Subject: Re: [lojban] Again: transcription of Chinese cmene

From: Ivan A Derzhanski <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2000 10:26:18 +0300

[email-masked] wrote:
[re lojbanising Chinese]
> But is there no final /m/ in Mandarin?
> I suppose, /dim sum/, being food, is Cantonese.

Exactly, and the Mandarin for it is _dian3 xin1_. Part of the reason
I suggested {m} for M _-n_ is that it often corresponds to C _-m_, or
to _m_ in Sino-Korean.

In Russian M _n_ is represented as palatalised _n'_ and M _ng_ as
non-palatalised _n_. The contrast is replaced by one that has no
phonetic similarity to it -- but it is not lost.

{ng} is available too, but then we can't guarantee that speakers won't
separate the {n} from a {g} by a buffer vowel, and that would distort
the sound significantly. The same goes for affricates, of course.
I don't think {beid|jin|g} is acceptable.

> More to the point, can we get a good vowel spread with the limited lb set?

The Chinese set is even more limited, only in a different way.
It shouldn't be difficult.

--Ivan