Subject: Re: [lojban] PLEA: Chinese names

From: Ivan A Derzhanski <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 10:58:57 +0300

[email-masked] wrote:
> At the risk of starting the discussion again, can I declare that
> [...] we base Chinese names (and titles) as much as possible
> on the best information we have about actual pronunciation

The best strategy, to be sure, and not only for Chinese names.
I might add: when in doubt, choose a solution that allows the
preservation of oppositions that are phonemic in the original,
and/or let orthography (Pinyin) have a say -- though neither
should lead to significant distortion of the sound.

> This involves usually [...] taking [...] the retroflex fricatives
> and affricates as palatal,

Palatoalveolar. The Lojban {c} / English _sh_ / German _sch_
are palatoalveolar; the German Ich-Laut is palatal.

> syllabic fricatves (including r) as vowel free where possible,
> with /y/ where a vowel is necessary (or /r/ in the case of
> the retroflex fricatives),

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).

--Ivan