From iad@MATH.BAS.BG Thu Jun 29 06:36:02 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 29428 invoked from network); 29 Jun 2000 13:36:02 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by m3.onelist.org with QMQP; 29 Jun 2000 13:36:02 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO argo.bas.bg) (195.96.224.7) by mta1 with SMTP; 29 Jun 2000 13:36:01 -0000 Received: from banmatpc.math.bas.bg (root@banmatpc.math.bas.bg [195.96.243.2]) by argo.bas.bg (8.11.0.Beta1/8.9.3/Debian 8.9.3-6) with ESMTP id e5TDZtX19790 for ; Thu, 29 Jun 2000 16:35:57 +0300 Received: from iad.math.bas.bg (iad.math.bas.bg [195.96.243.88]) by banmatpc.math.bas.bg (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id QAA24784 for ; Thu, 29 Jun 2000 16:35:51 +0300 Message-ID: <395B50D7.7249@math.bas.bg> Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 16:36:23 +0300 Reply-To: iad@math.bas.bg Organization: Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win95; I; 16bit) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: The Lojban List Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: PLEA: Chinese names References: <8jevfl+42e0@eGroups.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit From: Ivan A Derzhanski X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 3310 Alfred W. Tueting (Tüting) wrote: > --- In lojban@egroups.com, Ivan A Derzhanski 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