From: John Cowan (cowan@mercury.ccil.org)
Date: Mon May 19 2003 - 21:19:07 EDT
Allen Haaheim scripsit:
> Yes, there are also good arguments for using Wade-Giles by a similar logic:
> when read by the uninitiated, the words usually come closer to the actual
> sound.
I think that very much depends. If you are a young American or Australian
anglophone, you probably use aspiration rather than voicing to distinguish
/p/ from /b/, exactly the same distinction made in Mandarin, so "Beijing"
comes out exactly right if you can get it in your mind that "j" = /dZ/ just
as in your native tongue.
My problem with W-G is that it's easy to mutilate: the apostrophes tend
to get lost, and then the true form is unreconstructible.
> Another disadvantage of pinyin is its need for diacritical marks, which GR
> (Guoyu luomazi) tonal spelling dispenses with, instead distinguishing
> differing tones by using spelling rules, resulting in far less
> homophonous-looking romanized words, and less confusion with and inattention
> to tones.
Yes, but GR is so *painful*. "More effort" is not the word. I have
devised a (IMHO) better tonal spelling for Mandarin with a straightforward
mapping to HYPY just for the fun of it, but this list isn't the place
to discuss it.
--
John Cowan
jcowan@reutershealth.com
I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin
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