From eks2@york.ac.uk Tue Aug 07 09:00:28 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: eks2@york.ac.uk X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_2_0); 7 Aug 2001 16:00:27 -0000 Received: (qmail 60988 invoked from network); 7 Aug 2001 16:00:02 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l9.egroups.com with QMQP; 7 Aug 2001 16:00:02 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO n19.groups.yahoo.com) (10.1.2.2) by mta1 with SMTP; 7 Aug 2001 16:00:01 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: eks2@york.ac.uk Received: from [10.1.10.104] by mw.egroups.com with NNFMP; 07 Aug 2001 16:00:01 -0000 Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 15:59:58 -0000 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: Transliterations survey Message-ID: <9kp39u+4krq@eGroups.com> In-Reply-To: User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 1592 X-Mailer: eGroups Message Poster X-Originating-IP: 144.32.128.133 From: "Evgueni Sklyanin" --- In lojban@y..., Nick NICHOLAS wrote: > > Lojbanists, > > Please evaluate as voluminously as you can the following candidate > transliterations. Please only comment on an instance if you know the exact > pronunciation of the original. Feel free to try these on > mundanes^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hnon-Lojbanists. Ignore the fact that some of these > are not legal cmene. Anecdotes about transliterations of these placenames > in your native languages are also welcome. > > Fukushima, Japan > > fukucima. > fikicima. > fykycima. > I wonder why no one considered the variant {fukusima.} A few points in favor of {si} versus {ci}: 1. The consonant in {si/shi} is only a positional phonological variant of {s} preceding {i}. Compared to {s} preceding {a/o/e/u}, it is palatalized and only slightly sibilant. Being a native Russian speaker and having no professional linguistic training, I can hear clearly that {s} in {si/shi} is palatalized. As for the degree of sibilant-ness, my perception varies in a rather wide range. 2. The traditional Japanese syllabary {kana} puts {si/shi} in the same row with {sa/su/se/so}. For this reason, the official Japanese roman transcription taught in schools uses {si}. The variant {shi} is used by the so-called Hapburn transcription serving mainly to teach Japanese to English-speakers. 3. The standard Russian transcription uses {si}, not {shi}. Russian {shi} sounds very different from {si} and Japanese {si/shi}, the consonant being nonpalatalized, and the vowel being closer to Turkish {I} than to {i}. co'o mi'e .evgenis.