There are 23 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Sibilants
From: David McCann
1b. Re: Sibilants
From: Al Green
1c. Re: Sibilants
From: ROGER MILLS
2.1. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: Dana Nutter
2.2. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: Mark J. Reed
2.3. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: Dana Nutter
2.4. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: Dana Nutter
2.5. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: Henrik Theiling
2.6. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: caeruleancentaur
2.7. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: Eugene Oh
2.8. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: Benct Philip Jonsson
2.9. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: ROGER MILLS
2.10. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: Benct Philip Jonsson
2.11. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: Mark J. Reed
2.12. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: Benct Philip Jonsson
3a. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc
From: David McCann
3b. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc
From: Dana Nutter
4a. Re: Grammar checker
From: Dana Nutter
5a. Re: Communal/collaborative languages now possible at CALS
From: Jim Henry
5b. Re: Communal/collaborative languages now possible at CALS
From: Eugene Oh
6a. Re: Tonal inflection?
From: Jim Henry
7a. Re: "Register" a grammatical term
From: Benct Philip Jonsson
7b. Re: "Register" a grammatical term
From: R A Brown
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Sibilants
Posted by: "David McCann" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 6:56 am ((PDT))
On Tue, 2008-08-19 at 00:59 -0500, Eric Christopherson wrote:
> Is /D/ really different between American and UK English?
According to Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson (The Sounds of the
World's Languages),
"We investigated 28 native Californian college students and 28 British
university students and staff… Nearly 90% of the Californian speakers
produced θ … with the tip of the tongue protruded between the teeth…
Only 10% of the British speakers made the sound this way; 90% of them
used an articulation with the tip of the tongue behind the upper front
teeth."
J. C. Catford, who worked in Michegan, only described the dental
articulation, so the interdental may be a Western thing. Any comments
from the US?
My speech is British (RP), but I'm one of the 10% with the interdental.
Messages in this topic (18)
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1b. Re: Sibilants
Posted by: "Al Green" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 8:12 am ((PDT))
Shouldn't one be make some sort of distinction between phonological as
opposed to phonetic representation. Something like, same pronunciation
different phonological rules.
----- Original Message -----
From: David McCann<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: 20 August 2008 14:53
Subject: Re: Sibilants
On Tue, 2008-08-19 at 00:59 -0500, Eric Christopherson wrote:
> Is /D/ really different between American and UK English?
According to Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson (The Sounds of the
World's Languages),
"We investigated 28 native Californian college students and 28 British
university students and staff… Nearly 90% of the Californian speakers
produced θ … with the tip of the tongue protruded between the teeth…
Only 10% of the British speakers made the sound this way; 90% of them
used an articulation with the tip of the tongue behind the upper front
teeth."
J. C. Catford, who worked in Michegan, only described the dental
articulation, so the interdental may be a Western thing. Any comments
from the US?
My speech is British (RP), but I'm one of the 10% with the interdental.
Messages in this topic (18)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Sibilants
Posted by: "ROGER MILLS" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 10:19 am ((PDT))
David McCann wrote:
>
>According to Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson (The Sounds of the
>World's Languages),
>
>"We investigated 28 native Californian college students and 28 British
>university students and staff… Nearly 90% of the Californian speakers
>produced θ … with the tip of the tongue protruded between the teeth…
>Only 10% of the British speakers made the sound this way; 90% of them
>used an articulation with the tip of the tongue behind the upper front
>teeth."
>
>J. C. Catford, who worked in Michegan, only described the dental
>articulation, so the interdental may be a Western thing. Any comments
>from the US?
>
>My speech is British (RP), but I'm one of the 10% with the interdental.
And I (native midwestern US) am with the 90% of Brits (behind the front
teeth). The only time I saw anyone protrude their tongue, was with a friend
(Native New Hampshirite) at school, but he was emphasizing a word for his
deaf father........
Messages in this topic (18)
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2.1. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "Dana Nutter" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:12 am ((PDT))
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mark J. Reed
> Will respond in detail later when I can see the quoted text and make
> sure things are in the right context. But just to be clear: I've read
> "The Ugly American", and I'm painfully familiar with the bigotry
> (manifested as arrogance, indifference, jingoism, xenophobia...) that
> is all too common among my countrymen (and fellow Anglophones
> elsewhence, to a lesser degree). I am not defending that. But the
> pronunciation of foreign names in an Anglophonic context is a separate
> matter. Heck, if I insert meticulously-pronounced Spanish food item
> names into my otherwise pure-gringo fast food order, the
> coincidentally-Hispanic person behind the counter is more likely to
> think I'm being patronizing than respectful.
Yeah, but I still hear people say things like ['[EMAIL PROTECTED]@]
(diphthongized [eI], wrong stress) when they are perfectly capable of using the
closer, but still anglicized [kes@'[EMAIL PROTECTED] for [kesaDija].
The media don't help much either by using [Z] instead of [d_Z] in names like
Beijing or Fallujah"
I'm not saying we should try pronounce the names like natives, but use the
closest approximation we have available within the limits of our own phonology.
The only real problem arise when you have places with multilingal populations,
so which name would you use for Switzerland?
Messages in this topic (121)
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2.2. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:34 am ((PDT))
On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 8:28 AM, Lars Finsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> At least, what's wrong with trying to imitate a reasonably correct
> pronunciation of Milano and Torino for example?
Well, that's a case where the names are older than the language
currently spoken there. Milan and Turin come down to us from Latin,
having been established in English before there was such a thing as
"Italian". It is, as you say, "just" tradition, but tradition is a
powerful force, not easily diverted.
> If a Hispanic TV presenter
> actually is bilingual, I think it must feel the most natural for him to
> pronounce his name the way it was given to him, and if he does it for any
> conscious reason at all, it's for a matter of ethnic pride, not to raise
> laughs, for sure.
If they were raised in a bilingual environment, they probably feel
equally natural with both pronunciations of their name and
automatically use the appropriate one in context; in that case,
failing to do so is a conscious affectation. If they acquired English
later in life than that, that's different.
> But it is noticeable that Britons tend to do better with European
> names than Americans do, and the other way around with Asian names for
> example.
Proximity would seem to explain the former. I don't know what's up
with the latter.
>> it'd still be Anglicized to something like [EMAIL PROTECTED]'vEloU].
> You sure about that E?
Of course not; I'm just hypothesizing. It could be [eI] or [i] instead...
>>> I guess the phonetics of English makes it more difficult to pronounce
>>> foreign names than in many other
>>> languages.
>>
>> I don't really think that's true, although I don't have any evidence
>> one way or the other.
>
> So it's just the attitude, then?
I wouldn't say attitude - not more than that, at this point, because
you can acquire the tendencies just by growing up here, even if you
don't inherit the attitude along with them. It's a feature of the
culture.
But even disregarding that, I don't think the sound set of English is
the problem so much as the lack of exposure to sounds outside that
set. Europeans hear a lot more languages than we do in everyday life,
I'd wager. Without such exposure at a young age, you lose the ability
to hear and make distinctions that aren't in your L1, and the end
result is that no matter how open-minded and sincerely interested in
learning you are, you may not be able to sound much better than Peggy
Hill's Spanish (PH is a character on "King of the Hill", who speaks
fluent Spanish, but with a terrible Texas accent. [bweInoUs '[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[k_hoUmoU Es'ta ustejEd]?)
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (121)
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2.3. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "Dana Nutter" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:41 am ((PDT))
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Lars Finsen
> ... If a Hispanic TV presenter actually is bilingual, I think
it
> must feel the most natural for him to pronounce his name the
way it
> was given to him, and if he does it for any conscious reason
at all,
> it's for a matter of ethnic pride, not to raise laughs, for
sure.
It's clearly a conscious effort, and certainly not for laughs
but part of some politically correct agenda put out by the
media. I grew up in the L.A. area where every television
station has to have at least one token hispanic that does this,
but the Asians reporters don't.
> ... Your ['azloU] is rather a lot more different from the
local
> pronunciation of Oslo than what you find in most other
languages. (In fact
> the local pronunciation is more like ['u²Slu] - if I can use a
"²" for toneme
> 2. A retracted s before l is the norm in the east, where Oslo
is
> situated.)
I think a part of this has to do with orthography. For some
reason we take foreign names in Roman script and retain the
spelling so we tend to pronounce them based upon their spelling.
Maybe we should start altering the spellings to make the
pronunciation easier. We could start writing "Ushlu" instead of
"Oslo"?
> > Now, there are cases where the standard English name is
> very different
> > from the native one, and it might eliminate some confusion
if we
> > adopted the latter - the whole Georgia (country) vs Georgia
> (US state)
> > thing comes to mind. But even there, if we did adopt the
> native name,
> > it'd still be Anglicized to something like
[EMAIL PROTECTED]'vEloU].
>
> You sure about that E?
> Anyhow, I guess Georgia, the country, is known as Georgia in
just
> about every language in the world.
This is one of the reasons I prefer native names. It helps
disambiguate things in many situations. In Sasxsek, I
considered the naming scheme for a long time. Finally I settled
on using native names, but assimilating them phonemically.
"Georgia", the country, becomes "sakartvelo" while the US state
becomes "jorjx", however unlike English, Sasxsek is intended to
be syllable-timed not stress-timed.
> >> I guess the phonetics of English makes it more difficult to
> >> pronounce foreign names than in many other
> >> languages.
> >
> > I don't really think that's true, although I don't have any
evidence
> > one way or the other.
>
> So it's just the attitude, then?
There are some aspects of English that make it tough, but I'd
guess there are always going to be differing habits across any
two languages. Vowel reduction in English is probably the thing
that will alter the pronunciation the most.
Messages in this topic (121)
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2.4. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "Dana Nutter" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 8:07 am ((PDT))
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mark J. Reed
> On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 8:28 AM, Lars Finsen
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > At least, what's wrong with trying to imitate a reasonably correct
> > pronunciation of Milano and Torino for example?
>
> Well, that's a case where the names are older than the language
> currently spoken there. Milan and Turin come down to us from Latin,
> having been established in English before there was such a thing as
> "Italian". It is, as you say, "just" tradition, but tradition is a
> powerful force, not easily diverted.
Yes, in a lot of cases, it's just a matter of how and when the name entered
into English. Maybe periodic adjustments needed to be made, but we should have
done that with the orthography too.
> > If a Hispanic TV presenter
> > actually is bilingual, I think it must feel the most
> natural for him to
> > pronounce his name the way it was given to him, and if he
> does it for any
> > conscious reason at all, it's for a matter of ethnic pride,
> not to raise
> > laughs, for sure.
>
> If they were raised in a bilingual environment, they probably feel
> equally natural with both pronunciations of their name and
> automatically use the appropriate one in context; in that case,
> failing to do so is a conscious affectation. If they acquired English
> later in life than that, that's different.
You're right. They speak perfectly clear English, with the very obvious
exception of the names. Acquiring English later in life would generally leave
them with an accent that would usually make them unemployable as news anchors.
> > But it is noticeable that Britons tend to do better with European
> > names than Americans do, and the other way around with
> Asian names for
> > example.
>
> Proximity would seem to explain the former. I don't know what's up
> with the latter.
I'm not even sure that's true. I've heard both sides butcher pronunciations of
all types. How many different ways are there to pronounce the name "Nguyen?"
> ... ...
> > So it's just the attitude, then?
>
> I wouldn't say attitude - not more than that, at this point, because
> you can acquire the tendencies just by growing up here, even if you
> don't inherit the attitude along with them. It's a feature of the
> culture.
>
> But even disregarding that, I don't think the sound set of English is
> the problem so much as the lack of exposure to sounds outside that
> set. Europeans hear a lot more languages than we do in everyday life,
> I'd wager. Without such exposure at a young age, you lose the ability
> to hear and make distinctions that aren't in your L1, and the end
> result is that no matter how open-minded and sincerely interested in
> learning you are, you may not be able to sound much better than Peggy
> Hill's Spanish (PH is a character on "King of the Hill", who speaks
> fluent Spanish, but with a terrible Texas accent. [bweInoUs '[EMAIL
> PROTECTED]
> [k_hoUmoU Es'ta ustejEd]?)
Again, true. Europeans are more likely to be multilingual, and generally have
more opportunities to use their second or third languages. We can travel from
one coast to the other using nothing but our native English.
Messages in this topic (121)
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2.5. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "Henrik Theiling" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 8:17 am ((PDT))
Hi!
Mark J. Reed writes:
> On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 8:28 AM, Lars Finsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> At least, what's wrong with trying to imitate a reasonably correct
>> pronunciation of Milano and Torino for example?
>
> Well, that's a case where the names are older than the language
> currently spoken there. Milan and Turin come down to us from Latin,
>...
The German name for Milano is quite interesting: Mailand. The /i:/
was sound shifted regularly to /aI)/ and the -lan(us) was interpreted
as -land. I like this kind of stuff. I also like it when languages
have own names for places (even if they are derived from the original
language, they are still a different language).
Bilingual places usually have different names in the local languages
for the same place, so I see no reason at all how it can be judged
unrespectful to use some or another pronunciation or name for a place
if that happens to be the usual pronunciation/name.
E.g.:
Helsinki vs. Helsingfors
Lefkosia vs. Lefkos,a (Nikosia)
...
And in Hanzi-using languages, the names differ because the reading
is different, which I also like a lot, e.g. Tokyo vs. Dongjing.
Ok, some are clearly misinterpretations (like Séoul in French, which
is /sOul/ (or maybe /sVul/) in Korean, with /O/ romanised as _eo_,
confusing the French (and many Germans, too, btw) if another _u_
follows), but still, that's the unmarked, native pronunciation in
French, so it's not unrespectful to use it.
**Henrik
Messages in this topic (121)
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2.6. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "caeruleancentaur" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 8:21 am ((PDT))
> Lars Finsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> At least, what's wrong with trying to imitate a reasonably correct
> pronunciation of Milano and Torino for example? That shouldn't be
> so difficult. Tradition is the only reason not to.
What's wrong with it, as I understand it, is that those names are not
English. Once a start is made with Milano and Torino (relatively
easy) where does it end? Am I then supposed to say Moskva, Lisboa,
Bucharesti, etc.?
> I think I could tell you, too, without offending, that between
> ourselves, we foreigners sometimes have our own laughs at the ways
> in which you English-speakers pronounce our names.
I hope you realize that "turn about is fair play." It may not be
charitable behavior, but it is done. I really think that "we
foreigners" is a gross exaggeration. I'm sure that there are
Anglophones and "foreigners" who are unkind, but certainly not all of
them.
> I think it's like I said, that you are handicapped due to the
> difference in phonetics, and that carelessness isn't that much a
> part of it.
This is a two-way street. I encounter this frequently with our
Mexican immigrants. They really mangle place names and street
names. I often must ask them to write it for me. However, I'm not
about to make fun of them because of their "handicap."
Charlie
Messages in this topic (121)
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2.7. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "Eugene Oh" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 9:02 am ((PDT))
Henrik makes a very logical point. It is not unrespectful to use an
established name in a certain language. There is a certain similarity
between that and standing in the pantry in New York talking about your pet
"dog" as opposed to your pet "gou3" just because it came from China, or
because it's a Shih-tzu. Some might feel offended by the comparison, and I
apologise in advance, but I say they boil down to the same thing. As
linguists and budding linguists or linguafans, aren't we supposed to be very
aware of the idea that the same thing is represented by different sounds in
different tongues? Again, that is the whole reason why they are called
different languages in the first place.
The nativised names are simply loanwords affected by the destination
language's sound-changes and constricted by its phonology. Treat them as
such. The example of Switzerland provides a good example -- should French
speakers be obliged to say Chvaïtse as they travel from Geneva to Zurich
(and I wouldn't say the WHO has its headquarters in Génève)? German speakers
would be unable to reciprocate (correct me if I'm wrong) because there's no
initial [s].
I will call Oslo [EMAIL PROTECTED] when I'm speaking English, [aU4 s=1 lwO2]
Mandarin,
[osM4o] Japanese, and [uSlu] Norwegian (or when I'm in Norway, since I don't
know Norwegian). It's not about English pronunciations. Tell the Japanese,
who say [4osandzerMsM] (L.A.), or [herMSinki] (Helsinki, approximately),
and, like Henrik pointed out, get referred to as Japan, Geppun, Rìběn, Ilbon
all over the world but not Nihon. Or should we get around to talking about
Ellada and Bharat, or Misr?
Eugene
On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 11:17 PM, Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Mark J. Reed writes:
> > On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 8:28 AM, Lars Finsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
> >> At least, what's wrong with trying to imitate a reasonably correct
> >> pronunciation of Milano and Torino for example?
> >
> > Well, that's a case where the names are older than the language
> > currently spoken there. Milan and Turin come down to us from Latin,
> >...
>
> The German name for Milano is quite interesting: Mailand. The /i:/
> was sound shifted regularly to /aI)/ and the -lan(us) was interpreted
> as -land. I like this kind of stuff. I also like it when languages
> have own names for places (even if they are derived from the original
> language, they are still a different language).
>
> Bilingual places usually have different names in the local languages
> for the same place, so I see no reason at all how it can be judged
> unrespectful to use some or another pronunciation or name for a place
> if that happens to be the usual pronunciation/name.
> E.g.:
>
> Helsinki vs. Helsingfors
> Lefkosia vs. Lefkos,a (Nikosia)
> ...
>
> And in Hanzi-using languages, the names differ because the reading
> is different, which I also like a lot, e.g. Tokyo vs. Dongjing.
>
> Ok, some are clearly misinterpretations (like Séoul in French, which
> is /sOul/ (or maybe /sVul/) in Korean, with /O/ romanised as _eo_,
> confusing the French (and many Germans, too, btw) if another _u_
> follows), but still, that's the unmarked, native pronunciation in
> French, so it's not unrespectful to use it.
>
> **Henrik
>
Messages in this topic (121)
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2.8. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "Benct Philip Jonsson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 10:05 am ((PDT))
On 2008-08-19 Mark J. Reed wrote:
> If I'm standing in my office in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, carrying on a
> conversation in English, and talking about the recent visit of our
> friend from Oslo, I'm going to say ['azloU], because that's how the
> name is pronounced in English. If I say "Our friend from [uslu] was
> just in town", I'll get strange looks, and nobody will know what the
> heck I'm talking about - except perhaps my Swedish colleague, if she
> happens to be in the conversation. That would be the sort of thing I
> refer to as "Trebekking".
I used to do that until the time I was speaking
about a ['Cund&] and got a blank stare. Now I
say [h8n'daj] like all other Swedes...
/BP
Messages in this topic (121)
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2.9. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "ROGER MILLS" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 10:07 am ((PDT))
Lars Finsen wrote:
>
>That's a good point, and I think the substantial differences between the
>phonetics of English and those of most other languages add to it as well.
The phonetics of other languages I think present plenty of problems when
their speakers go to learn English--our /T, D, @, r\ / and the contrast
between /i I, e E, u U/ are major stumbling blocks.
To a foreigner it does convey the impression of an
>attitude like the Winston Churchill "Foreign names were made for
>Englishmen, not Englishmen for foreign names" thing, and I wouldn't be
>surprised if there's some of that stuff still lingering on as well, on a
>more or less conscious level.
Probably true; anglophones have a reputation for being poor learners of
foreign languages. Yet I've heard some British politicians speak excellent
French (and others who totally butcher it); one of our presidential
candidates (I forget which) gave a very fluent speech in Spanish, but then
there's Mr. Bush, who sounds like he's talkin to the field hands........
At least, what's wrong
>with trying to imitate a reasonably correct pronunciation of Milano and
>Torino for example? That shouldn't be so difficult. Tradition is the only
>reason not to.
Nativized forms of many well-known place names exist and are of long
standing. What do Norwegians call Moscow? Not [moskva] I'll wager.
>
>I think I could tell you, too, without offending, that between ourselves,
>we foreigners sometimes have our own laughs at the ways in which you
>English-speakers pronounce our names.
It works the other way round too. I had trouble convincing a hotel in Brazil
that I had a reservation; the problem resolved when I wrote down my name,
and the clerk brightened: Ah, senhor ['miuS]! Someone had written "Mills" as
it would be pronounced in Braz. Portuguese..........
After several generations, most foreign names have become Americanized (and
the same will probably happen with Hispanic names). German "Mueller"s are
now [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] or even [EMAIL PROTECTED]; most of the
Dutch names in my area
are still written a la Dutch, but -huis is usually [hajs] or even "house",
and the little village of Graafschap (sp?) is often called "Grass Cup". So
go figure :-))))))
Messages in this topic (121)
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2.10. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "Benct Philip Jonsson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 10:13 am ((PDT))
With the risk of crossing the no-cross-no-crown line,
is this really a right/left issue in the US?
caeruleancentaur skrev:
>> "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> I call that "Alex Trebekking", and I agree that it's disconcerting. I
>> believe that if you're speaking English, you should pronounce things
>> Englishly. Don't show off your mad language skillz by ordering a
>> [bur:'ito] instead of a [br\='i4oU] at Taco Bell, unless you're
>> placing the entire order in Spanish...
>
> Y'all may be interested in reading the following:
>
> http://www.nationalreview.com/nordlinger/nordlinger112002.asp
>
> In general, I agree with his sentiments.
>
> Charlie
>
Messages in this topic (121)
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2.11. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 10:28 am ((PDT))
On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 1:13 PM, Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> With the risk of crossing the no-cross-no-crown line,
> is this really a right/left issue in the US?
Well, in the linked article, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld were in
disagreement on such a point, and they're both pretty far to the
right. So it's not strictly so.
Of course, really, none of the political issues in this country fall
neatly into left and right categories; even the two major parties, for
all the Democrat=Left and Republican=Right equivalences, aren't
strictly synonymous with the traditional liberal and conservative
interpretations of those directions. And even the most partisan of
folks tend to have at least a couple individual opinions that don't
match the party line.
But, all that said, there are some strong tendencies at the
statistical level. On the left, you have the drive toward
multiculturalism, embracing diversity, etc.; on the right, you have
the backlash against political correctness and the perceived
denigration of traditional American/European culture. Absent other
influences, those particular forces tend to lead to native
pronunciations on the left and Anglicized on the right.
So even though it's not so simple, yes, it is to some extent a left/right issue.
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (121)
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2.12. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "Benct Philip Jonsson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 10:43 am ((PDT))
On 2008-08-20 Mark J. Reed wrote:
> Milan and Turin come down to us from Latin
Not really. They are North Italian forms,
and hence probably closer to the local
pronunciation, than Milano and Torino
which are Central/Tuscan/Standard Italian
forms. The Latin names were Mediolanum
and Taurinum.
/Benedictus
Messages in this topic (121)
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3a. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc
Posted by: "David McCann" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:12 am ((PDT))
On Tue, 2008-08-19 at 23:58 -0400, Dana Nutter wrote:
> I have to admit though I'm guilty of using some of the older
> names for places. I still say Bombay and Saigon even though
> they were Mumbai and Ho Chi Minh City at the time I was there.
> It's really just a habit because those names were used for so
> long.
Don't feel guilty! If speakers of English and Hindi are allowed
different languages, why can't those languages have different placenames
in them?
This seems a very Anglo-Saxon thing. I've got a German book on the
shelves nearby that consistently uses Libau, Dünaburg, Wenden, etc for
Liepāja, Daugavpils, and Cēsis (Latvia) and I'm sure it's authors didn't
feel guilty. And the passion for local names only seems to be applied to
third-word countries. People who'd never sully their tongues with Bombay
are still content with Athens and Copenhagen. Political correctness
strikes again?
Messages in this topic (2)
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3b. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc
Posted by: "Dana Nutter" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:58 am ((PDT))
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David McCann
> > I have to admit though I'm guilty of using some of the older
> > names for places. I still say Bombay and Saigon even though
> > they were Mumbai and Ho Chi Minh City at the time I was there.
> > It's really just a habit because those names were used for so
> > long.
>
> Don't feel guilty! If speakers of English and Hindi are allowed
> different languages, why can't those languages have different
> placenames in them?
I didn't say I feel guilty, only that I am guilty. I actually am in favor of
local names, just not taking it to the ridiculous extent of trying to pronounce
them precisely like a native.
Let's suppose for the sake of argument that we had no previous knowledge of any
of these places. The first thing that's generally done is to find out what the
natives call their home. The second thing is that the anglophone is usually
not able to pronounce it so he gives his best effort within the limits of his
anglophone speaking habits. Here you have the preservation of the local name,
but without expecting non-natives to make any unreasonable efforts.
> ... People who'd never sully their tongues with Bombay
> are still content with Athens and Copenhagen. Political correctness
> strikes again?
I'd have no problem with "Athina" or "Kuppenhaun".
Messages in this topic (2)
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4a. Re: Grammar checker
Posted by: "Dana Nutter" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:15 am ((PDT))
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Henrik
Theiling
> >> http://freshmeat.net/projects/gramadoir/
> > Huh, this looks pretty cool for us colanger-developer types!
Thanks
> > for sharing. :)
>
> Exactly my thought. I was thinking about trying to specify a
grammar
> checker for some of my conlangs, but haven't had a look at
that
> project yet. But it looked interesting.
>
> Anyone who tries it, please report, I'm quite curious whether
> it as useful for us.
That's what I was about to ask. Has anyone tried it yet?
Messages in this topic (4)
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5a. Re: Communal/collaborative languages now possible at CALS
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:23 am ((PDT))
On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 6:33 PM, David J. Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Jim Henry:
> <<
> I could sort of squeeze that into "question particle"
> but "ala" is a general negative particle, not primarily
> used for questions, or I could call it "interrogative
> word order" but the WALS examples involve
> fronting the verb. This doesn't seem to be the
> same thing.
>>>
>
> I would call that interrogative word order, of the
> options presented.
>
> Whenever I'm not sure what to put I always go
> to the WALS page for an explanation. Remember
In this case the WALS page didn't help; the interrogative
word order examples didn't resemble the Toki Pona form
much more than the question particle examples... I'll go ahead
and mark it as "interrogative word order" though.
On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 8:34 AM, Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Mandarin has both:
>
> hao3 bu hao3?
> good not good
> (Is it) good/ok?
>
> hao3 ma?
> good YN
> (Is it) good/ok?
So both question particle (unambiguously) and (maybe,
in David's analysis) interrogative word order -- as
English has both intonation and word order as question-marking
options. I suppose the people doing the WALS entry for
Mandarin maybe found that the "ma" form occurred more
often in their corpus, or something.
On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 5:07 AM, taliesin the storyteller
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Ah, but the *result of the search* isn't sortable. For instance
> searching for anything Jim Henry might have sent to me within so and so
> a timespan, then sort on dates, or for conlang, sort on subjects (though
> that was more of a necessity in the old days where subject lines were
> truncated and slightly changed east and west...). I have no idea just
> what criteria they use to order the results. Structured data like the
> meta-data of an email shouldn't be treated as unstructured data like
> text.
As far as I can tell, Gmail normally sorts search result threads by
the date of the most recent message in the thread. I agree it would
occasionally be nice to be able to sort by some field other than
last-post-in-thread's-date, but I haven't missed that functionality
often.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
Messages in this topic (9)
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5b. Re: Communal/collaborative languages now possible at CALS
Posted by: "Eugene Oh" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 8:34 am ((PDT))
The difference between Mandarin and Toki Pona is that the equivalent
sentence in Mandarin:
Ni3 shuo1 bu4 shuo1?
You talk not talk
means "Are you going to talk, or what?" either as a legitimate question (are
you going to tell your mum about your pregnancy?) or as a threat (are you
telling me or not?)
Hao3 "good" is not ambiguous in tat there isn't a volition involved.
Eugene
On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 8:34 PM, Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
> Hi!
>
> taliesin writes:
> >...
> > Mandarin is set as "question particle", though without examples
> > in the chapter text.
>
> Mandarin has both:
>
> hao3 bu hao3?
> good not good
> (Is it) good/ok?
>
> hao3 ma?
> good YN
> (Is it) good/ok?
>
> For transitive verbs, mainland Mandarin allows the negated verb to be
> moved to the end of the clause (but IIRC, Taiwanese Mandarin typically
> does not):
>
> ni3 you3 shu1 ma?
> you have book YN
> 'Do you have a book?'
>
> ni3 you3 mei3 you3 shu1?
> you have don't have book?
> 'Do you have a book?'
>
> ni3 you3 shu1 mei3 you3?
> you have book don't have?
> 'Do you have a book?'
>
> **Henrik
>
Messages in this topic (9)
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6a. Re: Tonal inflection?
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 10:00 am ((PDT))
On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 12:13 AM, Dana Nutter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> For example nouns having a pattern of 135 would be nominative and 531
> accusative while the dative may be 411, and the locative 252, etc.
>
> Verbs could have their own patterns to indicate tense and aspect, maybe a 135
> to indicate the present continuous for example, while 13 might be past
> continuous, and 35 for the future.
Ithkuil uses tone for several inflectional categories including
degree of comparison and mood.
How many syllables are your noun and verb roots liable to have?
It seems like those might be too many/complex tone distinctions
to make over a single syllable. But I'm not particularly good
with tones so maybe not the person you should ask about this.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/conlang/fluency-survey.html
Conlang fluency survey -- there's still time to participate before
I analyze the results and write the article
Messages in this topic (2)
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7a. Re: "Register" a grammatical term
Posted by: "Benct Philip Jonsson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 10:28 am ((PDT))
I just wondered if "register" was ever used to
refer to the familiar/honorific axis of grammar.
I seem to remember so but it might be that I
came up with it myself.
BTW, sorry for late answers. I went of on a
sudden Monday PM--Wednesday AM dash to Germany...
/BP
Mark J. Reed skrev:
> That was my thought, that "grammatical" is being (mis)used (overly)
> broadly. There are grammatical aspects of register, but its not a
> grammatical phenomenon...
>
>
>
> On 8/18/08, ROGER MILLS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Ray Brown wrote:
>>
>>>>> Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Could someone with access to Trask's and Crystal's
>>>>> lingyuistic dictionaries be so kind to look up how
>>>>> they define "register" as a grammatical term?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Crystal:
>>>> (1) A term used in phonetics to refer to the voice quality produced
>>> [etc. snipped]
>>>
>>> Charlie has given you in full the two definitions given by Crystal. Neither
>>>
>>> of them are, as you will have read, are uses as _grammatical_ terms.
>>>
>> The 2nd def. given by Crystal in Charlie's post accords with my knowledge
>> and use of the term; IIRC it's been in use since at least the 70s, when
>> people like Derek Bickerton began looking seriously at pidgins/creoles (and
>> stigmatized dialects like AAVE) and the associated bi- or poly-dialectism.
>> For example, those Jamaicans (and others Caribbean islanders) who can switch
>> from pure local creole to the Queen's English (and points in between) at the
>> drop of a hat-- and then realized that, well, we all do something like that
>> when the occasion demands.
>>
>> Perhaps "grammatical term" should be interpreted as "term used by linguists"
>> :-))))))
>>
>
Messages in this topic (7)
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7b. Re: "Register" a grammatical term
Posted by: "R A Brown" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 11:18 am ((PDT))
Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> I just wondered if "register" was ever used to
> refer to the familiar/honorific axis of grammar.
As in Japanese or, indeed, the second person pronoun in many European
languages.
> I seem to remember so but it might be that I came up with it myself.
I've checked both Trask & Crystal and both give definitions of
_honorific_ as a grammatical term. But neither of them use the word
'register' in their definitions nor, indeed, do either define 'familiar'
as a grammatical term.
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Frustra fit per plura quod potest
fieri per pauciora.
[William of Ockham]
Messages in this topic (7)
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