Pronunciation of katakana "ou"
Jani Patokallio
Over at Wikipedia, there's been a big ol' flame war about the proper
pronunciation and romanization of the katakana sequence オウ "ou", and
I'd like to solicit expert opinions here.
All sides agree that there are some words where "o" and "u" are in
separate mora and are clearly pronounced separately: 追う オウ the verb, 孔
子 コウシ "small cow", 井上 イノウエ "Inoue" etc. All sides also agree that
"ou" is a long vowel when used to spell out words usually written in
hiragana or kanji, eg. ダロウ、イチョウ.
The hyakuman'en question is, what happens when オウ occurs in a
loanword, like ソウル "soul/Seoul", オウル "owl/Oulu" or オウケイウェイブ "OKWave"?
Is the first pronounced so-u-ru with distinct o and u, or is it
pronounced soo-ru, identically to ソール, or are both readings correct?
If one or the other, is the correct pronunciation decided per word
entirely on an ad-hoc basis, or is there a consistent rule for how to
pronounce these?
And for people with too much time on their hands:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(Japan-related_articles)#Romanization_of_.22ou.22_in_words_of_foreign_origin
Cheers,
-jani
Sean
My understanding would be that ソウル and ソール are different. If ウ is
used instead of ー, I would expect that it's because the writer wants
you to say ウ. If the disputants are native English speakers, perhaps
the source of their confusion is the tendency in English (at least the
Englishes I am familiar with) to diphthongalize /o/, so that many
English speakers would end up pronouncing ソール as if it had been
written ソウル. So, in your flame war, taunt the people who say that ソ
ウル and ソール are the same thusly,"You idiots are speaking with a
Canadian accent!"
When it's a matter of non-loan words being written in katakana, then all
bets are off.
Ben Bullock
> Greetings,
>
> Over at Wikipedia, there's been a big ol' flame war about the proper
> pronunciation and romanization of the katakana sequence オウ "ou", and
I'd
> like to solicit expert opinions here.
One favourite incident I remember from when I was fool enough to try to
improve Wikipedia was an expert on all things Japanese named "Exploding
Boy". He'd decided that the romanization taught in Japanese schools was
the Hepburn version. He'd taught in Japanese schools and thus was a super-
duper expert, and would brook no contradiction. I had to post copies of
my children's school books to convince him otherwise.
Another thing that the expert encyclopedia editors on Wikipedia are fond
of doing is to change the name of the city I live in so that it's written
in kanji. A recent super-duper expert actually chopped a great big chunk
of the article on Tsukuba which pointed out that the name is written only
in hiragana. News for the post office and local government.
An interesting incident also occurred with one Rhialto, who decided that
Wikipedia's article on weights and measures must be wrong, since it
disagreed with a highly authoritative source of information - his
Personal Home Page.
And let's not forget a special mention for Gene Nygaard, the Man Who
Knows, an agriculturalist who presides over discussions of typography at
Wikipedia. A farmer like Gene obviously knows better than the foolish
footlers, dilettantes and lightweights who put together such disregarded
references as the Chicago Manual of Style. There's no-one whose opinions
I value more than a farmer when it comes to subtle questions of
typography, in the same way that when I get ill I usually visit a
motorcycle mechanic, rather than waste my time talking to some so-called
medically qualified doctor.
Wikipedia's band of super-duper experts, don't you love them?
--
sci.lang.japan FAQ: http://www.sljfaq.org/
Jim Breen
> Jani Patokallio wrote:
>>Over at Wikipedia, there's been a big ol' flame war about the proper
>>pronunciation and romanization of the katakana sequence オウ "ou", and
>>I'd like to solicit expert opinions here.
>>
>>All sides agree that there are some words where "o" and "u" are in
>>separate mora and are clearly pronounced separately: 追う オウ the verb, 孔
>>子 コウシ "small cow", 井上 イノウエ "Inoue" etc.
All quite true, but these are not cases of katakana in usual Japanese
orthography. Perhaps the discussion should be about romanization
in general, and not just katakana?
>>The hyakuman'en question is, what happens when オウ occurs in a
>>loanword, like ソウル "soul/Seoul", オウル "owl/Oulu" or オウケイウェイブ "OKWave"?
>>Is the first pronounced so-u-ru with distinct o and u, or is it
>>pronounced soo-ru, identically to ソール, or are both readings correct?
>>If one or the other, is the correct pronunciation decided per word
>>entirely on an ad-hoc basis, or is there a consistent rule for how to
>>pronounce these?
I totally agree with Sean's comment (below). ソウル and ソール are
written differently because the writers are reflecting different
pronunciations. To romanize them the same way is plain wrong.
>>And for people with too much time on their hands:
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(Japan-related_articles)#Romanization_of_.22ou.22_in_words_of_foreign_origin
I glanced at the page and retreated in horror. I have little interest
in romanization, and even less in flame wars, although a flare-up of
the good old Holy Romanization Wars brings back reminiscences of
SLJ in the late 80s. I'm sure Jim Unger would sort them out.
> My understanding would be that ソウル and ソール are different. If ウ is
> used instead of ー, I would expect that it's because the writer wants
> you to say ウ. If the disputants are native English speakers, perhaps
> the source of their confusion is the tendency in English (at least the
> Englishes I am familiar with) to diphthongalize /o/, so that many
> English speakers would end up pronouncing ソール as if it had been
> written ソウル. So, in your flame war, taunt the people who say that ソ
> ウル and ソール are the same thusly,"You idiots are speaking with a
> Canadian accent!"
> When it's a matter of non-loan words being written in katakana, then all
> bets are off.
Amen.
--
Jim Breen http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/
Clayton School of Information Technology,
Monash University, VIC 3800, Australia
ジム・ブリーン@モナシュ大学
Jani Patokallio
On May 29, 6:16 am, Jim Breen <jimbr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I totally agree with Sean's comment (below). ソウル and ソール are
> written differently because the writers are reflecting different
> pronunciations. To romanize them the same way is plain wrong.
Right. So, assuming Hepburn, you would romanize ソウル as "souru", and ソー
ル as "sōru"? (That's soru with a macron in case Usenet chews it up.)
> I glanced at the page and retreated in horror. I have little interest
> in romanization, and even less in flame wars, although a flare-up of
> the good old Holy Romanization Wars brings back reminiscences of
> SLJ in the late 80s. I'm sure Jim Unger would sort them out.
Yup, we had that one on Wikipedia as well a few years back, but
despite the best efforts of a few Kunrei, JSL and even wapuro romaji
fanboys, everybody seems to have more or less settled on Hepburn for
time being. My experience has been that collective common sense will
eventually wear out even the most persistent self-proclaimed "super-
duper experts", although it can take quite a while sometimes...
Cheers,
-jani
Sean
> Thanks for the comments!
>
> On May 29, 6:16 am, Jim Breen <jimbr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> written differently because the writers are reflecting different
>> pronunciations. To romanize them the same way is plain wrong.
>
> 锟斤拷 as "s锟斤拷ru"? (That's soru with a macron in case Usenet chews it up.)
Or "sooru" if macrons are an issue. I guess the advantage of the macron
is that
you have a better chance of getting reasonable pronunciation from the
uninitiated, if that is one of the aims of romanizing to start with.
English speakers
might look at "oo" and give you /u/.
At whom is the romanization aimed? That would be a critical factor for me.
Jani Patokallio
> Jani Patokallio wrote:
> > Right. So, assuming Hepburn, you would romanize ソウル as "souru", and ソー
>
> Or "sooru" if macrons are an issue. I guess the advantage of the macron
> is that you have a better chance of getting reasonable pronunciation from the
> uninitiated, if that is one of the aims of romanizing to start with.
> English speakers might look at "oo" and give you /u/.
>
> At whom is the romanization aimed? That would be a critical factor for me.
Wikipedia's standard is Hepburn, so yes, macrons are used for long
vowels.
Cheers,
-jani
Ben Finney
> Right. So, assuming Hepburn, you would romanize ソウル as "souru", and
> ソ�` ル as "sōru"? (That's soru with a macron in case Usenet chews
> it up.)
I find “ō” doesn't help disambiguate between “oo” and “ou”. Am I
right in thinking Hepburn romanisation uses “ō” for each of those
sequences?
Myself, I avoid the macrons (because they don't seem to disambiguate)
and just use either “oo” or “ou” as appropriate.
--
\ “Ocean, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a |
`\ world made for man — who has no gills.” —Ambrose Bierce, _The |
_o__) Devil's Dictionary_, 1906 |
Ben Finney
Sean
> On May 29, 10:35 pm, Sean <s...@fakemail.com> wrote:
>> Jani Patokallio wrote:
>>> �� as "s��ru"? (That's soru with a macron in case Usenet chews it up.)
>> Or "sooru" if macrons are an issue. I guess the advantage of the macron
>> is that you have a better chance of getting reasonable pronunciation from the
>> uninitiated, if that is one of the aims of romanizing to start with.
>> English speakers might look at "oo" and give you /u/.
>>
>> At whom is the romanization aimed? That would be a critical factor for me.
>
> Wikipedia's standard is Hepburn, so yes, macrons are used for long
> vowels.
>
> Cheers,
> -jani
Your statement may reflect an assumption that may not be strictly accurate.
You can dispense with macrons and it can still be Hepburn. I await
correction by
the experts, but isn't Hepburn with macrons "Modified Hepburn" or
"Revised Hepburn"?
(����إܥ�ʽ) Or is ����إܥ�ʽ the kind that delivers Tookyoo and the
like?
Well, the following site shows ����إܥ�ʽ as the �L���oҕ variety.
http://homepage1.nifty.com/samito/romaji.htm
In other places that seems to be called �ѥ��ݩ`��ʽ. Is �ѥ��ݩ`��ʽ a
subspecies
of Hepburn?
I dunno. But I know that there can be Hepburn without macrons.
Are macrons relatively new-fangled, or did old Hepburn himself use them?
(My Nelson's, the 1984 edition, uses macrons. But, to some of us, stuff from
1984 can still be called "new-fangled." Hey, I still think of Abbey Road
as the
latest Beatles album... the new one, you know?)
In Appendix 4 of my copy of Halpern's New Japanese English Kanji Dictionary
(Mine's 1990: a first edition, I believe!), is the following explanation
of the
Hepburn romanization he is using:
"The romanization system adopted in this dictionary is the Hepburn
system with the slight
modifications introduced in Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary.
The trans-
literation rules of the system are as follows:
1. In principle, long vowels, especially a, u, and o, are indicated by
placing a macron
over the vowel..."
I don't know if this implies that the use of macrons is one of the
modifications he
speaks of, but perhaps it is. The GG has been around a while; when were the
modifications he speaks of made?
One thing that is not in doubt is that there are varieties of Hepburn
that do not use macrons.
Alfonso used Hepburn with doubled vowels: ookii and the like.
http://www.trussel.com/jap/images/alfonso02b.jpg
According to the following site, not indicating the long /o/ or /u/ is
standard.
http://www.seikatubunka.metro.tokyo.jp/hebon/index.html
The following site also discusses �L���oҕ.
http://xembho.s59.xrea.com/siryoo/hikion.html
It's certainly an area of interest for native speakers who have reason
to romanize Japanese.
http://www.n-hirata-office.com/cgi-bin/n-hirata/siteup.cgi?category=1&page=3
If you google around things like �إܥ�ʽ �L�� and the like, you can
find discussion, charts, etc.
Jim Breen
> Thanks for the comments!
>
> On May 29, 6:16 am, Jim Breen <jimbr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>I totally agree with Sean's comment (below). ソウル and ソール are
>>written differently because the writers are reflecting different
>>pronunciations. To romanize them the same way is plain wrong.
>
> Right. So, assuming Hepburn, you would romanize ソウル as "souru", and ソー
> ル as "sōru"? (That's soru with a macron in case Usenet chews it up.)
Yes.
> Yup, we had that one on Wikipedia as well a few years back, but
> despite the best efforts of a few Kunrei, JSL and even wapuro romaji
> fanboys, everybody seems to have more or less settled on Hepburn for
> time being. My experience has been that collective common sense will
> eventually wear out even the most persistent self-proclaimed "super-
> duper experts", although it can take quite a while sometimes...
I think it's appropriate for the English Wikipedia to have a standard
for romanizing Japanese, and Modified Hepburn is as good as any for
that. Its lack of round-trip capability with kana annoys me, and causes
me no end of trouble, but nothing is perfect,
--
Jim Breen http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/
Clayton School of Information Technology,
Monash University, VIC 3800, Australia
$B%8%`!&%V%j!<%s (B@ $B%b%J%7%eBg3X (B
Bart Mathias
> Jani Patokallio <ja...@contentshare.sg> writes:
>
>> Right. So, assuming Hepburn, you would romanize ソウル as "souru", and
>> ソ�` ル as "sōru"? (That's soru with a macron in case Usenet chews
>> it up.)
>
> I find “ō” doesn't help disambiguate between “oo” and “ou”. Am I
> right in thinking Hepburn romanisation uses “ō” for each of those
> sequences?
Well, no, it's as you quote Jani Patokallio. Hepburn--with
macrons--distinguishes long vowels (or like vowel sequences) from unlike
vowel sequences.
But I have a feeling you're talking about kana spelling rather than
pronunciation. You're correct if you are thinking that Hebonshiki will
spell both 大きゅう（なった） and 王宮 the same way.
> Myself, I avoid the macrons (because they don't seem to disambiguate)
> and just use either “oo” or “ou” as appropriate.
I avoid them mainly because I don't know how to type them.
Bart
Jim Breen
> I avoid them mainly because I don't know how to type them.
I avoid them because I only write ローマ字 when I absolutely
have to, e.g. in learned papers intended for people who can't
read *real* Japanese, Wikipedia articles, etc. Happily in
both environments (e.g. LaTeX for papers) writing macrons
is pretty easy (e.g. \={O}saka, Ky\={u}sh\={u}).
Tad Perry
news:qYkUl.14782$y61....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> Bart Mathias wrote:
>
> > I avoid them mainly because I don't know how to type them.
>
> I avoid them because I only write ローマ字 when I absolutely
> have to, e.g. in learned papers intended for people who can't
> read *real* Japanese, Wikipedia articles, etc. Happily in
> both environments (e.g. LaTeX for papers) writing macrons
> is pretty easy (e.g. \={O}saka, Ky\={u}sh\={u}).
Jeez, are people still using LaTeX? (I always liked LaTeX, but assumed it
had died a cruel death.)
tvp
Jim Breen
No, it's alive and well in certain elite circles. 8-)}
I must admit I only use it when I'm doing some heavy lifting.
For quickies I tend to write in a markup system I devised a
decade or so ago, which generates parallel LaTeX and HTML. It's
often easier to to go HTML->OpenOrifice->PDF than direct LaTeX->PDF.
Dan Rempel
Still alive and well, http://scripts.sil.org/XeTeX
Dan
--
I was at this restaurant. The sign said "Breakfast Anytime." So I
ordered French Toast in the Renaissance.
-- Steven Wright
Tad Perry
news:dff7322d0d0c6ce4...@grapevine.islandnet.com...
> Tad Perry wrote:
> > "Jim Breen" <jimb...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:qYkUl.14782$y61....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> >> Bart Mathias wrote:
> >>
> >>> I avoid them mainly because I don't know how to type them.
> >> I avoid them because I only write ローマ字 when I absolutely
> >> have to, e.g. in learned papers intended for people who can't
> >> read *real* Japanese, Wikipedia articles, etc. Happily in
> >> both environments (e.g. LaTeX for papers) writing macrons
> >> is pretty easy (e.g. \={O}saka, Ky\={u}sh\={u}).
> >
> > Jeez, are people still using LaTeX? (I always liked LaTeX, but assumed
it
> > had died a cruel death.)
>
> Still alive and well, http://scripts.sil.org/XeTeX
Wow. This is like a blast from the past. The last I used LaTeX was 1991. Of
course, I didn't think it died just because I stopped using it, but I never
heard of it again. I thought everyone had moved on. Certainly everyone I get
work from moved on. (I used to get work where I would translate right inside
the source files. Nowadays that can happen with HTML, but since 1991,
nothing LaTeX ever crosses my desk.) Sometimes I translated such things
using vi, and later emacs. Now, if anyone's still using vi on a serious
basis that would really surprise me. Emacs, on the other hand, I really,
really liked, and I hung onto it long after anyone else was using it.
tvp
Bart Mathias
> [...] The last I used LaTeX was 1991. Of
> course, I didn't think it died just because I stopped using it, but I never
> heard of it again. I thought everyone had moved on. Certainly everyone I get
> work from moved on. (I used to get work where I would translate right inside
> the source files. Nowadays that can happen with HTML, but since 1991,
> nothing LaTeX ever crosses my desk.) Sometimes I translated such things
> using vi, and later emacs. Now, if anyone's still using vi on a serious
> basis that would really surprise me. Emacs, on the other hand, I really,
> really liked, and I hung onto it long after anyone else was using it.
I wouldn't know how to edit /etc/fstab and the like without vi.
Emacs won't do it:
bart@amigaone:~$ emacs
bash: emacs: command not found
bart@amigaone:~$ Emacs
bash: Emacs: command not found
bart@amigaone:~$
(I think my Linux has something called "Nano," but haven't tried it yet.)
On the Amiga side I mostly use MEmacs, although I do find not being able
to mark a block of text by rolling my trackball annoying.
Bart
Ben Finney
> Wow. This is like a blast from the past. The last I used LaTeX was
> 1991. Of course, I didn't think it died just because I stopped using
> it, but I never heard of it again. I thought everyone had moved on.
> Certainly everyone I get work from moved on.
Moved on to what? I don't know of anything better than LaTeX for writing
complex mathematical notation in a text-only source document.
> Now, if anyone's still using vi on a serious basis that would really
> surprise me.
If by “vi” you mean “original Unix vi with all the shortcomings of
original Unix vi”, then no, I don't know of anyone using that specific
program on a serious basis.
However, the vi-compatible “Vi IMproved” <URL:http://www.vim.org/> is
the program installed on most GNU+Linux systems as the “vi” command,
and is even more popular than the original. When these days people say
“I use vi”, it's pretty much guaranteed they mean Vim.
> Emacs, on the other hand, I really, really liked, and I hung onto it
> long after anyone else was using it.
GNU Emacs is still the editor environment of choice for those with many
and varied text editing tasks that take hours at a time.
--
\ “For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier. I put |
`\ them in the same room and let them fight it out.” —Steven Wright |
_o__) |
Ben Finney
Jim Breen
> "Tad Perry" <tadp...@comcast.net> writes:
>>Wow. This is like a blast from the past. The last I used LaTeX was
>>1991. Of course, I didn't think it died just because I stopped using
>>it, but I never heard of it again. I thought everyone had moved on.
>>Certainly everyone I get work from moved on.
>
> Moved on to what? I don't know of anything better than LaTeX for writing
> complex mathematical notation in a text-only source document.
My reaction exactly.
>>Now, if anyone's still using vi on a serious basis that would really
>>surprise me.
>
> If by “vi” you mean “original Unix vi with all the shortcomings of
> original Unix vi”, then no, I don't know of anyone using that specific
> program on a serious basis.
>
> However, the vi-compatible “Vi IMproved” <URL:http://www.vim.org/> is
> the program installed on most GNU+Linux systems as the “vi” command,
> and is even more popular than the original. When these days people say
> “I use vi”, it's pretty much guaranteed they mean Vim.
Naruhodo. I was chatting with a friend in CS at Melbourne University.
He commented that he's an emacs user, but almost all his graduate
students use vim, because that's what they use in the undergraduate
course.
>>Emacs, on the other hand, I really, really liked, and I hung onto it
>>long after anyone else was using it.
>
> GNU Emacs is still the editor environment of choice for those with many
> and varied text editing tasks that take hours at a time.
I've had a very sallies at emacs, but I keep coming back to vi and its
clones. I still use "jstevie", and the version I extended about 15
years ago to handle JIS212 is one of the only editors in the galaxy
which handle a JIS208/JIS212 mix au naturel.
Since I switched from text-based email and news clients (to Gmail
and Thunderbird) I have got a lot more used to WYSIWYG editors, but
I wish I had the same instant access to regexes, etc. I oftem find myself
hitting A, I, etc. instead of "End" and "Home".
Tad Perry
news:87oct7s...@benfinney.id.au...
> "Tad Perry" <tadp...@comcast.net> writes:
>
> > Wow. This is like a blast from the past. The last I used LaTeX was
> > 1991. Of course, I didn't think it died just because I stopped using
> > it, but I never heard of it again. I thought everyone had moved on.
> > Certainly everyone I get work from moved on.
>
> Moved on to what? I don't know of anything better than LaTeX for writing
> complex mathematical notation in a text-only source document.
Moved on to what clients were demanding. At first, WYSIWYG applications
running on Macs like Quark Express, PageMaker, Framemaker, and so on. Later
HTMLs and MS Word completely took over. I understand about the mathematical
notation, but I'm not the one that picks the method of how things get
printed. I just have to provide compatibility for whatever clients ask for,
and no one has asked for LaTeX-compatibility (from me at least) since 1991.
> > Now, if anyone's still using vi on a serious basis that would really
> > surprise me.
>
> If by "vi" you mean "original Unix vi with all the shortcomings of
> original Unix vi", then no, I don't know of anyone using that specific
> program on a serious basis.
Yeah, that one.
> However, the vi-compatible "Vi IMproved" <URL:http://www.vim.org/> is
> the program installed on most GNU+Linux systems as the "vi" command,
> and is even more popular than the original. When these days people say
> "I use vi", it's pretty much guaranteed they mean Vim.
>
> > Emacs, on the other hand, I really, really liked, and I hung onto it
> > long after anyone else was using it.
>
> GNU Emacs is still the editor environment of choice for those with many
> and varied text editing tasks that take hours at a time.
I love the environment for text editing. I still use it when the option is
mine. I've always tried to convert people to the idea that editing text and
laying it out and formatting it for printing should be considered two
separate tasks and that text should be flowed into formats. (I.e. that
layout tools should facilitate this utilization.)
tvp
Dan Rempel
> "Tad Perry" <tadp...@comcast.net> writes:
>
>> Wow. This is like a blast from the past. The last I used LaTeX was
>> 1991. Of course, I didn't think it died just because I stopped using
>> it, but I never heard of it again. I thought everyone had moved on.
>> Certainly everyone I get work from moved on.
>
> Moved on to what? I don't know of anything better than LaTeX for writing
> complex mathematical notation in a text-only source document.
Not to mention things like this:
Dan
---
The major difference between bonds and bond traders is that the
bonds will eventually mature.
Jim Breen
> "Ben Finney" <bignose+h...@benfinney.id.au> wrote in message
> news:87oct7s...@benfinney.id.au...
>>complex mathematical notation in a text-only source document.
>
> Moved on to what clients were demanding.
Ah, the clients. In the techy end of academia, the "clients" are
conference organizers and journal editors. They mainly set a
template and you conform. Often PDFs are preferred, and LaTeX's
been doing them forever.
> Later
> HTMLs and MS Word completely took over.
Completely? I remember 10+ years ago when "EndNote" arrived. Some
people carried on like it was kingdom-come. Finally Whirred could
be coaxed into handling bibliographic references in a vaguely
sensible way. I remember someone saying to us "now you'll *have*
to move to Whirred; I'm sure you can't do this in your system". We
just yawned - we'd had Bibtex doing just that and more for years.
And references and footnotes in HTML?
> I understand about the mathematical
> notation, but I'm not the one that picks the method of how things get
> printed. I just have to provide compatibility for whatever clients ask for,
> and no one has asked for LaTeX-compatibility (from me at least) since 1991.
The last 3 technical books I read (one of which was Yves Maniette's
French adaptation of Heisig's "Remembering the Kanji") were done in
LaTeX. It shows. (And all were published in the last year.)
Dan Rempel
[snip]
> The last 3 technical books I read (one of which was Yves Maniette's
> French adaptation of Heisig's "Remembering the Kanji") were done in
> LaTeX. It shows. (And all were published in the last year.)
I see that Ken Lunde did the latest edition of CJKV Information
Processing using InDesign, but he does work for Adobe :]
And, now that you've got me going, here's another nice book done with
TeX (2.7M file):
http://mysite.verizon.net/william_franklin_adams/portfolio/typography/thebookoftea.pdf
Dan
--
No amount of careful planning will ever replace dumb luck.
Tad Perry
> Tad Perry wrote:
> > "Ben Finney" <bignose+h...@benfinney.id.au> wrote in message
> > news:87oct7s...@benfinney.id.au...
> >>Moved on to what? I don't know of anything better than LaTeX for writing
> >>complex mathematical notation in a text-only source document.
> >
> > Moved on to what clients were demanding.
>
> Ah, the clients. In the techy end of academia, the "clients" are
> conference organizers and journal editors. They mainly set a
> template and you conform. Often PDFs are preferred, and LaTeX's
> been doing them forever.
>
> > Later
> > HTMLs and MS Word completely took over.
>
> Completely? I remember 10+ years ago when "EndNote" arrived. Some
> people carried on like it was kingdom-come. Finally Whirred could
> be coaxed into handling bibliographic references in a vaguely
> sensible way. I remember someone saying to us "now you'll *have*
> to move to Whirred; I'm sure you can't do this in your system". We
> just yawned - we'd had Bibtex doing just that and more for years.
> And references and footnotes in HTML?
Well, in my office it was completely. I can't claim to speak for the entire
world. Not one client has ever utilized EndNote or Whirred. HTML of course
was not used for publishing, it was website material.
> > I understand about the mathematical
> > notation, but I'm not the one that picks the method of how things get
> > printed. I just have to provide compatibility for whatever clients ask
for,
> > and no one has asked for LaTeX-compatibility (from me at least) since
1991.
>
> The last 3 technical books I read (one of which was Yves Maniette's
> French adaptation of Heisig's "Remembering the Kanji") were done in
> LaTeX. It shows. (And all were published in the last year.)
All my statements are from the perspective of my experience. I'm not trying
to speak as an expert on the printing/publishing industry, for I am no such
expert and never claimed to be one. The West may well be using LaTeX as
usual, but there don't seem to be many LaTeX source files being produced in
Japanese offices. I constantly see Word dumped to pdf and that's about it.
tvp
Jim Breen
> All my statements are from the perspective of my experience. I'm not trying
> to speak as an expert on the printing/publishing industry, for I am no such
> expert and never claimed to be one. The West may well be using LaTeX as
> usual, but there don't seem to be many LaTeX source files being produced in
> Japanese offices. I constantly see Word dumped to pdf and that's about it.
OH I don't think LaTeX was ever used much in commercial organizations,
West/East/North/South. It was and is a very techy thing - beloved of
CS/Elec.Eng./etc. types.
[About 9 years ago I did a paper on WWWJDIC for the journal of the
Japanese Studies Association in Australia. I sent it off in a .doc
as asked (markup->HTML->OpenOrifice). It turned out the publisher had
been refusing for years to handle Japanese script, instead insisting
on romaji, and the (mostly Arts) academics had caved in. When the request
came back for me to romajify the WWWJDIC paper, I saw red and a few other
colours, told them it was the 21st century (almost), and they should
either tell the publisher to print real Japanese or get another one. It
happened, the publisher upgraded, and my article went in as intended.
Nothing to do with LaTeX, but I like to think I pushed the publishing
envelope a little.]
Tad Perry
> Tad Perry wrote:
>
> > All my statements are from the perspective of my experience. I'm not
trying
> > to speak as an expert on the printing/publishing industry, for I am no
such
> > expert and never claimed to be one. The West may well be using LaTeX as
> > usual, but there don't seem to be many LaTeX source files being produced
in
> > Japanese offices. I constantly see Word dumped to pdf and that's about
it.
>
> OH I don't think LaTeX was ever used much in commercial organizations,
> West/East/North/South. It was and is a very techy thing - beloved of
> CS/Elec.Eng./etc. types.
I've always been the CS type in such things. Into Unix, etc. I started as a
sometimes translator, sometimes UNIX sysadmin in 1989. (Hacker roots, but
not a malevolent hacker, more just in to cool tricks. Also, I screwed up as
a freshman and couldn't generate the GPA for a CS degree. If I'd been
serious from the start, another story perhaps...) I programmed a couple of
utilities (and one game) in C just for fun, but I was never a professional
programmer.
What I did have was one weird aptitude for languages. I just sucked Japanese
(including the writing system) right up. To me it was easy. I could feel it.
Through word of mouth I was introduced to Sony and translated a bunch of
Unix-related stuff for them. (In 1988/89 a bilingual English native that
could program anything at all was a rarity.) Then NEC found me and I
translated a whole bunch of LaTeX source files for them regarding Canae.
(Ever heard of it?) I thought LaTeX was way cool, but when this source dried
up, I honestly never heard of it again until the other day. (Glad to know
it's alive and kicking.)
I like to think I'm an expert on technical Japanese and translating, but for
all I know there are bunch of people out there that put me to shame.
Sometimes I wish I had your job. Working as a professor on campus would be
way cool.
> [About 9 years ago I did a paper on WWWJDIC for the journal of the
> Japanese Studies Association in Australia. I sent it off in a .doc
> as asked (markup->HTML->OpenOrifice). It turned out the publisher had
> been refusing for years to handle Japanese script, instead insisting
> on romaji, and the (mostly Arts) academics had caved in. When the request
> came back for me to romajify the WWWJDIC paper, I saw red and a few other
> colours, told them it was the 21st century (almost), and they should
> either tell the publisher to print real Japanese or get another one. It
> happened, the publisher upgraded, and my article went in as intended.
> Nothing to do with LaTeX, but I like to think I pushed the publishing
> envelope a little.]
You will be remembered for a very long time for more than just that. Trust
me.
tvp
The Wanderer
> Jani Patokallio wrote:
>> Yup, we had that one on Wikipedia as well a few years back, but
>> despite the best efforts of a few Kunrei, JSL and even wapuro
>> romaji fanboys, everybody seems to have more or less settled on
>> Hepburn for time being. My experience has been that collective
>> common sense will eventually wear out even the most persistent
>> self-proclaimed "super- duper experts", although it can take quite
>> a while sometimes...
>
> I think it's appropriate for the English Wikipedia to have a standard
> for romanizing Japanese, and Modified Hepburn is as good as any for
> that. Its lack of round-trip capability with kana annoys me, and
> causes me no end of trouble, but nothing is perfect,
But then wouldn't that lack, almost by definition, disqualify it
as being "as good as any"?
Unless there *is* no standard which has such capability. I'm not
remotely an expert on the various romanization standards - none of them
suited me, so I devised my own and ignored the others - but I'm fairly
sure there is at least one.
--
The Wanderer
Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.
Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.
Jim Breen
> On 05/30/2009 04:32 AM, Jim Breen wrote:
>> I think it's appropriate for the English Wikipedia to have a standard
>> for romanizing Japanese, and Modified Hepburn is as good as any for
>> that. Its lack of round-trip capability with kana annoys me, and
>> causes me no end of trouble, but nothing is perfect,
>
> But then wouldn't that lack, almost by definition, disqualify it
> as being "as good as any"?
Not really. Going accurately from romaji into kana is not really
a big isue with publications such as Wikipedia, whereas it is, or
should be, in areas such as dictionaries.
> Unless there *is* no standard which has such capability. I'm not
> remotely an expert on the various romanization standards - none of them
> suited me, so I devised my own and ignored the others - but I'm fairly
> sure there is at least one.
ワープロローマ字 does that correctly. That's why I use it in the
transcriptions of names in Enamdict. Most people wouldn't know
what to do with Toukyou, Kyouto, Oosaka, etc. if they see them
written that way, yet it's the way most people key them into
IMEs.
--
Jim Breen http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/
Clayton School of Information Technology,
Monash University, VIC 3800, Australia
ジム・ブリーン@モナシュ大学
Jim Breen
> Sometimes I wish I had your job. Working as a professor on campus would be
> way cool.
Moi? I retired 6 years ago. I got out at 56. I mainly go to Monash
these days to have lunch with people.
>>Nothing to do with LaTeX, but I like to think I pushed the publishing
>>envelope a little.]
>
> You will be remembered for a very long time for more than just that. Trust
> me.
"My name is Ozymandias, ....."
Tad Perry
> Tad Perry wrote:
> > Sometimes I wish I had your job. Working as a professor on campus would
be
> > way cool.
>
> Moi? I retired 6 years ago. I got out at 56. I mainly go to Monash
> these days to have lunch with people.
I didn't realize. Does Monash have a beautiful, garden-like campus like so
many universities? The University of Washington campus is like a little
slice of heaven carved right out of the Seattle landscape. It's always like
entering a different world to go there.
> >>Nothing to do with LaTeX, but I like to think I pushed the publishing
> >>envelope a little.]
> >
> > You will be remembered for a very long time for more than just that.
Trust
> > me.
>
> "My name is Ozymandias, ....."
Hehheh.
I don't think you'll be remembered under this name though...
tvp
Tad Perry
> The Wanderer wrote:
> > On 05/30/2009 04:32 AM, Jim Breen wrote:
> >> I think it's appropriate for the English Wikipedia to have a standard
> >> for romanizing Japanese, and Modified Hepburn is as good as any for
> >> that. Its lack of round-trip capability with kana annoys me, and
> >> causes me no end of trouble, but nothing is perfect,
> >
> > But then wouldn't that lack, almost by definition, disqualify it
> > as being "as good as any"?
>
> Not really. Going accurately from romaji into kana is not really
> a big isue with publications such as Wikipedia, whereas it is, or
> should be, in areas such as dictionaries.
>
> > Unless there *is* no standard which has such capability. I'm not
> > remotely an expert on the various romanization standards - none of them
> > suited me, so I devised my own and ignored the others - but I'm fairly
> > sure there is at least one.
>
> ワープロローマ字 does that correctly. That's why I use it in the
> transcriptions of names in Enamdict. Most people wouldn't know
> what to do with Toukyou, Kyouto, Oosaka, etc. if they see them
> written that way, yet it's the way most people key them into
> IMEs.
This is a definite problem with romanization styles. There is a case to be
made, that if the word is being transliterated for the purpose of use inside
English sentences. For balance, should one make the transliteration look
more like the words in the target language (Tokyo) or reflect the phonetic
values in place in the source language (Toukyou)? For some people the former
is more important. For others, the latter. That's how we end out with these
differing styles as more weight is given to different criteria by different
groups.
tvp
Ben Finney
> This is a definite problem with romanization styles. There is a case
> to be made, that if the word is being transliterated for the purpose
> of use inside English sentences.
I don't parse this sentence. A case to be made that if this is so, then
what?
> For balance, should one make the transliteration look more like the
> words in the target language (Tokyo) or reflect the phonetic values in
> place in the source language (Toukyou)? For some people the former is
> more important. For others, the latter.
It's not that different *people* find one more important; it's that they
each provide an advantage over the other, so it's for different
*purposes* that they are preferred. The same person can prefer each one
at different moments, depending on their purpose at the time.
--
\ “… a Microsoft Certified System Engineer is to information |
`\ technology as a McDonalds Certified Food Specialist is to the |
_o__) culinary arts.” —Michael Bacarella |
Ben Finney
Bart Mathias
> [...]. There is a case to be
> made, that if the word is being transliterated for the purpose of use inside
> English sentences. For balance, should one make the transliteration look
> more like the words in the target language (Tokyo) or reflect the phonetic
> values in place in the source language (Toukyou)? For some people the former
> is more important. For others, the latter. That's how we end out with these
> differing styles as more weight is given to different criteria by different
> groups.
An unassailable judgment, that last sentence. Yet it is only a problem,
no matter how the phonology and the orthography relate to each other,
for languages that don't use the Latin alphabet. A bit of a problem
"transliterating" Russian, a huge problem with Korean (practically
untransliteratable), a big one apparently for Burmese ("Burma" or
"Myanmar"--or neither?), but there's no debate over romanization style
for French or (so far as I know) Welsh, hardly any for German.
I put "transliterating" in quotes above because I understand the word to
mean substituting symbols/characters on a strict one-to-one basis. That
would make wapuroromaji the closest of any Japanese romanization to a
transliteration. A real transliteration would, it can be argued, have
that city's name as something akin to "TO U KI yo U." I don't think any
of us really want to transliterate.
I wonder how many readers of this group find your use of the word
"phonetic" above, ehr, interesting? I suspect I'm in a small minority
nowadays. But to the best of my knowledge, no language's orthography
comes very close to representing the language's phonology.
Bart
chance
"Bart Mathias" <mat...@hawaii.edu> wrote in message news:h0cfv4$t7p$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> Tad Perry wrote:
>> [...]. There is a case to be
>> made, that if the word is being transliterated for the purpose of use inside
>> English sentences. For balance, should one make the transliteration look
>> more like the words in the target language (Tokyo) or reflect the phonetic
>> values in place in the source language (Toukyou)? For some people the former
>> is more important. For others, the latter. That's how we end out with these
>> differing styles as more weight is given to different criteria by different
>> groups.
>
> An unassailable judgment, that last sentence. Yet it is only a problem, no matter how the phonology and the orthography relate to
> each other, for languages that don't use the Latin alphabet. A bit of a problem "transliterating" Russian, a huge problem with
> Korean (practically untransliteratable), a big one apparently for Burmese ("Burma" or "Myanmar"--or neither?), but there's no
> debate over romanization style for French or (so far as I know) Welsh, hardly any for German.
>
> I put "transliterating" in quotes above because I understand the word to mean substituting symbols/characters on a strict
> one-to-one basis. That would make wapuroromaji the closest of any Japanese romanization to a transliteration. A real
> transliteration would, it can be argued, have that city's name as something akin to "TO U KI yo U." I don't think any of us really
> want to transliterate.
That's what you have imagined to have heard 東京 sound,
irrespective of the real pronunciation of the city name.
It's likely for people here to believe as though there was 'u' after 'o'
while actually there is only 'oo', a long vowel of 'o'.
I saw this evening on NHK TV 東京 as written トーキョー
along with トウキョウ. As far as the orthography is concerned,
トーキョー was a bold attempt on the part of the official entity
like NHK, which is supposed to conform to the convention.
Anyway, orthography is only a convenience by which a sound
is tansliterated roughly, as seen in the case where 'tut' is representative
of an alveolar sound. In other words, a letter is a rough representation
of a sound, by whcih we identify the sound represented by the letter.
Sean
Read Bart's post again and you might see the bit that says "substituting
symbols/characters on a strict one-to-one basis." Nothing about sound.
You seem to be teaching your grandmother to suck eggs. (I'll let you
research the meaning of that expression on your own.)
chance
"Sean" <se...@fakemail.com> wrote in message news:e9UWl.30968$PH1.17891@edtnps82...
> chance wrote:
>>
>> "Bart Mathias" <mat...@hawaii.edu> wrote in message news:h0cfv4$t7p$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>>> Tad Perry wrote:
>>>> [...]. There is a case to be
>>>> made, that if the word is being transliterated for the purpose of use inside
>>>> English sentences. For balance, should one make the transliteration look
>>>> more like the words in the target language (Tokyo) or reflect the phonetic
>>>> values in place in the source language (Toukyou)? For some people the former
>>>> is more important. For others, the latter. That's how we end out with these
>>>> differing styles as more weight is given to different criteria by different
>>>> groups.
>>>
>>> An unassailable judgment, that last sentence. Yet it is only a problem, no matter how the phonology and the orthography relate
>>> to each other, for languages that don't use the Latin alphabet. A bit of a problem "transliterating" Russian, a huge problem
>>> with Korean (practically untransliteratable), a big one apparently for Burmese ("Burma" or "Myanmar"--or neither?), but there's
>>> no debate over romanization style for French or (so far as I know) Welsh, hardly any for German.
>>>
>>> I put "transliterating" in quotes above because I understand the word to mean substituting symbols/characters on a strict
>>> one-to-one basis. That would make wapuroromaji the closest of any Japanese romanization to a transliteration. A real
>>
>> That's what you have imagined to have heard 東京 sound,
>
> Read Bart's post again and you might see the bit that says "substituting symbols/characters on a strict one-to-one basis." Nothing
> about sound.
> You seem to be teaching your grandmother to suck eggs. (I'll let you research the meaning of that expression on your own.)
What are you talking about? Read my post again.
Who on earth pronounce 東京 as TO U KI yo U
except Bart? That's what I have meant.
Barring that, Ok, I own to being a bit redundant, though,
regarding the 'substituting symbols/characters
on a strict one-to-one basis'.
Sean
>
> "Sean" <se...@fakemail.com> wrote in message
> news:e9UWl.30968$PH1.17891@edtnps82...
>> chance wrote:
>>>
>>> "Bart Mathias" <mat...@hawaii.edu> wrote in message
>>> news:h0cfv4$t7p$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>>>> I put "transliterating" in quotes above because I understand the
>>>> word to mean substituting symbols/characters on a strict one-to-one
>>>> basis. That would make wapuroromaji the closest of any Japanese
>>>> romanization to a transliteration. A real transliteration would,東京
>>>> it can be argued, have that city's name as something akin to "TO U
>>>> KI yo U." I don't think any of us really want to transliterate.
>>>
>>> That's what you have imagined to have heard 東京 sound,
>>
>> Read Bart's post again and you might see the bit that says
>> "substituting symbols/characters on a strict one-to-one basis."
>> Nothing about sound.
>> You seem to be teaching your grandmother to suck eggs. (I'll let you
>> research the meaning of that expression on your own.)
>
> What are you talking about? Read my post again.
> Who on earth pronounce 東京 as TO U KI yo U
> except Bart? That's what I have meant.
> Barring that, Ok, I own to being a bit redundant, though,
> regarding the 'substituting symbols/characters
> on a strict one-to-one basis'.
You still seem to think that Bart is pronouncing 東京 as TO U KI yo U.
He says absolutely nothing about pronouncing it that way.
I understand that English is not your first language, but it's a simple
matter of logic to carefully read his sentence and see that there is
nothing whatsoever about pronunciation in it. However, those of us who
have followed your career in slj have become accustomed to your
occasional irrational fixations. I wonder how long this one will keep up.
You are teaching your grandmother to suck eggs. Did you look that
expression up?
chance
"Sean" <se...@fakemail.com> wrote in message news:KP2Xl.29829$Db2.18148@edtnps83...
Shoul I care about this asininity?
Ben Bullock
> The hyakuman'en question is, what happens when オウ occurs in a loanword,
> like ソウル "soul/Seoul", オウル "owl/Oulu" or オウケイウェイブ "OKWave"?
Is the first
> pronounced so-u-ru with distinct o and u, or is it pronounced soo-ru,
> identically to ソール, or are both readings correct? If one or the other,
> is the correct pronunciation decided per word entirely on an ad-hoc
> basis, or is there a consistent rule for how to pronounce these?
Am I incorrect in thinking that Japanese braille uses a long vowel here?
That seems to indicate that people who can't read the kana can't hear it
either.
--
sci.lang.japan FAQ: http://www.sljfaq.org/
Jim Breen
> "Jim Breen" <jimb...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:5G7Wl.16301$y61....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>>these days to have lunch with people.
>
> I didn't realize. Does Monash have a beautiful, garden-like campus like so
> many universities? The University of Washington campus is like a little
> slice of heaven carved right out of the Seattle landscape. It's always like
> entering a different world to go there.
Depends on which of the 8 campuses (6 in Australia, one each in
Malaysia and Sith Effrika, plus fragments in Italy, London, etc.)
The biggest is the original Monash(*) campus in Clayton, in the east of
Melbourne. It's ~100ha, parts of which are very nice, and other
parts are a bit, er, industrial.
(*) Monash University started in the late 1950s (first classes in 1961).
Until 1990 it was just on the one campus, but starting in 1990 it
merged with several "colleges of advanced education", and has since
opened three more campuses. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monash_University