hi Sauravda....
Thanx for your insight. I would like to make the following observations regarding ur suggestions:
The assamese sound 'a' as in axam (the Near-Open Central Unrounded vowel) is unknown to english speakers.... the sounds nearing them are
1. the near-open front unrounded...e.g., the 'a' in glass
2. open front unrounded e.g., the 'a' in path ......which is actually the Assamese transcribed "aa" e.g., aah (come)
3. mid central unrounded ....e.g. 'a' in zebra
From the sound it seems like the assamese 'a' starts from the front part ofthe mouth ( I may be mistaken and another sound the open back unrounded sounds much like it even though it depends a lot on the tongue position of the speaker.)
When spoken with a RP(Received Pronunciation) accent unlike the Indian accent the English "o" starts at the very back of the mouth. e.g., 'o' in over. Moreover in the IPA sound files, the 'o' (not the 'o' in english but the /o/ sound in IPA) sounds almost exactly like the 'o' as in ola (get out).
From the above it seems that the alphabet 'a' better approximates thecorresponding Assamese sound.So I have decided to say axam instead of oxom. But then as I said...... what notation u use is vastly a matter of opinion....since the 'a' sound is Assamese is not available in English in any case we have to do a compromise. Neither axam not osom is actually correct .....it all depends on how we decide to pronounce the 'a' and 'o' in transliterated literature.
As far as using the Z goes, the /z/ sound as in 'zoo' (voiced aveolar fricative) is completely foreign to Assamese. ( No wonder Guwahatians go to spend the evening at the 'joo' !). The closest Assamese comes to it is the 'ja' as in jaaok (go) . if we transliterate it is 'zaaok' instead of 'jaaok' then it will be mispronounced by people who are ignorant of assamese pronunciation.... That is the reason I used 'ja' instead of 'za'. But then again, it is a matter of opinion .
yours,
Syamanta Saikia
--------------------------- Saurav Pathak Wrote:
this is a wonderful effort. maybe it will lead the elders in assam to standardize the transliteration.
two suggestions:
* is there a problem using "o" instead of "a" at the
end of each letter? that is "ko" instead of "ka".
to me, "ko" sounds more phonetic. * maybe the roles of "ya" and "jya" should be interchanged.
maybe we can use the letter "z" somewhere.these changes will take it away from the devnagri scheme, a standard. but they will bring it closer to the way assamese actually sounds, and presently used informally in emails, and chatboards.
saurav
S Saikia said on AssamNet:
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