 'darker' and more going towards the a vowel: but it still *is* an "o" and *not* an "a"! If you really have a closer look at it, you'll 'see' the difference e.g. between (American) 'Bob' and 'hum' (BTW, *what* American local accent should be the norm? - Boston? Middle Western? ...) Also in other languages (Hungarian, Farsi, Norwegian etc.) there are e.g. a-vowels sounding a bit like an open "o" (Magyar, Isfahan, Kirkegaard etc.), others (like Danish or Arabic) have vowels somewhat between "a" and "e" (Dansk/densk, Khalad/ Khaled): I think one should accept the standard orthography (often indicating *how* a sound is looked at by the native speakers themselves - moreorless 'psycho-linguistically'). So - American: "Robert" never can be 'felt' as "Raaaaaaabert" (maybe by somebuddddy totally unknown of their own written language - a pre-school child etc.). (Due to selfrestriction) the means of Lojban for*appropriate* display of sounds (other than Lojban themselves) are so narrow, that it seems almost ridiculous to pay so much attention to slight personal, local variations in pronouncing a language that *has* a fixed orthographic state pointing to a pronunciation standard. And doing so, one nevertheless will be "getting lost in the dark and endless woods of concrete's variety..." co'o mi'e .aulun. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ eGroups members: $60 in FREE calls! Join beMANY! And pay less each month for long distance. http://click.egroups.com/1/4122/3/_/17627/_/959855293/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe, send mail to lojban-unsubscribe@onelist.com