World Internet? World Language!
Zhong Qiyao
' FREE ESPERANTO COURSE
(Chinese version)
Senkosta Esperanto-Kurso (SEK)
What ? Kio ?
An online Esperanto course in Reta Esperanto-kurso en la c^ina
Chinese. It is based on the lingvo. G^i bazig^as sur la
popular Free Postal Course of the populara Senkosta Koresponda Kurso
Esperanto League for North America de la Esperanto-Ligo de Norda
-- but with extra explanations. Ameriko -- sed kun pluaj klarigoj.
How much ? Kiom ?
Free! 10 lessons. Senpaga! 10 lecionojn.
How ? Kiel ?
Tutors in netland will help you, Instruantoj en retlando helpos
correct your exercises, and send vin, korektos viajn ekzercojn, kaj
you subsequent lessons. sendos al vi sekvajn lecionojn.
Why ? Kial ?
To learn Esperanto, of course! Por lerni Esperanton, kompreneble!
Who ? Kiu ?
For you! Por vi!
Where ? Kie ?
Send e-mail to me (address: see Sendu retleteron al mi (adreso:
below) and I will send you the vd. sube) kaj mi sendos al vi la
first lesson, together with the unuan lecionon, kune kun la
network address of your personal retadreso de via propra
tutor. instruanto.
When ? Kiam ?
Now, if you like. Nun, se vi volas.
How Good ? Kia ?
From the very first lesson you Ekde la unua leciono, vi povos
will be able to write in skribi en Esperanto, kaj fininte
Esperanto, and upon completion, la kurson, vi povos kompreni
you will be able to understand preskau^ c^iun Esperanto-tekston,
almost every Esperanto-text (with (helpe de vortaro), kaj skribi
the help of a dictionary), and to simplajn tekstojn.
write simple texts.
I await your e-mail! Mi atendas vian pos^taj^on!
greetings / salutojn,
*Zhong* Qiyao Internet: zhong @ accton.com.tw
Tam Wai Wah
--
********************************************************
Please goto
http://imsnispc01.netvigator.com/~wwah/index.html
To see my homepage
********************************************************
Juni Zhao
English is a beautiful language with long history and rich cultural
heritage. I wonder why you guys want to replace this nice language with an
artificial Spanish-sounding one ?!!!
Zhong Qiyao <zhong-@-accton.com.tw> wrote in article
<338A26B4.9E4@-accton.com.tw>...
sebastiano hartviga
> From: "Juni Zhao" <juni...@gis.net>
> Newsgroups: alt.uu.lang.esperanto.misc,sci.lang,alt.uu.announce
> English is a beautiful language with long history and rich cultural
> heritage. I wonder why you guys want to replace this nice language with an
> artificial Spanish-sounding one ?!!!
???
why do you want to replace english by esperanto?
kial vi volas anstata^ui la anglan per esperanto?
sebastiano
m.b.p.b.
Juni Zhao
English is such a nice language that we really dont need a
shining-like-a-new-dime artificial Spanish-sounding language for
replacement !!!
Juni Zhao
Jim Howard
Juni Zhao <juni...@gis.net> wrote
> English is a beautiful language with long history and rich cultural
> heritage. I wonder why you guys want to replace this nice language with
an
> artificial Spanish-sounding one ?!!!
I don't want to put anyone down, but look at the English language from the
point of view of an outsider! It certainly isn't a typical, logical, easy
language. And compared to many "purebred" languages, English looks
something like a mongrel!
For those who have heard other languages besides Spanish, they say that
Esperanto sounds more like Italian than Spanish. However, it is much
easier to learn than either Spanish or Italian (or English). Spanish and
Italian have gender for every word, like other European languages (every
noun is either masculine or feminine - or sometimes, neuter). Esperanto
(like English), doesn't use the gender system. And of course, there are no
irregular verbs, pronounciations, spellings, etc., in Esperanto. If it
takes a person 5 years to learn a language like English or Spanish, they
could learn Esperanto in less than a year.
--
Estu internacia: Lernu la cxinan kaj la hebrean.
Be international: Learn Chinese and Hebrew.
<jho...@vvm.com>
http://www.vvm.com/~jhoward/
Juni Zhao
**************************************
Prince Vermillion
In article <01bc6a0b$a6dcbd40$3c80dad0@x>, "Juni Zhao" <juni...@gis.net> wrote:
> English is such a nice language that we really dont need a
> shining-like-a-new-dime artificial Spanish-sounding language for
> replacement !!!
English is a very irregular and fairly hard to learn language, whereas
Esperanto is is easy and probably the best of the conlang crop. Even though
I doubt its widespread use as a lingua franca any time soon, Esperanto is
the best theoretical replacement.
And what in all hell is wrong with sounding like Spanish?
- Dave
--
Be like a Bobbit to send me mail.
David Sticher
http://members.global2000.net/sticherd
The drowsy and yet somehow alert Sticherus Maximus
Arnold VICTOR
Juni Zhao wrote:
>
> English is a beautiful language with long history and rich cultural
> heritage. I wonder why you guys want to replace this nice language with an
> artificial Spanish-sounding one ?!!!
We don't want to replace any language. We want for international use a
language easier to learn than any national language can be. All
langauges have historical and cultural heritage, and a simple auxiliary
language serves each of them equally. Any national language having a
preeminent position has an advantage over all others.
Esperanto has no national claims and is fairly and equally available to
all. Suppose a Basque or a Cambodian or a Quechuan wants to address an
international organization: he could use Esperanto without any
embarrassment, should his Spanish or French or Chinese or English be in
any way less than perfectly elegant. And he wouldn't be in an inferior
position to someone from his home area who is a native speaker of some
"official" language.
Esperanto in no way endangers the predominance of English in commerce
and technology. But Esperanto would be an alternative for the large
percentage of language learners who never master it sufficiently.
--
Arnold VICTOR, i. e., <arvi...@mars.superlink.net>
Esperanto League N America
"Juni Zhao" <juni...@gis.net> writes in a recent posting (reference <01bc6a0b$a6dcbd40$3c80dad0@x>):
>English is such a nice language that we really dont need a
>shining-like-a-new-dime artificial Spanish-sounding language for
>replacement !!!
>
Esperanto. There are some few situations in which English is now
used rather badly, (for example scientific conventions, tourism,
international trade) in which Esperanto might better serve the task
at hand. Some people suggest that a neutral (non-national) language
can prevent some inequities and favoritism built into the current
system.
But nobody believes that Esperanto can or should replace English in
its normal national usage in Britain, the USA or elsewhere-- any more
than anyone suggests that the UN should take over the duties of nation-
states!
The establishment of international organizations does not threaten
national sovereignty; Esperanto does not aspire to replace English.
--
Miko SLOPER el...@esperanto-usa.org USA (510) 653 0998
Direktoro de la http://www.esperanto-usa.org fax (510) 653 1468
Centra Oficejo de la Learn Esperanto! Free lessons: e-mail/snail-mail
Esperanto-Ligo de N.A. Write to above address or call: 1-800-ESPERANTO
C R Culver
No want wants to replace English! When Zamenhof developed Esperanto, he
intended it as a neutral, *second* language, that could be used to
increase understanding among the peoples of the world. He wanted people to
keep their mother tongues because, as a linguist, he loved the beauty and
sims/diffs between the many languages.
Christopher R. Culver
crcu...@aol.com
PGP PublicKey available upon request.
---------------------------------------------------------
"Freedom, so they say, amounts to the choices you have made." -Brendan Perry
-------------------------------------------
Rosalind Walter
En artikolo <01bc6a0b$a6dcbd40$3c80dad0@x>, Juni Zhao <juni...@gis.net>
skribas
>English is such a nice language that we really dont need a
>shining-like-a-new-dime artificial Spanish-sounding language for
>replacement !!!
>
people who say they are speaking "English"!
Domaghe, ke oni malfacile komprenas tiujn, kiuj kredas, ke ili parolas
la anglan!
I object to it being called a "nice" language - what does that mean?
Kio estas la signifo de "nice" (a nice language)?
What is wrong with the way Spanish sounds?
La hispana bele sonas.
Try saying these words:
read, read
lead, lead
used, used
They are all different and there are many others like them.
Provu diri la suprajn vortojn, ili chiuj malsame sonas. Estas multaj
tiaj.
Where is the stress on:-
photograph, photography
electricity, electrical
politics, political
What does "politic" mean?
Kie estas la akcento en la supraj vortaj?
Kion signifas "politic"?
"spring" has 4 very different meanings
"pound" 4
What is the meaning of "got"?
How about the conductress in Oxford Street who said "Come on get off" to
the man from the bus queue and finally had to push him off the bus.
"spring" havas 4 malsamajn signifojn. "pound" same.
Kion signifas "got"?
En Londono (Oxford Street) la kondukistino diris "Venu sur eliru" al la
viro de la autobusvico kaj finfine pushis lin de la autobuso. (La
signifo estis "Ek eliru".) Kia surprizo - li ne komprenis.
--
^Cion bonan
Rosalind Walter
Pedro Macanás Valverde :-# mu.es
Je la 26 May 1997 18:43:19 GMT, mailto:"Juni Zhao" <juni...@gis.net>
skribis:
>English is a beautiful language with long history and rich cultural
>heritage. I wonder why you guys want to replace this nice language with an
>artificial Spanish-sounding one ?!!!
You have no idea what you are talking about. Read books, is healthy
!!.
Alan Gould
In article <b5SbEBAz...@esplond.demon.co.uk>, Rosalind Walter
<rosa...@esplond.demon.co.uk> writes
>How about the conductress in Oxford Street who said "Come on get off" to
>the man from the bus queue and finally had to push him off the bus.
handed him down a sentence, but he got up a petition and won a remission
on appeal.
All good English - all appalling language.
--
Alan Gould
STAN MULAIK
stic...@global2000.net.penis (Prince Vermillion) writes:
>In article <01bc6a0b$a6dcbd40$3c80dad0@x>, "Juni Zhao" <juni...@gis.net> wrote:
>> English is such a nice language that we really dont need a
>> shining-like-a-new-dime artificial Spanish-sounding language for
>> replacement !!!
>English is a very irregular and fairly hard to learn language, whereas
>Esperanto is is easy and probably the best of the conlang crop. Even though
>I doubt its widespread use as a lingua franca any time soon, Esperanto is
>the best theoretical replacement.
>And what in all hell is wrong with sounding like Spanish?
Describer le esperanto como hispanophonic me pare inusual, durante que
on pote describer le interlingua como un lingua plus similar al espaniol
que le esperanto. Interlingua es le denominator commun del gruppo
angloromance de linguas e es le melior constatation del elementos
international in le linguas europee. Io non vide alicun superioritate
in esperanto como un reimplaciamento pro le anglese, e vide necun
possibilitate que il haberea fortias social que va complir isto.
In le interim interlingua pote usar se in situationes ubi le anglese
ancora non es apte pro communication inter le hispanoparlantes e
le catalanophonos, le francese, le italianos, e le anglese. E le
scandinaves trova interlingua un excellente ponte al linguas romance,
essente multo facile e simple a apprender, con habilitate que se
generalisa a iste altere linguas. Si vos apprende de leger le interlingua,
vos anque apprende de leger le espaniol, o le italiano, o le francese.
--
Stanley A. Mulaik
School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332
uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!pscccsm
Internet: psc...@prism.gatech.edu
Rosalind Walter
En artikolo <5mku3l$o...@acmey.gatech.edu>, STAN MULAIK
<psc...@prism.gatech.edu> skribas
English, then French, Latin, Spanish (not spoken properly at all) and
Italian (in that order).
How about Slavs (they live in Europe) Asians (many different languages)
Africans (many languages again) American Indians ... ? What are you
offering them? (Apart from an introduction to some European languages!)
>
--
Bondezirojn
Rosalind Walter
Stefano MacGregor
Prince Vermillion <stic...@global2000.net.penis> wrote in article
<sticherd-ya0240800...@news.global2000.net>...
<<And what in all hell is wrong with sounding like Spanish?>>
And for that matter, who says that Esperanto sounds like Spanish?
--
-- __Q Grafo Stefano MAC:GREGOR \ma-GRE-gar\
-- -`\<, Fenikso, graflando de Marikopo, Arizono, Usono
-- (*)/ (*) <http://www.goodnet.com/~stevemac/ttt-hejm.htm>
--------------- Batalu kontraux spamo: <http://www.cauce.org/>
Jesuo de las Heras
Prince Vermillion wrote:
>
> In article <01bc6a0b$a6dcbd40$3c80dad0@x>, "Juni Zhao" <juni...@gis.net> wrote:
>
> > English is such a nice language that we really dont need a
> > shining-like-a-new-dime artificial Spanish-sounding language for
> > replacement !!!
>
> English is a very irregular and fairly hard to learn language, whereas
> Esperanto is is easy and probably the best of the conlang crop. Even though
> I doubt its widespread use as a lingua franca any time soon, Esperanto is
> the best theoretical replacement.
You are wrong: Esperanto is the best PRACTICAL replacement. Or it WOULD
better be, since it is a lie that English is the "lingua franca". Even
the Enlgish can't help making mistakes when they write in English, let
alone us foreigners... In Esperanto it is only natural not to make
mistakes when writing, and if you write well, you NEVER mispronounce
anything.
> And what in all hell is wrong with sounding like Spanish?
Well, that is a more difficult problem to solve: discrimination,
elitism, chavinism. It is a question of education, and if he who suffers
from it is an adult, there is no cure for that..., unless it is a very
painful one.
Kuragxu,
Jesuo de las Heras, Murcia. Redactor de *Kajeroj el la Sudo*,
http://www.mur.hnet.es/uphm/jesuo/kajeroj.htm o
http://www.dragonfire.net/~Esperanto/kajeroj.htm
y *Esperanto España*, http://www.mur.hnet.es/uphm/jesuo/espe.htm, aka
http://www.mur.hnet.es/uphm/jesuo/spain.htm,kaj
http://www.mur.hnet.es/uphm/jesuo/hispanio.htm
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "Jesuo" == Jesuo de las Heras <je...@mur.hnet.es> writes:
Jesuo> In Esperanto it is only natural not to make
Jesuo> mistakes when writing,
This is a white lie. I always forget to put those "j"'s and "n"'s
onto the adjectives. It's also easy to forget about the "n"'s. It's
too easy to make mistakes when writing Esperanto. There are a lot of
such "j"- and "n"- traps. (I'm from an isolating language).
Jesuo> and if you write well, you NEVER mispronounce anything.
It depends on whether you've trained yourself to a phonetic writing
system well. Some people cannot pronounce a word fluent even when it
is written in a totally phonetic script. This is may be because they
don't have a concept of phonetic scripts. You have to teach them such
concepts, and that's not a trivial task. Moreover, many people find
consonant clusters (e.g. "kn", "gv", "kv") difficult to pronounce,
even though they can pronounce the component consonants separately.
(Can you pronounce "sklrfgn", if there were such an Esperanto word? I
can write it, so shouldn't it be impossible for you to mispronounce
it?)
>> And what in all hell is wrong with sounding like Spanish?
This is the same question as: What's wrong with tones in Thai?
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦(Big5) ~{@nJX6X~}(HZ)
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| http://www.cs.hku.hk/~sdlee e-mail: sd...@cs.hku.hk |
`----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
Prince Vermillion
In article <33904F...@mur.hnet.es>, Jesuo de las Heras
<je...@mur.hnet.es> wrote:
> > English is a very irregular and fairly hard to learn language, whereas
> > Esperanto is is easy and probably the best of the conlang crop. Even though
> > I doubt its widespread use as a lingua franca any time soon, Esperanto is
> > the best theoretical replacement.
>
> You are wrong: Esperanto is the best PRACTICAL replacement. Or it
WOULD
> better be, since it is a lie that English is the "lingua franca". Even
> the Enlgish can't help making mistakes when they write in English, let
> alone us foreigners... In Esperanto it is only natural not to make
> mistakes when writing, and if you write well, you NEVER mispronounce
> anything.
How is it a lie that English is a limited lingua franca, and when did I say
that it was, or that it was a good one?
Of course Esperanto is simpler and easier to write than English, it was
designed for that. And the fact that it "WOULD" be a better replacement is
exactly what I meant by saying that it was "the best theoretical
replacement." It's just that Esperanto needs sponsorship from a big
organization (other than an Esperanto organization) like the UN or the EEC
to get ahead and establish itself.
> > And what in all hell is wrong with sounding like Spanish?
>
> Well, that is a more difficult problem to solve: discrimination,
> elitism, chavinism. It is a question of education, and if he who suffers
> from it is an adult, there is no cure for that..., unless it is a very
> painful one.
Let's just hope that he doesn't teach that ethnocentrism to his kids.
Bob Schmertz
On 1 Jun 1997, Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} wrote:
>>>>>> "Jesuo" == Jesuo de las Heras <je...@mur.hnet.es> writes:
>
> Jesuo> In Esperanto it is only natural not to make
> Jesuo> mistakes when writing,
>
>This is a white lie. I always forget to put those "j"'s and "n"'s
>onto the adjectives. It's also easy to forget about the "n"'s. It's
>too easy to make mistakes when writing Esperanto. There are a lot of
>such "j"- and "n"- traps. (I'm from an isolating language).
This misses the point. If you forget those things, it is not a difficulty
with the writing system; it is a difficulty with the grammar, and you
would probably make those same mistakes in speaking. If the grammar
causes difficulty for speakers of isolating languages, that's a valid
complaint, but that difficulty should be separated from discussion on
whether the writing system is good.
>
> Jesuo> and if you write well, you NEVER mispronounce anything.
>
>It depends on whether you've trained yourself to a phonetic writing
>system well. Some people cannot pronounce a word fluent even when it
>is written in a totally phonetic script. This is may be because they
>don't have a concept of phonetic scripts. You have to teach them such
>concepts, and that's not a trivial task. Moreover, many people find
>consonant clusters (e.g. "kn", "gv", "kv") difficult to pronounce,
>even though they can pronounce the component consonants separately.
>(Can you pronounce "sklrfgn", if there were such an Esperanto word? I
>can write it, so shouldn't it be impossible for you to mispronounce
>it?)
I'll agree with this for the most part. Jesuo's statement assumes that
you understand the
pronunciation system in the first place, and that you have acquired the
oral flexibility to produce the necessary sounds and sound combinations.
Perhaps he meant that the writing system contains no ambiguities, and
that if you 1)understand the phonetic system itself, 2)have been trained
in producing all the necessary consonant clusters and unfamiliar sounds,
and 3)understand the correspondence between the letters and the sounds,
then you will have no difficulty or confusion in correctly pronouncing any
written word.
As to the idea of people who don't have the concept of a phonetic script
-- gimme a break! Those people would fall into two categories that I know
of: 1) People who have never learned any type of writing system (let's
abandon the written form of our interlang! It's too hard for illiterate
people!), and 2) under-educated Chinese (i.e. never learned English,
Pinyin or Bopomofo). Every other language in the world uses a phonetic
script (even English, LSD!), though some are only syllabic scripts and
not true alphabets. I
have no sources on this, but I'm willing to bet that there's evidence out
there that shows a phonetic script is easier to learn than an ideographic
system containing thousands of characters. Must we abandon a phonetic
script just because the Chinese are more comfortable with their pictures?
I don't think so.
>
>
> >> And what in all hell is wrong with sounding like Spanish?
>
>This is the same question as: What's wrong with tones in Thai?
Not at all. You have isolated (no pun intended) a particular feature of a
language, a feature which is hard for speakers of non-tonal languages
(maybe even for speakers of languages with different tone systems). I
might say there is nothing wrong with a language that sounds generally
like Thai, as long as it doesn't have tones. If you think there is
something wrong with a language sounding like Spanish, you'd better nail
down the problem(s) and tell us exactly what it/they is/are. (Uh-oh, I
think I just got myself in trouble with the Anti-Plural Brigade :-))
Cheers,
Bob Schmertz
schm...@wam.umd.edu
schm...@glue.umd.edu
Bob Schmertz
On Sat, 31 May 1997, Jesuo de las Heras wrote:
> You are wrong: Esperanto is the best PRACTICAL replacement. Or it WOULD
>better be, since it is a lie that English is the "lingua franca".
What?!! How can you say, in English, in a post that will be read by
people from every corner of the world, and nearly every free nation, that
English is not "the 'lingua franca'"? You must misunderstand the meaning
of "lingua franca". It has nothing to do with whether a language is
simple or easy. Since English is the language of choice of most nations
of the world for purposes of international communication (sometimes even
intranational communication, as in Nigeria or India), that means English
is the primary lingua franca in the world, case closed. It is not an
issue of whether English is essentially a good language or not.
Mike Wright
Prince Vermillion wrote:
>
> In article <33904F...@mur.hnet.es>, Jesuo de las Heras
> <je...@mur.hnet.es> wrote:
[...]
> > > And what in all hell is wrong with sounding like Spanish?
> >
> > elitism, chavinism. It is a question of education, and if he who suffers
> > from it is an adult, there is no cure for that..., unless it is a very
> > painful one.
>
> Let's just hope that he doesn't teach that ethnocentrism to his kids.
The person who wrote the original post (and whose name was snipped in
the attributions) was Juni Zhao - apparently a Chinese. Somehow
"ethnocentrism" doesn't sound like an appropriate label for the attitude
of a Chinese who prefers English to Spanish (or to Esperanto). Surely an
ethnocentric Chinese would prefer one of the Chinese languages?
Also, Zhao said nothing about Spanish-speaking peoples, only about the
language. Why assume that there is some kind of bigotry involved? I
could understand, perhaps, if the writer were from the Southwestern US,
but anti-Hispanic feelings seem quite rare amongst the Chinese. I've
seen none in my in-laws. Could someone be a bit hypersensitive?
Lee Sau Dan and Desmond Sin have already given lots of reasons why a
Chinese might not find Esperanto the ultimate second language, though
certainly better than any of the Romance languages. Perhaps Zhao just
had a bad experience studying Spanish.
By the way, are you absolutely certain that Juni is a man's name ("he",
"his kids")? Do you happen to know which characters are used to write
that person's name? Or, did someone just make a sexist assumption? ;-)
(I really don't know - I'm just asking.)
(Also, BTW, Prince Vermillion's home page URL needs a tilde in front of
his name, i.e., http://www.members.global2000.net/~sticherd/. Well worth
visiting. I almost injured myself laughting at the page on artificial
intelligence:
http://www.members.global2000.net/~sticherd/intelligence.html
)
--
Mike Wright
____________________________________
email: dar...@scruznet.com
WWW: http://www.scruz.net/~darwin/language.html
Iskandar
Esperanto reminds me of the invented maps of non-existent countries.
There is nothing wrong with them, really, but they don't look like
real maps.
Why not revive Latin?
Arnold VICTOR <arvi...@mars.superlink.net> wrote:
>Esperanto in no way endangers the predominance of English in commerce
>and technology. But Esperanto would be an alternative for the large
>percentage of language learners who never master it sufficiently.
>
Salaam |Freedom can be abused
|therefore:
Izzy |if it cannot be abused it isnt freedom.
Jonathan Badger
bren...@ihighway1.com.u (Iskandar) writes:
>Esperanto reminds me of the invented maps of non-existent countries.
>There is nothing wrong with them, really, but they don't look like
>real maps.
>Why not revive Latin?
I rather suspect you have not actually studied Latin. While one could
argue that Latin is nearly as neutral as Esperanto (or other
constructed languages), you can't avoid the rather uncomfortable fact
that with all its declensions, Latin is probably one of the hardest IE
languages to learn...
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "Bob" == Bob Schmertz <schm...@wam.umd.edu> writes:
Bob> As to the idea of people who don't have the concept of a
Bob> phonetic script -- gimme a break! Those people would fall
Bob> into two categories that I know of: 1) People who have never
Bob> learned any type of writing system (let's abandon the written
Bob> form of our interlang! It's too hard for illiterate
Bob> people!),
Well... Do you consider English spellings to be phonetic?
Many people in HK are used to the ideographic writing system of
Chinese AS WELL AS the mnemonic spelling of English. They aren't used
to a truely phonetic script. They would tend to pronounce the "o" in
"Esperanto" as the diphthong [ou], and omit the second vowel in
"vere". They would pronounce "man" (ekz. en "mangxi") as "men"...
Well... All these would be gone through training, but it takes very
very long time.
Bob> and 2) under-educated Chinese (i.e. never learned
Bob> English, Pinyin or Bopomofo).
Why do you consider such people "undereducated"? Don't you know that
Chinese can be learnt without any aid from a phonetic alphabet? I
myself learnt Chinese (using traditional characters) that way.
Children in H.K. even use characters as phonetic aids to learn
English. (They write characters with similar sounds next to new
English words that they've just learnt.)
I can't see why people who know a phonetic alphabet would be more
"educated" that those who don't. Those who think so are ignorant and
are themselves under-deucated indeed.
Bob> Every other language in the
Bob> world uses a phonetic script (even English, LSD!), though
Bob> some are only syllabic scripts and not true alphabets.
Is English phonetic? Yes... if you're speaking of Middle English
pronunciations. How do you pronounce "knight", "sword", "castle",
"bought", etc. in English? Do you pronounce the "k", "w", "t", "gh"
([x]) sounds in these words, respectively?
Bob> I have
Bob> no sources on this, but I'm willing to bet that there's
Bob> evidence out there that shows a phonetic script is easier to
Bob> learn than an ideographic system containing thousands of
Bob> characters.
And I'm willing to bet that there's no evidence out there showing that
an ideographic system containing thousands of symbols is more
difficult to learn than an alphabetic system containing tens of
thousands of words, each spelt differently, with a lot of homonyms.
Bob> Must we abandon a phonetic script just because
Bob> the Chinese are more comfortable with their pictures? I
Bob> don't think so.
Neither do I think so. Meanwhile, must we abandon the Chinese
ideographs (and the Arabic script, the Cyrillic script, the Devanagari
script and its variants, the Japanese kanas, and the Korean Hanguls)
because the Westerners are more comfortable with Latin alphabet
(preferably with no diacritical marks)? I don't think so, either.
Bob> Not at all. You have isolated (no pun intended) a particular
Bob> feature of a language, a feature which is hard for speakers
Bob> of non-tonal languages (maybe even for speakers of languages
Bob> with different tone systems).
Both are features that are unfamiliar to each of us. What's wrong
with that?
Bob> I might say there is nothing
Bob> wrong with a language that sounds generally like Thai, as
Bob> long as it doesn't have tones.
In the same mannar, I might say there is nothing wrong with a language
that sounds like Spanish or Esperanto, as long as it doesn't have that
difficult "r" sound, and those difficult consonant clusters, and word
stress.
Bob> If you think there is
Bob> something wrong with a language sounding like Spanish, you'd
Bob> better nail down the problem(s) and tell us exactly what
Bob> it/they is/are.
If you think there's anything wrong with a tone language, you'd better
nail down your problems and tell me what they are. Tell me how you
distinguish "Well?" from "Well...". How do you distinguish "Yes?"
from "Yes!" and "Yes.". If you can make and distinguish these
differences, how can you be tone-deaf?
Well... You want to know my problems? OK. How to distinguish between
"r", "rr", "l" and "ll"? How to distinguish between "n" and "n~"?
How is a stressed syllable different from an unstressed one? These
differences are in no way easier to me, than tones are to you.
May I remind you that things that are difficult to you may not be so
to me, and vice versa. I know tones are difficult to you, although
it's a piece of cake for me. [ I learnt Mandarin, as very different
language from Cantonese, which has a different tone system from
Cantonese. Yet, the tones were easy to me. ] At the same time, why
can't you understand that "r", "rr", "l" and "ll", and "n" and "n~"
can be difficult for someone, even though it was a piece of cake for
you?
Alan Gould
In article <3390ce6a...@news.iap.net.au>, Iskandar
<bren...@ihighway1.com.u> writes
>Esperanto reminds me of the invented maps of non-existent countries.
>
>There is nothing wrong with them, really, but they don't look like
>real maps.
>
>Why not revive Latin?
I showed Esperanto to a friend of mine who had learned Latin at school.
He was at first dismissive and patronising, then he decided to
demonstrate that Esperanto could not be viable because it lacked lingual
structure. He pointed to a case where Latin had 114 variations which
were covered by five in Esperanto. He finally demanded of me why 'we',
the Esperantists that is, were not allowing it to be taught instead of
Latin. He made a brief attempt to teach me some Latin, but he decided
that I lacked mental prowess. Latin it seems is for intellectuals.
--
Alan Gould
Esperanto League N America
bren...@ihighway1.com.u (Iskandar) writes in a recent posting (reference <3390ce6a...@news.iap.net.au>):
>Esperanto reminds me of the invented maps of non-existent countries.
>
It is rather a map with no country-boundaries, a post-nationalistic map
of a hoped-for future...
>There is nothing wrong with them, really, but they don't look like
>real maps.
>
I assume that your implication is that somehow Esperanto does not look
like a real language. This is a priori synthetic reasoning gone awry!
Have you seen it, heard it?? I doubt it...
>Why not revive Latin?
>
Because it is too irregular, which makes it hard to learn.
Prince Vermillion
In article <33922C...@scruznet.com>, Mike Wright <dar...@scruznet.com>
wrote:
> Prince Vermillion wrote:
> > Let's just hope that he doesn't teach that ethnocentrism to his kids.
>
> The person who wrote the original post (and whose name was snipped in
> the attributions) was Juni Zhao - apparently a Chinese. Somehow
> "ethnocentrism" doesn't sound like an appropriate label for the attitude
> of a Chinese who prefers English to Spanish (or to Esperanto). Surely an
> ethnocentric Chinese would prefer one of the Chinese languages?
It didn't register, sorry. Juni was espousing the virtues of English in the
original reply, by saying that English was a beautiful lang. with a rich
history, which is a perfectly valid opinion (I happen to prefer the sound
of the Romance languages myself). The post had said, "Why replace English
with a language that sounds like Spanish?", as if it was a bad thing.
I don't recall any country code on his e-mail addy, and there are a lot of
names in America. That wasn't a factor.
> Also, Zhao said nothing about Spanish-speaking peoples, only about the
> language. Why assume that there is some kind of bigotry involved? I
> could understand, perhaps, if the writer were from the Southwestern US,
> but anti-Hispanic feelings seem quite rare amongst the Chinese. I've
> seen none in my in-laws. Could someone be a bit hypersensitive?
Perhaps. Negative opinions to a language usually are intended to reflect on
the culture, though...ever see people make fun of Chinese by going "foo
shee wa hung kung fooey," or of Muslims by going "khhhhhh"? You think the
Spanish fascists liked the Basque, or the American government liked the
Indians?
> Lee Sau Dan and Desmond Sin have already given lots of reasons why a
> Chinese might not find Esperanto the ultimate second language, though
> certainly better than any of the Romance languages. Perhaps Zhao just
> had a bad experience studying Spanish.
Probably. I didn't know that the Chinese found the "r" sound as difficult
as the Japanese, but remember that Juni gave no reasons, just a pejorative
comment.
> (Also, BTW, Prince Vermillion's home page URL needs a tilde in front of
> his name, i.e., http://www.members.global2000.net/~sticherd/. Well worth
> visiting. I almost injured myself laughting at the page on artificial
> intelligence:
> http://www.members.global2000.net/~sticherd/intelligence.html
> )
Thanks, when I get up the effort I'll change the .sig.
--
Be like a Bobbit to send me mail.
David Sticher
http://members.global2000.net/~sticherd
John Richardson
Reposted from alt.uu.lang.esperanto.misc
----------------------------------------
> In article <b9Zb1DAa...@esplond.demon.co.uk>,
> Rosalind Walter <rosa...@esplond.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> En artikolo <5mku3l$o...@acmey.gatech.edu>, STAN MULAIK
>> <psc...@prism.gatech.edu> skribas
>> >stic...@global2000.net.penis (Prince Vermillion) writes:
>> >
><juni...@gis.net>
>> >wrote:
>> >
>> >>> English is such a nice language that we really dont need a
>> >>> shining-like-a-new-dime artificial Spanish-sounding language for
>> >>> replacement !!!
>> >
>> >>Esperanto is is easy and probably the best of the conlang crop. Even
>> >>though
>> >>I doubt its widespread use as a lingua franca any time soon, Esperanto
>> >>is
>> >>the best theoretical replacement.
>> >
>> >
>> >on pote describer le interlingua como un lingua plus similar al
>> >espaniol
>> >que le esperanto. Interlingua es le denominator commun del gruppo
>> >angloromance de linguas e es le melior constatation del elementos
>> >international in le linguas europee. Io non vide alicun superioritate
>> >in esperanto como un reimplaciamento pro le anglese, e vide necun
>> >possibilitate que il haberea fortias social que va complir isto.
>> >In le interim interlingua pote usar se in situationes ubi le anglese
>> >ancora non es apte pro communication inter le hispanoparlantes e
>> >le catalanophonos, le francese, le italianos, e le anglese. E le
>> >scandinaves trova interlingua un excellente ponte al linguas romance,
>> >essente multo facile e simple a apprender, con habilitate que se
>> >generalisa a iste altere linguas. Si vos apprende de leger le
>> >interlingua,
>> >vos anque apprende de leger le espaniol, o le italiano, o le francese.
>> >
>> Jes! I can understand the above but only because I have already learned
>> English, then French, Latin, Spanish (not spoken properly at all) and
>> Italian (in that order).
>
>Aggod knowledge of any Romance language, or mastery of English plus a
>smattering of any Romance language should be enough. And that's without
>any lessons. Actually, Esperanto would also be a good basis too -- it
>shares a vast number of roots with Interlingua.
>
>> How about Slavs (they live in Europe) Asians (many different languages)
>> Africans (many languages again) American Indians ... ? What are you
>> offering them? (Apart from an introduction to some European languages!)
>
>(Western) vocabulary that forms the basis of Interlingua. Russian is
>(with German) one the the alternative source languages for Interlingua.
>But obviously, there's no way to construct a language that's readable at
>first sight by Russian, English, and Romance speakers. The same applies
>to speakers of non-European languages -- although many of them
>(especially in Africa or the Americas) either know or want to learn one
>Interlingua's source languages.
>
>Basically, Interlingua offers non-Europeans the same thing that Esperanto
>does: A Western vocabulary with simplified Western grammar and
>morphology. In theory, the morphology of Esperanto is much simpler. In
>fact, from the point of view of learnability, I doubt there's much
>difference. The grammars are pretty similar. In terms of vocabulary,
>Interlingua has the advantage of a regular system of derivation from its
>source languages, which makes it (I would think) the better bridge to
>learning a Western European language.
>
>Virtually all the effort you expend in learning Interlingua adds to your
>understanding of the Anglo-Romance languages spoken by 1200 million
>people. Esperanto is much less useful in this respect. To be sure, this
>is not really an aim of Esperanto, but it's the main factor that
>convinced me to study Interlingua rather than Esperanto. And I suppose it
>might make Interlingua more attractive than Esperanto to at least some
>non-Europeans.
>
>Amicalmente/Amike,
>
>John Richardson
>
>> Bondezirojn
>>
>> Rosalind Walter
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Dave
Prince Vermillion wrote:
> Probably. I didn't know that the Chinese found the "r" sound as
> difficult as the Japanese...
I was under the impression that the Japanese found "l" difficult
and that the Chinese found "r" difficult. Are there any Chinese
words with the "r" sound? Didn't Schleyer remove the "r" from
Volapuk to make it easier for the Chinese?
This might be just folklore, but I heard that one of the tests
to distinguish Japanese from Chinese in WWII was to ask them to
pronounce "lalapalooza".
-Dave
James A Honeychuck
Yes, "r" is used quite commonly in Mandarin (standard) Chinese. Around
Beijing they like the sound of "r" so much they stick it onto the ends
of many nouns just for the sound of it.
Jim
Translator, Chinese > English
Don HARLOW
On Sun, 01 Jun 1997 03:54:17 GMT, bren...@ihighway1.com.u (Iskandar)
wrote:
>Esperanto reminds me of the invented maps of non-existent countries.
>
>There is nothing wrong with them, really, but they don't look like
>real maps.
>
An unfortunate analogy, since many "real maps" (e.g., those sold by
gas stations in the United States, or the freebie trail maps they hand
out at Pt. Reyes National Seashore) don't look like "real maps," while
many invented maps of non-existent countries (e.g. the various
topographic maps that have been done of Tolkien's "The Shire" or Roger
Zelazny's "Amber") most definitely do.
Esperanto, which I do speak, looks much more like a real language to
me than do e.g. Japanese, Swahili or Spanish, which I do not.
>Why not revive Latin?
>
Aside from the fact that Latin, not being truly dead, doesn't (yet)
need reviving, I can only say that I took Latin for three years in
school, and my experience makes me extremely doubtful of the
possibility of teaching it in a reasonable amount of time and to a
reasonable level of usefulness to any significant number of people.
Don HARLOW
http://www.webcom.com/~donh/
(English version available at http://www.webcom.com/~donh/dona.html)
Daniel von Brighoff
In article <339892...@no.spam.at.all>, Dave <Da...@no.spam.at.all> wrote:
>Prince Vermillion wrote:
>
>> Probably. I didn't know that the Chinese found the "r" sound as
>> difficult as the Japanese...
>
>I was under the impression that the Japanese found "l" difficult
>and that the Chinese found "r" difficult.
Actually, the Japanese sound transcribed as <r> is somewhat intermediate
between English /r/ and /l/, though to most speakers it sounds more like
the former.
>Are there any Chinese words with the "r" sound? Didn't Schleyer remove
>the "r" from Volapuk to make it easier for the Chinese?
Which Chinese? A sound much like the English 'r' is present in most
dialects of Mandarin (and is particularly prominent in Bejing Mandarin),
but not in other Chinese sublanguages--for instance, Cantonese. Since the
vast majority of Chinese immigrants to the USA and Europe spoke Cantonese
and not Mandarin, it's not hard to see how the impression got formed that
Chinese lacks 'r'.
--
Daniel "Da" von Brighoff /\ Dilettanten
(de...@midway.uchicago.edu) /__\ erhebt Euch
/____\ gegen die Kunst!
wat...@hk.super.net
There is a syllabic final "r" sound, as people have noted, in the
dialect of Peking and a little bit persists in the common "putonghua."
It is sometimes transcribed as a right-hook schwa. There are no dialects
I can think of that have an initial "r" sound. The pinyin "r" represents
a retroflex sound more like a combination of "r" and "zh", sometimes
transcribed by a right-tail z.
Kjell Rehnstroem
bren...@ihighway1.com.u (Iskandar) wrote:
>Esperanto reminds me of the invented maps of non-existent countries.
>There is nothing wrong with them, really, but they don't look like
>real maps.
>Why not revive Latin?
>Arnold VICTOR <arvi...@mars.superlink.net> wrote:
The fine thing with classical Latin is that everybody knows it is
difficult so they don't mind that thos who are advocating it cannot
speak it. (Here I shoud put _ille faciet_ in third person plural, but
I forgot it :-). What I mean is that it is something that can be done
in the future. Let the kids begin at school! In three generations all
educated people - who have gotten an education - will speak it!
In the meantime you could try some really living Latin for a change:
Le politicos es multo sympatic verso le latino classic. Le causa es
que nemo pensa que le personas politic ipse apprendera le latino.
Omnes approba le facto que le lingua es difficile.
Tamen in Jyväskylä, Finlandia, le 6 - 12 de augusto il habera un
Conferentia International de Latino Classic con le participation de
300 personas. Inter alia on discutera metodos pro inseniar le latino
in le scholas.
Durante le tempore quando nos attende le apparition de latino classic
como un largemente usate lingua international, nos pote usar
interlingua, que contine ille latino que ancora vive.
Un bon maniera informar se de interlingua es sequer le MAILINGLIST de
Interlingua al universitate de S:t John o informar se re interlingua
per le www.
Kjell Rehnstroem
Rosalind Walter <rosa...@esplond.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>En artikolo <5mku3l$o...@acmey.gatech.edu>, STAN MULAIK
Text deleted:
>>.... E le
>>scandinaves trova interlingua un excellente ponte al linguas romance,
>>essente multo facile e simple a apprender, con habilitate que se
>>generalisa a iste altere linguas. Si vos apprende de leger le interlingua,
>>vos anque apprende de leger le espaniol, o le italiano, o le francese.
>>
>Jes! I can understand the above but only because I have already learned
>English, then French, Latin, Spanish (not spoken properly at all) and
>Italian (in that order).
Lo mesme pro me. Ego apprendeva esperanto (autodacticamente), anglese,
francese e germano (in le schola) + latino classic. Mi germanic es
forsan melior que mi francese. Pro isto il non del toto era difficile
apprender interlingua.
>How about Slavs (they live in Europe) Asians (many different languages)
>Africans (many languages again) American Indians ... ? What are you
>offering them? (Apart from an introduction to some European languages!)
There is more Latin in some Slavonic languages than you might think.
In Polish you will see _sensu stricto_, _X ante portas_, prezes ant
what not.
What we can do to-day is learn interlingua easily from the languages
we perhaps already know. In a future there will be better teaching
material in non-Interlingua source languages and then it will be still
more useful.
Any language you learn will widen your reportoire and give you a
platform for your contacts with speakers of these languages.
The question is whether Interlingua shouldn't be used as an
introduction to other languages. We are not talking about _some
European languages_ here but of Spanish and French, and you know where
they are spoken.
Rosalind Walter
En artikolo <EBE6v...@midway.uchicago.edu>, Daniel von Brighoff
<de...@midway.uchicago.edu> skribas
>In article <339892...@no.spam.at.all>, Dave <Da...@no.spam.at.all> wrote:
>>Prince Vermillion wrote:
>>
>>> Probably. I didn't know that the Chinese found the "r" sound as
>>> difficult as the Japanese...
>>
>>I was under the impression that the Japanese found "l" difficult
>>and that the Chinese found "r" difficult.
>
>Actually, the Japanese sound transcribed as <r> is somewhat intermediate
>between English /r/ and /l/, though to most speakers it sounds more like
>the former.
>
>>Are there any Chinese words with the "r" sound? Didn't Schleyer remove
>>the "r" from Volapuk to make it easier for the Chinese?
>
>Which Chinese? A sound much like the English 'r' is present in most
>dialects of Mandarin (and is particularly prominent in Bejing Mandarin),
>but not in other Chinese sublanguages--for instance, Cantonese. Since the
>vast majority of Chinese immigrants to the USA and Europe spoke Cantonese
>and not Mandarin, it's not hard to see how the impression got formed that
>Chinese lacks 'r'.
>
"television" as "terryvision". My Japanese student was very frightened
by the word "libro" but in fact said it correctly.
--
Bondezirojn
Rosalind Walter
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "waters" == waters <wat...@hk.super.net> writes:
waters> There is a syllabic final "r" sound, as people have noted,
waters> in the dialect of Peking and a little bit persists in the
waters> common "putonghua." It is sometimes transcribed as a
waters> right-hook schwa. There are no dialects I can think of
waters> that have an initial "r" sound.
The Beijing dialect (Mandarin) does have an initial "r" sound, as in
<ren2> (man), <rong2> (capacity), <rui4> (sharp), <ru2> (if), <ru3>
(milk), etc.
waters> The pinyin "r" represents
waters> a retroflex sound more like a combination of "r" and "zh",
waters> sometimes transcribed by a right-tail z.
And hence the "r"/"l" distinction in English isn't easy for Mandarin
speakers, which distinguishes THEIR own "r" and "l" in a very
different way.
Wei-Hwa Huang
de...@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff) writes:
>Actually, the Japanese sound transcribed as <r> is somewhat intermediate
>between English /r/ and /l/, though to most speakers it sounds more like
>the former.
Which one it sounds like is very dependent on the speaker. I know
several Japanese who pronounce it closer to /l/, almost all of them
females.
There's a very interesting book out there called "'Is it "L" as in
Rome?' 'No, it's "R" as in London.'" that details a lot of
interesting Japanese English screw-ups.
--
Wei-Hwa Huang, whu...@ugcs.caltech.edu, http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~whuang/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inspiration strikes suddenly, so be prepared to defend yourself.
Gerard van Wilgen
James A Honeychuck <jimh...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
<CLIP>
>Yes, "r" is used quite commonly in Mandarin (standard) Chinese. Around
>Beijing they like the sound of "r" so much they stick it onto the ends
>of many nouns just for the sound of it.
>Jim
>Translator, Chinese > English
Beijing? Where on Earth may that be?
I can remember a time when the capital of China used to be referred to
in English by its English name, just as people used to (and still do)
refer to "Wien", "Aachen", "Torino", "Moskva" and
"Khrungthepmahanakon" as "Vienna", "Aix-la-Chapelle", "Turin",
"Moscow" and "Bangkok".
I suspect CNN of starting this silly custom; perhaps they thought it
would look sophisticated, but the only thing it shows is that no-one
there has a clue of how Mandarin words should be pronounced!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Beijing? Kie sur Tero tio trovighas?
Mi povas rememori tempon kiam oni referencas angle al la chefurbo de
Chinujo per ghia angla nomo, precize kiel oni kutimis (kaj ankorau
kutimas) referenci al "Wien", "Aachen", "Torino", "Moskva" kaj
"Krungthepmahanakong" kiel "Vienna", "Aix-la-Chapelle", "Turin",
"Moscow" kaj "Bangkok" (Vieno, Akeno, Torino, Moskvo kaj Bankoko).
Mi suspektas CNN pri komenci tiun chi shtultan kutimon; eble ili
pensis ke tio aspektus mondosperta, sed tio nur indikas ke neniu tie
havas la plej etan supozon kiel oni devus elparoli mandarenajn
vortojn!
=======================================================
Gerard van Wilgen
-------------------------------------------------------
Take a look at my multilingual dictionary programme at:
http://www.travlang.com/Ergane/
=======================================================
Ekrigardu mian multlingvan vortarprogramon je:
http://www.travlang.com/Ergane/
-------------------------------------------------------
Robert Underhilll
In article <5njsku$i...@gap.cco.caltech.edu>, whu...@ugcs.caltech.edu
(Wei-Hwa Huang) wrote:
> de...@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff) writes:
> >Actually, the Japanese sound transcribed as <r> is somewhat intermediate
> >between English /r/ and /l/, though to most speakers it sounds more like
> >the former.
>
> Which one it sounds like is very dependent on the speaker. I know
> several Japanese who pronounce it closer to /l/, almost all of them
> females.
>
> There's a very interesting book out there called "'Is it "L" as in
> Rome?' 'No, it's "R" as in London.'" that details a lot of
> interesting Japanese English screw-ups.
Oh yes, I remember the undoubtedly apocryphal story about the billboard in
Tokyo advertising Revel Brothels Cough Drops.
Bob Underhill
runde...@mail.sdsu.edu
Mike Wright
It is said that when Douglas MacArthur was running for President of the
US, there were banners in Tokyo proclaiming, "We play for MacArthur's
erection."
Rosalind Walter
En artikolo <5napuq$d...@oden.abc.se>, Kjell Rehnstroem <m9...@abc.se>
skribas
>bren...@ihighway1.com.u (Iskandar) wrote:
>
>>Esperanto reminds me of the invented maps of non-existent countries.
>
>>There is nothing wrong with them, really, but they don't look like
>>real maps.
>
>>Why not revive Latin?
>
>
>>Arnold VICTOR <arvi...@mars.superlink.net> wrote:
>
>The fine thing with classical Latin is that everybody knows it is
>difficult so they don't mind that thos who are advocating it cannot
>speak it. (Here I shoud put _ille faciet_ in third person plural, but
>I forgot it :-). What I mean is that it is something that can be done
>in the future. Let the kids begin at school! In three generations all
>educated people - who have gotten an education - will speak it!
>
>Conferentia International de Latino Classic con le participation de
>300 personas. Inter alia on discutera metodos pro inseniar le latino
>in le scholas.
>
speak interlingua? Also are there any books written in it?
>Durante le tempore quando nos attende le apparition de latino classic
>como un largemente usate lingua international, nos pote usar
>interlingua, que contine ille latino que ancora vive.
>
Whose leg are you pulling - I learned Latin and could write about
"spears" and "wars" and other noneveryday topics!
>Un bon maniera informar se de interlingua es sequer le MAILINGLIST de
>Interlingua al universitate de S:t John o informar se re interlingua
>per le www.
>
>
>
>
>>>Esperanto in no way endangers the predominance of English in commerce
>>>and technology. But Esperanto would be an alternative for the large
>>>percentage of language learners who never master it sufficiently.
>>>
>
>>Salaam |Freedom can be abused
>> |therefore:
>>Izzy |if it cannot be abused it isnt freedom.
>
>
--
^Cion bonan
Rosalind Walter
wat...@hk.super.net
That "r" you mention is the one I was describing as a retroflex, "zhr"
like sound. The Mainland linguistic dialect lists and their scholars (as
well as my ear) don't hear or transcribe an "r" for the sound
represented in pinyin by the letter r. It is a voiced retroflex median
fricative, IPA right-tail z. The usual English initial r-sound (in my
American dialect anyway) is a very different sound, either described in
the references as a frictionless continuant or a voiced alveolar
approximant - IPA "turned r."
I know we're getting into a pretty minor issue here, except that many
foreign learners of Mandarin read the pinyin letter "r" and say the
English sound "r" which isn't quite the same.
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "Rosalind" == Rosalind Walter <rosa...@esplond.demon.co.uk> writes:
Rosalind> The English always say that Chinese people say "very" as
Rosalind> "velly" and "television" as "terryvision".
In HK, many Chinese pronounce it as "wery". Most students in HK have
learnt to pronounce the "r" sound (almost) correctly. However, they
can't quite distinguish "v" from "w" and "f". Depending on the
phonetic environment, they may pronounce "v" as either "f" or "w".
Well... This is because Cantonese lacks a "v" sound. There's no
voiced/voiceless distinction in Cantonese. So, the "v" sound is very
foreign to Cantonese speakers. To a Cantonese ear, "v" is midway
between "f" and "w". What's worse, English is mostly taught in HK by
Chinese, who themselves may not be aware of the students' difficulties
in the "v" sound.
Mark Rosenfelder
In article <5nkj0j$d02$1...@neptune.worldonline.nl>,
Gerard van Wilgen <gvwi...@worldonline.nl> wrote:
>Beijing? Where on Earth may that be?
>
>I can remember a time when the capital of China used to be referred to
>in English by its English name, just as people used to (and still do)
>refer to "Wien", "Aachen", "Torino", "Moskva" and
>"Khrungthepmahanakon" as "Vienna", "Aix-la-Chapelle", "Turin",
>"Moscow" and "Bangkok".
>
>I suspect CNN of starting this silly custom; perhaps they thought it
>would look sophisticated, but the only thing it shows is that no-one
>there has a clue of how Mandarin words should be pronounced!
IIRC the Chinese tgovernment put some pressure on Western media to use
pinyin-- in the '70s I think, before CNN existed. I don't see anything
silly about it. For anyone with a scholarly interest in China and
whoconsults multilingual resources, it's a lot more convenient to look up
(say) the Qing dynasty than Ching, Ch'ing, Tching, Tsching, Manchu,
Mantchou... Also, Wade-Giles (the most widespread pre-pinyin standard in
English) could hardly be worse for the purposes of journalism, since the
apostrophes, diacritics and superscripts crucial for representing sounds
are blithely ignored by most journalists, so that even knowing Chinese one
can have no idea how to pronounce Chinese names reported in the media.
As for non-scholars, I suppose many people got the impression that the
name of the Chinese capital changed, as so many cities and countries have
changed names over the last few decades. Well, who cares? What was
sacred about 'Peking'?
It's true that most people don't know how to pronounce Beijing... but most
people don't know how to pronounce Pei-ching either.
Do you also, by the way, prefer to call Istanbul 'Constantinople'?
Mark Rosenfelder
In article <EBE6v...@midway.uchicago.edu>,
Daniel von Brighoff <de...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>Actually, the Japanese sound transcribed as <r> is somewhat intermediate
>between English /r/ and /l/, though to most speakers it sounds more like
>the former.
Really? My understanding (derived from Samuel Martin's textbook) was
that Japanese /r/ is realized as a flap. This is not at all intermediate
between my (Midwest American) r and l, which are both farther back in
the mouth-- tho' it is how I pronounce the t in 'writer'.
Gerald B Mathias
Mark Rosenfelder (mark...@huitzilo.tezcat.com) wrote:
: In article <EBE6v...@midway.uchicago.edu>,
It's not retroflex in most people's speech (retroflex and/or trilled "r"
sounds "tough") but it often has a sort of lateral release that will make
it sound somewhere between "l" and the "t" of "water" (or some British
"r").
--
Bart
"Without ice cream there would be darkness and chaos." --Don Kardong
"I wished I would of said that." --Buck A. Yarrow
Mike Wright
Mark Rosenfelder wrote:
>
> In article <EBE6v...@midway.uchicago.edu>,
> Daniel von Brighoff <de...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
> >Actually, the Japanese sound transcribed as <r> is somewhat intermediate
> >between English /r/ and /l/, though to most speakers it sounds more like
> >the former.
>
> Really? My understanding (derived from Samuel Martin's textbook) was
> that Japanese /r/ is realized as a flap. This is not at all intermediate
> between my (Midwest American) r and l, which are both farther back in
> the mouth-- tho' it is how I pronounce the t in 'writer'.
That's correct. However, in the context of English speech it does sound
intermediate between r and l to a native speaker of English. Also, even
Japanese who have learned to make the proper English sounds may forget
which is which in a particular word, meaning that they are probably
hearing the Japanese r in both cases.
This becomes obvious when an English word is written with the wrong
letter. For example, a Chemistry professor friend had written
"royalties" as "loyalties" (in the context of music recording). His
explanation was:
I think I spell it that way since (i) I think "royalties" and
"loyalties" and then say to myself "royal" sounds like "King and
Queen
and all that, so it should not be royalties......" and (ii) then I
choose "loyalties". At least, logical, isn't it?
He also claims that his Chemistry students have a problem distinguishing
"molarity" from "morality".
I must say, however, that by the end of my 7.5 years in the Tokyo area,
Bluegrass music sounded perfectly natural when sung with a Japanese
accent. (Virtually every university has a Bluegrass band, there are
Bluegrass night clubs, and lots of festivals and concerts. My guitar
tablature page [at http://www.scruz.net/~darwin/tablature.html] includes
several songs learned from a Japanese mandolin player.)
jeff nunner
In article <5nkj0j$d02$1...@neptune.worldonline.nl>, gvwi...@worldonline.nl (Gerard van Wilgen) writes:
> Beijing? Where on Earth may that be?
>
> I can remember a time when the capital of China used to be referred to
> in English by its English name,
Right, so that country in West Africa is really the Ivory Coast, not Côte
d'Ivoire? And it's Upper Volta, not Burkina Faso? Hmmm... I thought I had
a hard time when I told my parents I was going to study in the Andean
country I call [tSile] and not [tSIli]...
> just as people used to (and still do)
> refer to "Wien", "Aachen", "Torino", "Moskva" and
> "Khrungthepmahanakon" as "Vienna", "Aix-la-Chapelle", "Turin",
> "Moscow" and "Bangkok".
>
> I suspect CNN of starting this silly custom; perhaps they thought it
> would look sophisticated, but the only thing it shows is that no-one
> there has a clue of how Mandarin words should be pronounced!
Well, of the people who *do* have a clue as to how Mandarin should be
pronounced, they probably would recognize Pinyin better than Wade-Giles.
If you were the average anglophone, would you know that p is pronounced
[b] and that p' was pronounced [p]?
Jeff/Jefe/Géffroi/Seáchthún
Daniel von Brighoff
In article <5nkj0j$d02$1...@neptune.worldonline.nl>,
Gerard van Wilgen <gvwi...@worldonline.nl> wrote:
>
><CLIP>
>
>>Yes, "r" is used quite commonly in Mandarin (standard) Chinese. Around
>>Beijing they like the sound of "r" so much they stick it onto the ends
>>of many nouns just for the sound of it.
>
Cathay.
>I can remember a time when the capital of China used to be referred to
>in English by its English name,
You can remember back to the time of Samuel Taylor Cooleridge? Cool! So
how are things in Xanadu?
>just as people used to (and still do)
>refer to "Wien", "Aachen", "Torino", "Moskva" and
>"Khrungthepmahanakon" as "Vienna", "Aix-la-Chapelle", "Turin",
>"Moscow" and "Bangkok".
"Aix-la-Chapelle" is the *English* name of "Aachen"? That's a new one on
this ignorant American. Of course, I also went on naively calling "Basel"
"Basel" even after I heard my British friends refer to "B^ale". (I
wonder: Do they also call Sankt Gallen "Saint Gall"? Is Solothurn
"Soleure"?)
>I suspect CNN of starting this silly custom; perhaps they thought it
>would look sophisticated, but the only thing it shows is that no-one
>there has a clue of how Mandarin words should be pronounced!
Funny, I thought the custom of referring to cities by local names became
pretty general in all European languages after WWII. At least, I don't
hear Germans referring to "Danzig" and "Pressburg" except historically.
Keith C. Ivey
gvwi...@worldonline.nl (Gerard van Wilgen) wrote:
>Beijing? Where on Earth may that be?
>
>I can remember a time when the capital of China used to be referred to
>in English by its English name, just as people used to (and still do)
>refer to "Wien", "Aachen", "Torino", "Moskva" and
>"Khrungthepmahanakon" as "Vienna", "Aix-la-Chapelle", "Turin",
>"Moscow" and "Bangkok".
I have the impression that "Aix-la-Chapelle" for "Aachen" has
gone the way of "Leghorn" for "Livorno", "Tiflis" for "Tbilisi",
and other English equivalents that are too obscure for most
people to have heard of. (Of course, I'm speaking as an
American -- things may be different in Europe.) I can't
remember the last time I heard "Aix-la-Chapelle" in an English
sentence, and I've certainly heard "Aachen".
The other equivalents you mention are still going strong, along
with "Florence" for "Firenze", "Copenhagen" for "Koebenhavn",
"The Hague" for "'s Gravenhage", "Warsaw" for "Warszawa", and
many others.
Keith C. Ivey <kci...@cpcug.org> Washington, DC
Untangling the Web <http://www.eeicom.com/eye/utw/>
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "Mike" == Mike Wright <dar...@scruznet.com> writes:
Mike> Also, even Japanese who have learned to make the
Mike> proper English sounds may forget which is which in a
Mike> particular word, meaning that they are probably hearing the
Mike> Japanese r in both cases.
Or that they don't distinguish between "l" and "r" *in their memory*,
even though they can distinguish those sounds upon listening.
STAN MULAIK
d...@donh.vip.best.com (Don HARLOW) writes:
>On Sun, 01 Jun 1997 03:54:17 GMT, bren...@ihighway1.com.u (Iskandar)
>wrote:
>Esperanto, which I do speak, looks much more like a real language to
>me than do e.g. Japanese, Swahili or Spanish, which I do not.
Si, Esperanto es un "real" lingua. Illo es parlate per milles de individuos.
Le question pro me es si esperanto conserva mi hereditage linguistic que
es commun inter mi lingua materne, le anglese, e altere linguas europee.
A un certe grado esperanto retene varie radices de origine latin o romance,
mais frequentemente illo distorque le systema natural de serie derivational
commun a tal parolas in le linguas europee pro imponer su proprie systema
derivational. Isto crea le impression de un lingua non natural. Totevia
esperanto es un lingua real. E le impressiones de naturalitate es un cosa
de gusto personal. Mi gusto prefere un lingua europee. Le question es si
isto preferentia es importante a altere parlantes de linguas europee.
Interlingua es le lingua commun al civilisation westeuropee.
>>Why not revive Latin?
>>
>Aside from the fact that Latin, not being truly dead, doesn't (yet)
>need reviving, I can only say that I took Latin for three years in
>school, and my experience makes me extremely doubtful of the
>possibility of teaching it in a reasonable amount of time and to a
>reasonable level of usefulness to any significant number of people.
Io es de accordo con isto. Latino classic ha su valor pro illes qui
vole studiar le romanos e le manuscriptos medievo. Mais su grammatica
es troppo difficile pro europeos moderne pro servir como un lingua
auxiliar quotidien. Del altere latere, interlingua es similar al
protoromance, que es un variante del latino parlate per le populo
commun de Roma, e que es le ancestre del linguas romance. Mais le
grammatica de interlingua es plus simple que mesmo ille de protoromance
(o latino vulgar). Necun accordo grammatic de genere o numero inter
substantivos e adjectivos. Necun inflexiones de persona de verbos.
Interlingua pare como un lingua romance. Il ha le mesme vocabulario
ric e familiar a parlantes de linguas romance o anglese. Lo que vos
apprende del vocabulario de interlingua se generalisa a le linguas
romance e anglese. Assi interlingua es un ponte a iste linguas.
Nos ha vidite casos de parlantes de linguas romance, como le espaniol,
qui jam sape le latino, studiante le grammatica de interlingua e in un
sol nocte attingente un nivello de capacitate a scriber le proxime die
longe tractos in interlingua excellente. Isto es exceptional. Ancora
il non es rar pro individuos qui parla un del linguas super le qual le
interlingua es basate, anglese, francese, espaniol/portugese, italiano,
a apprender scriber bon interlingua post solmente un septimana del
studio de su grammatica e vocabulario basic. A ver dicer, illes debe
ancora usar lor dictionarios, mais illes pote communicar ben.
Experimentos ha essite facite in le scholas scandinave de inseniar
interlingua pro un sol anno a studentes in le gymnasio. Al fin de iste
anno illes es monstrate selectiones de espaniol o italiano o francese
e requirite facer traductiones conjectural del textos. Illes succede.
Del altere latere quando studentes del linguas in question qui ha studiate
iste linguas pro solmente un anno es date iste textos pro traducer los,
illes falle. Illes non ha le vocabulario, proque le anno ha essite
consumite in apprender le grammaticas plus complexe de iste linguas.
A attinger le mesme nivello de vocabulario in le linguas national,
le studente require tres annos de studio.
Assi interlingua es avantagiose a gentes de Europa del Nord proque in
un breve tempore illes pote attinger un comprehension de leger le
linguas romance del paises illes va visitar a ferias. E con instruction
in le parlantia de interlingua illes pote disveloppar le aure pro un
lingua romance tal que illes pote communicar, multo in le maniera per
le qual le parlantes del linguas romance parla al un le altere.
--
Stanley A. Mulaik
School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332
uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!pscccsm
Internet: psc...@prism.gatech.edu
Pierre Jelenc
Mark Rosenfelder <mark...@huitzilo.tezcat.com> writes:
>
> It's true that most people don't know how to pronounce Beijing... but most
> people don't know how to pronounce Pei-ching either.
Right. But everybody knows how to pronounce "Peking". That's the point:
"Peking" is an *English* name that we use in *English*.
> Do you also, by the way, prefer to call Istanbul 'Constantinople'?
You argue against yourself! The name of the City on the Bosporus was
changed and that was reflected in the change from the *English* word
"Constantinople" to the *English* word "Istanbul". The name of the capital
of China did not change.
Pierre
--
Pierre Jelenc
New York City | Home Office
Beer Guide | Records
http://www.nycbeer.org/ | http://www.web-ho.com/
Mark Rosenfelder
In article <5np9e5$j...@panix2.panix.com>, Pierre Jelenc <rc...@panix.com> wrote:
>Mark Rosenfelder <mark...@huitzilo.tezcat.com> writes:
>> It's true that most people don't know how to pronounce Beijing... but most
>> people don't know how to pronounce Pei-ching either.
>
>Right. But everybody knows how to pronounce "Peking". That's the point:
>"Peking" is an *English* name that we use in *English*.
And by this time, thanks to twenty years or so of usage by the news media,
Beijing is also an English word. Languages change, like it or not.
>> Do you also, by the way, prefer to call Istanbul 'Constantinople'?
>
>You argue against yourself! The name of the City on the Bosporus was
>changed and that was reflected in the change from the *English* word
>"Constantinople" to the *English* word "Istanbul". The name of the capital
>of China did not change.
The cases are closer than you realize. English usage preferred
"Constantinople" until well into this century, more than 400 years after
the Turks took over the city. "Istanbul" became usual, not because
English speakers finally got wind that the Byzantine Empire had fallen,
but because of a change of regime in Turkey. Just as arbitrary from
a logical point of view as the Chinese government's pushing of Beijing;
but in both cases the result was a more accurate and more consistent
practice, so I don't see much to get upset over.
John Richardson
[vetere texto delerite]
[alicun scribeva:]
>>> >>And what in all hell is wrong with sounding like Spanish?
>>>
[Stan Muliak scribeva:]
>>> >Describer le esperanto como hispanophonic me pare inusual, durante que
>>> >on pote describer le interlingua como un lingua plus similar al espaniol
>>> >que le esperanto. Interlingua es le denominator commun del gruppo
>>> >angloromance de linguas e es le melior constatation del elementos
>>> >international in le linguas europee. Io non vide alicun superioritate
>>> >in esperanto como un reimplaciamento pro le anglese, e vide necun
>>> >possibilitate que il haberea fortias social que va complir isto.
>>> >In le interim interlingua pote usar se in situationes ubi le anglese
>>> >ancora non es apte pro communication inter le hispanoparlantes e
>>> >le catalanophonos, le francese, le italianos, e le anglese. E le
>>> >scandinaves trova interlingua un excellente ponte al linguas romance,
>>> >essente multo facile e simple a apprender, con habilitate que se
>>> >generalisa a iste altere linguas. Si vos apprende de leger le interlingua,
>>> >vos anque apprende de leger le espaniol, o le italiano, o le francese.
>>>
[Rosalind Walter scribeva:]
>>> Jes! I can understand the above but only because I have already learned
>>> English, then French, Latin, Spanish (not spoken properly at all) and
>>> Italian (in that order).
[John Richardson <cat...@islandnet.com> scribeva:]
>>I don't think you need to know *all* those languages to read Interlingua.
>>Aggod knowledge of any Romance language, or mastery of English plus a
>>smattering of any Romance language should be enough. And that's without
>>any lessons. Actually, Esperanto would also be a good basis too -- it
>>shares a vast number of roots with Interlingua.
>
>>> How about Slavs (they live in Europe) Asians (many different languages)
>>> Africans (many languages again) American Indians ... ? What are you
>>> offering them? (Apart from an introduction to some European languages!)
>
>>The Slavic languages share a certain amount of the "international"
>>(Western) vocabulary that forms the basis of Interlingua. Russian is
>>(with German) one the the alternative source languages for Interlingua.
>>But obviously, there's no way to construct a language that's readable at
>>first sight by Russian, English, and Romance speakers. The same applies
>>to speakers of non-European languages -- although many of them
>>(especially in Africa or the Americas) either know or want to learn one
>>Interlingua's source languages.
>
>Please give an indication of how Russian (with German) has been used in
>the language Interlingua - I have seen no indication of it so far.
Essentially, Russian and German are used as tie breakers when there's no
consensus on the form or meaning of a word among English and the major
Romance languages. The Russian and German words that are going to count
are ones like 'intelligentsia' or 'zivilisieren' - loanwords from Western
languages (not that 'intelligente' and 'civilisar' require this kind of
tie-breaking). The only "real" Russian words appearing in Interlingua are
ones that have been widely borrowed by other source languages - 'vodka',
'samisdat' and the like. If this seems unfair to the Russians, remember:
Interlingua is based on the *common* vocabulary of its source languages.
Words appearing only in English, or Italian, or Portuguese don't make it
in either.
> I
>should be interested to see some idea of the percentages involved.
I would be too, but I don't know of any source for this information. I'm
not so much interested in how often the tie-breaking rule is invoked as
in what proportion of Interlingua's vocabulary is familar to speakers of
Slavic languages. If you don't mind waiting a few days, I'll try to look
up a sample of Interlingua vocabulary in a Polish dictionary (not
Russian, the Cyrillic hurts my eyes) and post the results. My guess is
that there are a fair number of Latinate loanwords, but they occupy a
more learned strata of the language than is the case in English.
>The
>sample you sent seemed to be quite Spanish.
Actually, that was Stan Muliak's sample. The consensus seems to be that
Interlingua looks like Spanish rather than Italian. In fact, Spanish has
no special privilege as a source language; the Spaniards just happen to
live near the linguistic centre of balance of the Anglo-Romance group.
>How many speakers of
>Interlingua do you estimate?
I really have no idea - in the thousands, I suppose.
>I note that you think that all you are offering speakers of non-European
>languages is in fact an introduction to the source languages.
Well, obviously a speaker of Interlingua from wherever can talk with
other Interlinguans, and be understood by many non-Interlinguans. I mean,
it *is* an IAL, apart from having other uses.
Look at it from this perspective. The problem facing all IALs is getting
enough speakers to make them worth learning. The practical value of most
IALs depends entirely on the number of speakers they have, and they all
start out with no speakers. They're like a business that can't raise
enough capital to turn itself into a going concern. If 500 million people
already knew Volapük, the hard-headed types who scoff at IALs would be
sending their kids to Volapük summer camp. In Esperanto's case, it has
enough speakers to offer a rewarding intercultural environment to people
who join the movement. This has allowed it to survive over the decades
(perhaps growing slowly). But it still has too few speakers to make it
worth learning for practical purposes, and there's little prospect of
this situation changing.
Interlingua aims to break out of this predicament, in three ways.
(1) It is designed to be understood by hundreds of millions of people
who have never even heard of it, let alone learnt it. Its value doesn't
depend solely on the number of other Interlinguans around. You can
communicate with a monolingual Spanish or Italian speaker, for example.
You can write texts that most educated English speakers can understand.
(2) If you understand one of the source languages, you can learn it more
or less by reading it. You don't have to make an upfront investment of
time before you can profit from it as a passive user. It's true that
learning to use Interlingua actively is harder, but this point has been
vastly exaggerated by some of the critics. As with any language
(including Esperanto I suppose) you learn by observing and imitating. To
be fair, I admit that you'll eventually want to pick up an Interlingua
dictionary, and it wouldn't hurt to glance at a grammar.
(3) The third point is one I've already made: the effort you make in
learning Interlingua is intellectual capital for studying one of the
source languages (or related languages like Latin). THis advantage
applies to non-Western Europeans as well as to speakers of one source
language who are trying to learn another. We Interlinguans don't really
foresee a world where everyone learns Interlingua to the exclusion of
other second languages.
So, to sum up, the basic "strategy" of Interlingua is to offer a language
that's (1) useful to people who haven't studied it and (2) useful for
purposes other than communication with other Interlinguans. To use the
biz-school lingo that seems to be the true international language of
today, we try to keep entry costs to a minimum while maximizing payback
by identifying ancilliary benefits.
Now, not all Interlinguans would accept this view. As far as I can tell,
Interlingua has always had an "esperantist" faction that sees its primary
value as being a IAL in the conventional sense. Others seem to take the
view that Interlingua exists, it is suitable for various purposes, and no
one purpose is essentially better than any other. I suppose they'd be
happy to see it used in schools as a way of improving general language
skills (the way Latin sometimes is). If it found a role in international
conferences, or for tourists, so much the better.
>>Basically, Interlingua offers non-Europeans the same thing that Esperanto
>>does: A Western vocabulary with simplified Western grammar and
>>morphology. In theory, the morphology of Esperanto is much simpler. In
>>fact, from the point of view of learnability, I doubt there's much
>>difference. The grammars are pretty similar. In terms of vocabulary,
>>Interlingua has the advantage of a regular system of derivation from its
>>source languages, which makes it (I would think) the better bridge to
>>learning a Western European language.
>
>>Virtually all the effort you expend in learning Interlingua adds to your
>>understanding of the Anglo-Romance languages spoken by 1200 million
>>people. Esperanto is much less useful in this respect. To be sure, this
>>is not really an aim of Esperanto, but it's the main factor that
>>convinced me to study Interlingua rather than Esperanto. And I suppose it
>>might make Interlingua more attractive than Esperanto to at least some
>>non-Europeans.
>
>Where does this idea come from that English, French, Spanish, Italian,
>Portuguese are such important languages? Russian, Bulgarian, Polish,
>Czech etc. are interesting and important languages.
Well, of course they are important, as are many non-European languages.
In terms of numbers, En, Sp, Pt, and Ru all have more than 100 million
speakers. In terms of world-wide cultural importance (a debatable
concept, I admit), Ru would seem to be up there with the best of them.
The problem is, you can't be completely fair to all languages if you're
following Interlingua's strategy. The impossible ideal is an IAL that's
comprehensible to Chinese and Hindi speakers as well as Westerners.
Interlingua takes the view that European languages have a vast common
heritage (largely based on Latin, and more prominent in some languages
than others), and that this is a good starting point for an IAL following
this strategy. No doubt, you could construct an interlingua based on the
Slavic languages or a kind of Far Eastern interlingua (interscripta?)
based on Chinese characters. But these wouldn't be "fairer" than IALA
Interlingua, they would just turn the problem around.
It's worth noting too, that Esperanto uses a vocabulary base very similar
to Interlingua's. I've read that it's about 85 percent Romance, with
about 120 German words, and only a handful of Slavic ones. I think most
IAL-ers instinctively realise that a totally "fair" vocabulary (20
percent Mandarin, 7 percent English, 1 percent Amharic, etc.) is a
non-starter, as is a randomly generated vocabulary equally
incomprehensible to everyone.
>I enjoy reading books in French, I do not feel that I would have the
>same enjoyment in Interlingua - would I?
I don't know about that. Even many critics admit that Interlingua is
pretty language; whether it would give you the same linguistic pleasure
as a natural language is another question. Some types of literature
depend very much on the "gnarly" qualities of natural languages - which
tend to be stripped away in IALs, less so in Interlingua than others. But
presumably you enjoy reading Esperanto, so who knows?
>Bondezirojn
>>
>>> Rosalind Walter
>
Salutes amical,
John Richardson
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
John Richardson
In article <5nmlpc$s...@huitzilo.tezcat.com>,
mark...@huitzilo.tezcat.com (Mark Rosenfelder) wrote: > > In article<gvwi...@worldonline.nl> wrote: > >Beijing? Where on Earth may that be?
> > > >I can remember a time when the capital of China used to be
referred to > >in English by its English name, just as people used to
(and still do) > >refer to "Wien", "Aachen", "Torino", "Moskva" and >
>"Khrungthepmahanakon" as "Vienna", "Aix-la-Chapelle", "Turin", >
custom; perhaps they thought it > >would look sophisticated, but the
only thing it shows is that no-one > >there has a clue of how Mandarin
pressure on Western media to use > pinyin-- in the '70s I think, before
CNN existed.
The Chinese news agency switched to pinyin in the late 1970s, but they
"grandfathered" a few familiar names--Mao Tse-tung, Chao En-lai, Peking,
and Canton, if I recall. These changed over about ten years later, though
I still don't know the pinyin for Canton (Kwangtung?).
BTW, even the CBC, a bastion of civilised English, routinely pronounces
Beijing with a medial [Z].
John Richardson
>I don't see anything > silly about it. For anyone with a scholarly
interest in China and > whoconsults multilingual resources, it's a lot
more convenient to look up > (say) the Qing dynasty than Ching, Ch'ing,
Tching, Tsching, Manchu, > Mantchou... Also, Wade-Giles (the most
widespread pre-pinyin standard in > English) could hardly be worse for
the purposes of journalism, since the > apostrophes, diacritics and
superscripts crucial for representing sounds > are blithely ignored by
most journalists, so that even knowing Chinese one > can have no idea
how to pronounce Chinese names reported in the media. > > As for
non-scholars, I suppose many people got the impression that the > name
of the Chinese capital changed, as so many cities and countries have >
changed names over the last few decades. Well, who cares? What was >
sacred about 'Peking'? > > It's true that most people don't know how to
pronounce Beijing... but most > people don't know how to pronounce
Pei-ching either. > > Do you also, by the way, prefer to call Istanbul
'Constantinople'?
Apparently there's a movement to change the name back to Constantinople,
to emphasise the city's European character, or historical roots, or
something.
In a Greek train station, I once saw a map of Europe with politically
correct names for all cities and countries: Kobenhavn, Moskva, Roma, and
so on. The one exception? Konstantipolis.
Even more by the way, Ivan Illich has said that his Dalmatian mother (or
grandmother?) referred to the city in question throughout her life as
Tsarograd, the Emperor's city.
Ralph T. Edwards
In article <5np2t6$2...@acmex.gatech.edu>, psc...@prism.gatech.edu (STAN
MULAIK) wrote:
> d...@donh.vip.best.com (Don HARLOW) writes:
>
> >On Sun, 01 Jun 1997 03:54:17 GMT, bren...@ihighway1.com.u (Iskandar)
> >wrote:
>
> >Esperanto, which I do speak, looks much more like a real language to
> >me than do e.g. Japanese, Swahili or Spanish, which I do not.
>
> Si, Esperanto es un "real" lingua. Illo es parlate per milles de individuos.
...
>
> >>Why not revive Latin?
...
Could the artificial/auxiliary language enthusiasts consider keeping
discussions of which of their creations/favorite ALs is most real to AL
groups, where presumably someone cares? It's all been seen before in
sci.lang, and anyone who cares knows where to look. I certainly wouldn't
mind a monthly announcement concerning where AL enthusiasts could find
discussion of their favorite topic, in fact I'd consider it a public
service.
Thanks for your consideration.
--
R.T.Edwards r...@elmo.lz.att.com 908 576-3031
jeff nunner
In article <5np9e5$j...@panix2.panix.com>, rc...@panix.com (Pierre Jelenc) writes:
> Mark Rosenfelder <mark...@huitzilo.tezcat.com> writes:
>>
>> It's true that most people don't know how to pronounce Beijing... but most
>> people don't know how to pronounce Pei-ching either.
>
> "Peking" is an *English* name that we use in *English*.
Wrong. It's a bastardization of the Wade-Giles transcription for
[bejtSing].
>> Do you also, by the way, prefer to call Istanbul 'Constantinople'?
>
> You argue against yourself! The name of the City on the Bosporus was
> changed and that was reflected in the change from the *English* word
> "Constantinople" to the *English* word "Istanbul". The name of the capital
> of China did not change.
What is the Turkish word for that major city then?
Jeff
Leland Bryant Ross
t> <33922C...@scruznet.com> <sticher
Organization: Seattle Community Network
In a previous article, kci...@cpcug.org (Keith C. Ivey) says:
>gvwi...@worldonline.nl (Gerard van Wilgen) wrote:
>
>>Beijing? Where on Earth may that be?
>>
>>I can remember a time when the capital of China used to be referred to
>>in English by its English name, just as people used to (and still do)
Nek "Beijing" nek "Peking" (nek "Peiping"!) estas la *angla*
nomo de la cxefurbo de Cxinio. Ili estas diversaj latinliterigoj
de gxiaj *cxinaj* nomoj, kiujn anglalingvanoj uzas gxuste pro
la manko de angla nomo por tiu urbo. Tamen, mi agnoskas ke kiam
oni *prononcas* "Peking" /pij kIN/ aux uzas gxin adjektive ekzemple
pri anaso, gxi minacas pri angligxi.
Neither "Beijing" nor "Peking" (nor "Peiping"!) is the *English*
name of the capital of China. They are various romanizations
of its *Chinese* names, which Anglicists use precisely on account
of the *lack* of an English name for that city. However, I'll
admit that when "Peking" is pronounced /pij kIN/ or is used ad-
jectivally e.g. before "duck", it threatens to become English.
>>refer to "Wien", "Aachen", "Torino", "Moskva" and
>>"Khrungthepmahanakon" as "Vienna", "Aix-la-Chapelle", "Turin",
>>"Moscow" and "Bangkok".
Sxajnas al mi ke "Prague" por "Praha", "Munich" por "Mu"nchen", kaj
"Cologne" por "Ko"ln" [ne nur kiel urbnomo, sed en la baldaux malpermesota
esprimo "eau de..."] ankoraux vigle vivas en Usono, kvankam cxiu el ili
malflusis iomete. ("Praha", sxajne, aparte popularigxas, eble cxar dum
nebuligxas la memoro pri 1968, malpli gravigxas la fakto, ke "Praha
Spring" ne skandigxas tiom bele kiom "Prague Spring".)
"Prague" for "Praha", "Munich" for "Mu"nchen", and "Cologne" for "Ko"ln"
[both as a city name and in the soon-to-be-outlawed phrase "eau de..."]
still seem to me to be alive and well in America, though each has receded
a bit (and "Praha" in particular seems to be growing in popularity,
perhaps as 1968 recedes into myth--"Praha Spring" just doesn't *scan* as
well as "Prague Spring", but who cares *now*).
--
L B Ros' <> "On croit toujours qu'une langue artificielle est une langue
POB 30091 <> mineure, une langue du type *"Me Tarzan, you Jane"*, ce
Seattle WA <> n'est pas le cas de l'esp'eranto." -- Umberto Eco
98103 Usono <> "Profesoro Eco tute pravas." -- Liland Brajant Ros'
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "John" == John Richardson <cat...@islandnet.com> writes:
John> These changed over about ten years later, though I
John> still don't know the pinyin for Canton (Kwangtung?).
If you mean Canton *city*, the dialect of which is named Cantonese,
then it is Guangzhou.
If, however, you want to say the Canton *province*, where many
different subdialects of Yue and a few Minnan subdialects are spoken,
it is Guangdong.
Paul O Bartlett
On Thu, 12 Jun 1997, Ralph T. Edwards wrote (excerpt):
> Could the artificial/auxiliary language enthusiasts consider keeping
> discussions of which of their creations/favorite ALs is most real to AL
> groups, where presumably someone cares?
Even as an "artificial language enthusiast" myself, I entirely
concur. There are two forums available, largely overlapping.
newsgroup: alt.language.artificial
mailing list: AUXLANG
Regarding the former, people should stop crossposting to sci.lang.
If they don't have access to the newsgroup, they should get it or
ask for it from their service providers.
Paul <pob...@access.digex.net>
----------------------------------------------------------
Paul O. Bartlett, P.O. Box 857, Vienna, VA 22183-0857, USA
Finger, keyserver, or WWW for PGP 2.6.2 public key
Home Page: http://www.access.digex.net/~pobart
Mark Rosenfelder
In article <1997Jun12.203916.162644@forest>,
jeff nunner <jnu...@forest.drew.edu> wrote:
>> Right. But everybody knows how to pronounce "Peking". That's the point:
>> "Peking" is an *English* name that we use in *English*.
>
>Wrong. It's a bastardization of the Wade-Giles transcription for
>[bejtSing].
English speakers have been referring to Peking long before Wade or Giles
set foot in the East. I was curious about this the other day, and looked
up Peking in the OED; I forgot to write down the date of the earliest
attestation, but the English word comes through French _Pe'kin_. The k
ultimately derives from southern Chinese forms of the word-- it's been
affricated in Mandarin for a long time. The W-G would be Pei3-ching1.
[bejtSing] is a bit misleading, since both the b and j are unvoiced
(contrasting with aspirated p and q respectively). There's actually no
way of representing the j in Evan Kirshenbaum's ASCII-IPA scheme, since he
neglected to provide a way of specifying the alveolo-palatal place of
articulation...
Not quite the same topic but I'm too lazy to give it its own thread--
anyone know why "ginkgo" is spelled that absurd way? The OED is no help,
except to provide attestations of various spellings. It's borrowed from
Japanese _ginkyo_, so why don't we spell it that way? (The original
Chinese word is yin2xing4, which nicely shows how far Japanese and
Mandarin cognates can differ.)
E.M.
Daniel von Brighoff wrote:
[...]
> "Aix-la-Chapelle" is the *English* name of "Aachen"?
> That's a new one on this ignorant American.
> Funny, I thought the custom of referring to cities by local
> names became pretty general in all European languages after WWII.
> At least, I don't hear Germans referring to "Danzig" and "Pressburg"
> except historically.
The reason to change a name or at least spelling is always
**politics**.
Danzig was German, Gdan'sk is Polish.
The choice between "Aix-la-Chapelle" and "Aachen" depends on
whether or not you are a francophyl.
If you are specially interested with Ukraina you would say "Kyiv"
otherwise more traditional "Kiev" is enough.
E.
Jonathan Badger
r...@elmo.lz.att.com (Ralph T. Edwards) writes:
>Could the artificial/auxiliary language enthusiasts consider keeping
>discussions of which of their creations/favorite ALs is most real to AL
>groups, where presumably someone cares? It's all been seen before in
>sci.lang, and anyone who cares knows where to look. I certainly wouldn't
>mind a monthly announcement concerning where AL enthusiasts could find
>discussion of their favorite topic, in fact I'd consider it a public
>service.
>Thanks for your consideration.
Could the anti artifical/auxilary language flamers consider keeping
their flamebaits to alt.flame, where presumabably someone cares? It's
all been seen before in sci.lang, and anyone who cares knows where to
look. I certainly wouldn't mind a monthly announcement concerning
where anti AL flamers could find discussion of their favorite topic,
in fact I'd consider it a public service. Better yet would be the
creation of alt.fan.rte as the sole forum for Ralph's postings. Like
most alt groups, it would be unavailable to nearly everyone, but would
this be a great loss to anyone?
Thanks for your consideration.
Gerard van Wilgen
mark...@huitzilo.tezcat.com (Mark Rosenfelder) wrote:
>In article <5nkj0j$d02$1...@neptune.worldonline.nl>,
>Gerard van Wilgen <gvwi...@worldonline.nl> wrote:
>>Beijing? Where on Earth may that be?
>>
>>I can remember a time when the capital of China used to be referred to
>>in English by its English name, just as people used to (and still do)
>>refer to "Wien", "Aachen", "Torino", "Moskva" and
>>"Khrungthepmahanakon" as "Vienna", "Aix-la-Chapelle", "Turin",
>>"Moscow" and "Bangkok".
>>
>>I suspect CNN of starting this silly custom; perhaps they thought it
>>would look sophisticated, but the only thing it shows is that no-one
>>there has a clue of how Mandarin words should be pronounced!
>IIRC the Chinese tgovernment put some pressure on Western media to use
>pinyin-- in the '70s I think, before CNN existed. I don't see anything
>silly about it.
Hm, I vaguely remember some Dutch newspapers trying to introduce
"Beijing" a few years ago but it did not catch on and nowadays all the
Dutch media use "Peking" again (pronounced differently from English
"Peking" of course). I am not entirely sure but I think that British
and German media also stuck to "Peking".
> For anyone with a scholarly interest in China and
>whoconsults multilingual resources, it's a lot more convenient to look up
>(say) the Qing dynasty than Ching, Ch'ing, Tching, Tsching, Manchu,
>Mantchou... Also, Wade-Giles (the most widespread pre-pinyin standard in
>English) could hardly be worse for the purposes of journalism, since the
>apostrophes, diacritics and superscripts crucial for representing sounds
>are blithely ignored by most journalists, so that even knowing Chinese one
>can have no idea how to pronounce Chinese names reported in the media.
I am all for the use of pinyin for Mandarin words but spelling
"Peking" as "Beijing" is clearly a case of hypercorrection because
"Peking" is *not* a transliteration; it is a loanword from Chinese
thas has become just as anglicized as "Munich" (Muenchen), "Dunkirk"
(Dunkerque/Duinkerken), and countless other toponyms.
Furthermore if CNN and other media are so fond of using the official
transliteration systems for proper names in languages that use
non-Latin scripts, why then do they spell "Boris Jelcin" as "Boris
Yeltsin"?
>As for non-scholars, I suppose many people got the impression that the
>name of the Chinese capital changed, as so many cities and countries have
>changed names over the last few decades. Well, who cares? What was
>sacred about 'Peking'?
>It's true that most people don't know how to pronounce Beijing... but most
>people don't know how to pronounce Pei-ching either.
>Do you also, by the way, prefer to call Istanbul 'Constantinople'?
And are you going to refer to "Hongkong" and "Macao" as "Xianggang"
and "Aomen" when they will have become Chinese again? And what about
words derived from "Peking"? Should we order a "Beijing duck" in a
Chinese restaurant or buy a "Beijingese" in a pet shop? Personally I
am not inclined to change my speech habits as a result of political
decisions.
And as to your question, no, I prefer "Byzantium". But seriously, I
usually call Constantinople "Istanbul" because that is the name I was
taught during geography lessons at school, but I still refer to the
largest city of South Vietnam as "Saigon", and the country west of
Thailand is still listed as "Burma" in my personal dictionary (the
examples of Saint Petersburg -> Petrograd -> Leningrad -> Saint
Petersburg, and Congo -> Zaire -> Congo show that with these things
one will catch up sooner or later without having to move at all :-)
By the way, the Chinese themselves seem to have rather different ideas
about representing foreign names accurately:
Brussels (Brussel/Bruxelles) = Bulusai'er
London = Lundun
Paris = Bali
Rome (Roma) = Luoma
Stockholm = Sidege'ermo
Vienna (Wien) = Weiyena
=======================================================
Gerard van Wilgen
-------------------------------------------------------
Take a look at my multilingual dictionary programme at:
http://www.travlang.com/Ergane/
=======================================================
Ekrigardu mian multlingvan vortarprogramon je:
http://www.travlang.com/Ergane/
-------------------------------------------------------
Marius Svenkerud
jnu...@forest.drew.edu (jeff nunner) wrote:
>If you were the average anglophone, would you know that p is pronounced
>[b] and that p' was pronounced [p]?
In Pinyin, both p and b are pronounced [p] - two different kinds of [p],
though. In Wade-Giles, p corresponds with Pinyin b, and p' with Pinyin p.
--
Marius Svenkerud
Mike Wright
Mark Rosenfelder wrote:
[...]
> Not quite the same topic but I'm too lazy to give it its own thread--
> anyone know why "ginkgo" is spelled that absurd way? The OED is no help,
> except to provide attestations of various spellings. It's borrowed from
> Japanese _ginkyo_, so why don't we spell it that way? (The original
> Chinese word is yin2xing4, which nicely shows how far Japanese and
> Mandarin cognates can differ.)
I would guess that "ginkgo" is a misspelling of "gingko", which is a bit
closer to the Japanese, since the syllabic /n/ does become [N] before
velars. No big surprise that people who didn't know the source of the
word would accept any old spelling as authoritative. The loss of the "y"
might just be sloppiness, or it could have been the pronunciation at the
time of borrowing. Once the misspelling became the botanical name for
the tree in the West, it would be fixed forever.
Strangely enough, however, that kanji combination is actually pronounced
"ginnan" in Japanese, and means "ginkgo nut", while the word for the
tree is "ichou", which is written nowadays in hiragana, though Nelson's
and Rose-Innes show it as an alternate reading of the kanji.
It kind of looks as though some early transliteration of the kanji was
done by a non-native who looked at the individual characters and made
some assumptions about their pronunciation in combination.
This would be an easy error to make, since the pronunciation "gin"
(silver) is the Sino-Japanese reading (ondoku), while "nan" for the
second kanji comes from the native Japanese reading (kundoku) "an"
(apricot). This kind of inconsistency is one of the things that makes
the Japanese use of kanji much more difficult than the Chinese usage.
These kinds of cases show up fairly frequently on sci.lang.japanese.
It may be that it was pronounced "ginkyou" at some earlier time, and
that "ginnan" is more modern. _Ueda Daijiten_ would be one place to
look, if you want to pursue it that far. What is the earliest citation
given in OED?
Rosalind Walter
En artikolo <7f910ho...@phoenix.cs.hku.hk>, "Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}"
<sd...@cs.hku.hk> skribas
>>>>>> "Rosalind" == Rosalind Walter <rosa...@esplond.demon.co.uk> writes:
>
> Rosalind> The English always say that Chinese people say "very" as
> Rosalind> "velly" and "television" as "terryvision".
>
>In HK, many Chinese pronounce it as "wery". Most students in HK have
>learnt to pronounce the "r" sound (almost) correctly. However, they
>can't quite distinguish "v" from "w" and "f". Depending on the
>phonetic environment, they may pronounce "v" as either "f" or "w".
>
>Well... This is because Cantonese lacks a "v" sound. There's no
>voiced/voiceless distinction in Cantonese. So, the "v" sound is very
>foreign to Cantonese speakers. To a Cantonese ear, "v" is midway
>between "f" and "w". What's worse, English is mostly taught in HK by
>Chinese, who themselves may not be aware of the students' difficulties
>in the "v" sound.
>
the speech of the HongKong dwellers, in the news now because of the
change to Chinese rule.
>
--
Bondezirojn
Rosalind Walter
Rosalind Walter
En artikolo <8661386...@dejanews.com>, John Richardson
<cat...@islandnet.com> skribas
>[vetere texto delerite]
any of the other languages which seem to be the source of interlingua.
>> I should be interested to see some idea of the percentages involved.
>
>I would be too, but I don't know of any source for this information. I'm
>not so much interested in how often the tie-breaking rule is invoked as
>in what proportion of Interlingua's vocabulary is familar to speakers of
>Slavic languages. If you don't mind waiting a few days, I'll try to look
>up a sample of Interlingua vocabulary in a Polish dictionary (not
>Russian, the Cyrillic hurts my eyes) and post the results. My guess is
>that there are a fair number of Latinate loanwords, but they occupy a
>more learned strata of the language than is the case in English.
>
>>The sample you sent seemed to be quite Spanish.
>
>Actually, that was Stan Muliak's sample. The consensus seems to be that
>Interlingua looks like Spanish rather than Italian. In fact, Spanish has
>no special privilege as a source language; the Spaniards just happen to
>live near the linguistic centre of balance of the Anglo-Romance group.
>
>>How many speakers of
>>Interlingua do you estimate?
>
>I really have no idea - in the thousands, I suppose.
>
>>I note that you think that all you are offering speakers of non-European
>>languages is in fact an introduction to the source languages.
>
>Well, obviously a speaker of Interlingua from wherever can talk with
>other Interlinguans, and be understood by many non-Interlinguans.
Are you sure there are speakers of Interlingua - where would I find one?
The dictionaries and grammar do not seem to be available in the shops.
>(3) The third point is one I've already made: the effort you make in
>learning Interlingua is intellectual capital for studying one of the
>source languages (or related languages like Latin). THis advantage
>applies to non-Western Europeans as well as to speakers of one source
>language who are trying to learn another. We Interlinguans don't really
>foresee a world where everyone learns Interlingua to the exclusion of
>other second languages.
>
>So, to sum up, the basic "strategy" of Interlingua is to offer a language
>that's (1) useful to people who haven't studied it and (2) useful for
>purposes other than communication with other Interlinguans. To use the
>biz-school lingo that seems to be the true international language of
>today, we try to keep entry costs to a minimum while maximizing payback
>by identifying ancilliary benefits.
>
I hope, sincerely, that the above is NOT a true international language
of today!
The structure of Esperanto helps Chinese, Japanese, Arab and Slav
speakers to rapidly learn Esperanto - this structure is lacking in
Interlingua.
>It's worth noting too, that Esperanto uses a vocabulary base very similar
>to Interlingua's. I've read that it's about 85 percent Romance, with
>about 120 German words, and only a handful of Slavic ones. I think most
>IAL-ers instinctively realise that a totally "fair" vocabulary (20
>percent Mandarin, 7 percent English, 1 percent Amharic, etc.) is a
>non-starter, as is a randomly generated vocabulary equally
>incomprehensible to everyone.
I have read that about 20% of Esperanto words can be found in Slav
languages, a handful of other words come from other languages (non-
European countries including China) and roughly half the remaining
percentage of words come from both the German and Romance groups. By
German group I mean English, Dutch, Danish etc. as well as German.
>
>>I enjoy reading books in French, I do not feel that I would have the
>>same enjoyment in Interlingua - would I?
>
>I don't know about that. Even many critics admit that Interlingua is
>pretty language; whether it would give you the same linguistic pleasure
>as a natural language is another question. Some types of literature
>depend very much on the "gnarly" qualities of natural languages - which
>tend to be stripped away in IALs, less so in Interlingua than others. But
>presumably you enjoy reading Esperanto, so who knows?
>
I certainly do - I have access to the literature of many countries, not
to be found through English, as well as many original Esperanto works.
>>Bondezirojn
>>>
>Salutes amical,
>
>John Richardson
>
>-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
> http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
--
Rosalind Walter
STAN MULAIK
Rosalind Walter <rosa...@esplond.demon.co.uk> writes:
>En artikolo <8661386...@dejanews.com>, John Richardson
><cat...@islandnet.com> skribas
>>[vetere texto delerite]
>>
>>>Please give an indication of how Russian (with German) has been used in
>>>the language Interlingua - I have seen no indication of it so far.
>>
>>Essentially, Russian and German are used as tie breakers when there's no
>>consensus on the form or meaning of a word among English and the major
>>Romance languages. The Russian and German words that are going to count
>>are ones like 'intelligentsia' or 'zivilisieren' - loanwords from Western
>>languages (not that 'intelligente' and 'civilisar' require this kind of
>>tie-breaking). The only "real" Russian words appearing in Interlingua are
>>ones that have been widely borrowed by other source languages - 'vodka',
>>'samisdat' and the like. If this seems unfair to the Russians, remember:
>>Interlingua is based on the *common* vocabulary of its source languages.
>>Words appearing only in English, or Italian, or Portuguese don't make it
>>in either.
>>
>What is the meaning of "samisdat"? I do not recognise it as Russian or
>any of the other languages which seem to be the source of interlingua.
Secundo mi Webster's Dictionary:
samizdat n [Russ, fr. sam- self- + izdatel'stvo publishing house] (1967) :
a system in the U.S.S.R. and countries within its orbit by which
government-suppressed literature was clandestinely printed and distributed;
also : such literature
Totevia, io ha cercate per plure dictionarios del base de interlingua e
non ha trovate, ultra que le anglese, le occurrentia de "samisdat". Il non
existe in o le autoritative "Interlingua-English Dictionary", ni in le
Concise English-Interlingua Dictionary. Nonobstante, isto non indica que "sami-
dat" non es un parola international eligibile entrar se in le vocabulario de
interlingua. Potesser mi dictionarios de linguas romance es troppo parve a
citar iste obviemente estranie parola con signification multo special.
John, que es vostre fonte pro includer samisdat in le vocabulario de
interlingua?
[Pro alteres, qui possibilemente vole comprehender le maniera in que nove
parolas se entra le vocabulario de interlingua, le processo es isto:
on cerca initialmente pro variantes similar in e le forma e le signification
in le linguas a base de interlingua: le anglese, le francese, le italiano,
le espaniol/portugese (tractate como un sol lingua), con russe e germano
como alternativos. Si il ha al minus tres variantes del mesme signification
e forma similar, alora on cerca pro le prototypo de que illos ha essite
derivate etymologicamente. Per exemplo, recentemente plure interlinguanos
discuteva le parola anglese "intarsia" e su variantes in altere linguas.
Secundo Webster's:
intarsia n [G, modif. of It intarsio] (1867)
1 : a mosaic usu. of wood fitted into a support; also : the art or
process of making such a mosaic
2 : a colored design knitted on both sides of a fabric (as in a sweater)
Isto indica que le parola in anglese es prestate al anglese del germano, que
ha prendite lo del italiano. Hic es alicun discussion de isto:
>>>
Io recentemente
habeva le necessitate de un traduction del anglese "inlay" a in
interlingua. Benque eventualmente io trovava "incrustar" como un
solution, io notava plure linguas usante un radice o thema como
"tarsar" o "tarcia". Le espaniol ha "taracea" (de arabic _tarcia_)
e "taracear". Io notava le italian "intarsiare" e "intarsio". Le
anglese "intarsia" veni de ital. "intarsio" via germano (secundo mi
Webster's). Que es le proprie forma del radice o thema -tars-?
Le dictionario de espaniol dice que le origine es le parola arabic
"tarcia", mais io non sape si le -c- es solmente un orthographia typic
del espaniol in exprimer parolas arabic. Que es le origin de
"intarsio" in le italiano? Es le parola italian le origine del
parola in le espaniol o es le parola in espaniol plus directemente
derivate del lingua arabic in espania? Io faceva un *intarciar
pro interlingua, pero io non es secur super le -c- in loco de -s-.
Io cercava pro un forma german de "intarsia" in mi dictionarios
german-anglese, mais io non trovava lo. Le existentia de un forma
german al latere del anglese e le italiano es sufficiente a
determinar un prototypo *intarsio pro iste parola in interlingua.
(Interlingua va usar variantes in le germano e le russe pro
obtener le tres variantes requirite pro constatar un parola in le
vocabulario de interlingua, si il non ha tres intra le linguas
anglo-romance.
>>>>>
Io ha consultate mi grande dictionario de anglese Webster's Third New
International Dictionary, e illo lista *tarsi como le parola arabic
de que le italian "tarsia", "intarsiare" e "intarsio" veni. Le anglese
anque ha le "intarsiatura" (subs. pl.) e "intarsiature". Assi io
crede que le interlingua pote usar le italian "intarsiare" pro
definir le prototypos *intarsio, *intarsiar. Le anglese suggere que
iste parola es usate primarimente pro mosaicos in ligno.
Esque vos sape si le germano ha "intarsia" del italiano "intarsio"?
Illo es un parola rar e technic, si illo existe in le germano.
Webster's cita le germano como le origine immediate de "intarsia" e
lo tracta como un modification del italian "intarsio", que in torno
veni ultimemente del "tarsia", del arabic *tarsi (mosaico arabesc).
Le existentia del espaniol "taracea" del arabic "tarcia" (tarsia?)
face possibilei, secundo le familia derivational implicite in le
varie linguas, *tarsia, *tarsiar, *intarsiar, *intarsio, *intarsiatura
pro le "incrustation", labor de incrustration con ligno, conchas, etc..
Mi experto italian me ha scribite:
>Que es le origin de
>"intarsio" in le italiano? Es le parola italian le origine del
>parola in le espaniol o es le parola in espaniol plus directemente
>derivate del lingua arabic in espania? Io faceva un *intarciar
>pro interlingua, pero io non es secur super le -c- in loco de -s-.
Secondo lo Zanichelli, "intarsio" in italiano deriva dal verbo "intarsiare".
"Intarsiare", a sua volta, deriverebbe da "in" + "tarsia", parola che a sua
volta significa "intarsio" e che, anche se lo Zanichelli non lo dice, non e'
attualmente usata in italiano.
"Tarsia" deriverebbe dall'italiano arcaico "tarsi".
"Tarsi" deriverebbe dal verbo "rassa" (suppongo un verbo italiano, anche se
non l'ho mai sentito), che a sua volta significa "intarsiare".
Non so se questa etimologia un po' confusa possa risolvere il tuo problema
della "c" al posto della "s". Riguardo all'eventuale derivazione dall'arabo,
buio completo.
>>>>>
Ora nos ha bastante evidentia pro iste serie:
Le existentia del espaniol "taracea" del arabic "tarcia" (tarsia?)
face possibilei, secundo le familia derivational implicite in le
varie linguas, *tarsia, *tarsiar, *intarsiar, *intarsio, *intarsiatura
pro le "incrustation", labor de incrustration con ligno, conchas, etc..
In interlingua parolas non es tractate in isolation. On debe recercar le
serie derivational in que un parola es trovate. Sovente iste mesme serie
occurre in le linguas a base, plus o minus intacte, mais a vices un lingua
contine solmente un parola de un serie trovate in altere linguas a base.
Usante le cognoscientia de serie derivational basate super affixos trovate
in altere serie, on pote reconstruer le serie currente sub consideration.
P.e. considera le serie basate super "ager [ag-/act-; -ig-/-act-]" (to act,
to be doing):
agenda; agente-agentia; agitar, agitation, agitative, &c; agibile;
action-actionero, actionista, actionar-actionabile, inaction; active-
activitate, activar-activation, activo, inactive, inactivitate,
radioactive &c; actor; actrice; acto-actuario-actuariato, actuarial,
actual, actualitate, actualisar, actualisation, interacto; coager &c;
reager &c; retroager &c; transiger &c; litigar (litigation, litigational,
&c....
Iste mesme affixos occure in altere serie:
audir, audibile, auditive, audiente, audientia, audita, audition, inaudibile,
auditor, auditorio, auditorial, audiphonio, auditori, audiometro, exaudir,
exaudimento, etc..
Assi on pote constatar le forma de un prototypo international sovente in
un maniera multo objective e reproducibile per alteros.
>>
>>>The sample you sent seemed to be quite Spanish.
>>
>>Actually, that was Stan Muliak's sample. The consensus seems to be that
>>Interlingua looks like Spanish rather than Italian. In fact, Spanish has
>>no special privilege as a source language; the Spaniards just happen to
>>live near the linguistic centre of balance of the Anglo-Romance group.
>>
>>>How many speakers of
>>>Interlingua do you estimate?
>>
>>
>>Well, obviously a speaker of Interlingua from wherever can talk with
>>other Interlinguans, and be understood by many non-Interlinguans.
>Are you sure there are speakers of Interlingua - where would I find one?
Thomas Breinstrup in Copehagen es un jornalista qui dice que ille parla le
interlingua cata die in su interviews per telephono.
>> I mean,
>>it *is* an IAL, apart from having other uses.
>>
>>>Where does this idea come from that English, French, Spanish, Italian,
>>>Portuguese are such important languages? Russian, Bulgarian, Polish,
>>>Czech etc. are interesting and important languages.
>>
Vos debe intender que interlingua esseva disveloppate con fundos del
Fundation Rockfeller inter 1936 e 1951. Su sponsor esseva le International
Auxiliary Language Association (IALA), con multe linguistas distinguite
como lor avisatores. Le personal al centro del disveloppamento de interlingua
esseva linguistas professional. Lor rational esseva que on debe identificar
centros de absorption e radiation de parolas international. In lor opinion
le gruppo de linguas angloromance esseva un centro major del absorption e
radiation de parolas international, e usante iste linguas esserea bastante
a constatar le vocabulario international.
>The structure of Esperanto helps Chinese, Japanese, Arab and Slav
>speakers to rapidly learn Esperanto - this structure is lacking in
>Interlingua.
Il es ver que interlingua non se basa super le idea de un sol signification
pro cata forma distincte. Nostre hereditage linguistic europee se basa super
le metaphoras que produce multe significationes pro cata morpheme. Le
serie derivational derivate del latino es solmente suggestive del
signification de parolas. Le signification non reside in le forma mais
in le usage. Interlingua standardisa le usage international. Assi, si
le chinese o japonese apprende le esperanto, illes pote solmente parlar
con altere esperantistas. Si illes apprende le interlingua, illes pote
leger e mesmo parlar con parlantes del espaniol, italiano, catalanos,
sardese, anglese. Le communication non essera perfecte, mais ancora
succedite.
>>
>>>I enjoy reading books in French, I do not feel that I would have the
>>>same enjoyment in Interlingua - would I?
>>
Qui sape? Io cognosce un interlinguano brasilian qui traduce libros
policial a in interlingua, e poesia romantic.
STAN MULAIK
John Richardson:
Io non ha vidite vos a INTERLNG, nonne? INTERLNG es un listserv
pro parlantes de interlingua. Nos ha parlantes de scandinavia, Africa,
USA, Brasil, Switza, Canada, Australia, Finlandia, Danmark.
pro junger se de novo al gruppo
--> invia le message sequente a: LIST...@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
subscribe interlng vostre nomine
Del servitor de St. John's University vos recipera un verification.
Vos debe responder con le message sequente a:
list...@sjuvm.stjohns.edu
ok
pro communicar un message al gruppo,
--> invia lo a iste adresse: INTE...@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
pro discontinuar vostre participation in le gruppo
--> invia le message sequente a: LIST...@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
signoff vostre nomine
Informationes super interlingua es trovate in le tela transterrestre a
http://www.naz.com/personal/interlng
John Richardson
In article <7fhgf3r...@phoenix.cs.hku.hk>,
sd...@cs.hku.hk (Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}) wrote:
>
> >>>>> "John" == John Richardson <cat...@islandnet.com> writes:
>
> John> These changed over about ten years later, though I
> John> still don't know the pinyin for Canton (Kwangtung?).
>
> If you mean Canton *city*, the dialect of which is named Cantonese,
> then it is Guangzhou.
>
> If, however, you want to say the Canton *province*, where many
> different subdialects of Yue and a few Minnan subdialects are spoken,
> it is Guangdong.
Yes, I recognise these names. It strikes me, though, that Canton is still
the usual English form for the city. It's not Wade-Giles for Guangzhou,
so I suppose it must be an older historical name. Perhaps that explains
its survival (if I am right about it surviving). What Chinese form does
it represent? The Cantonese version of Guangdong?
No doubt, if an event of worldwide importance should take place in Canton
(probably not a good thing for the Cantonese!), the saturation-level
media coverage will induce everyone to say Guangzhou. I think it was the
coverage of the Tienanmen crisis that finally killed off "Peking".
cat...@islandnet.com
In article <8661666...@dejanews.com>,
catc...@nospam.islandnet.com wrote:
> In a Greek train station, I once saw a map of Europe with politically
> correct names for all cities and countries: Kobenhavn, Moskva, Roma, and
> so on. The one exception? Konstantipolis.
I meant Konstantinopolis, of course.
Keith C. Ivey
de...@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff) wrote:
>Funny, I thought the custom of referring to cities by local names became
>pretty general in all European languages after WWII. At least, I don't
>hear Germans referring to "Danzig" and "Pressburg" except historically.
So the Spanish no longer use "Nueva York" and "Marsella"?
The Germans no longer use "Kopenhagen" and "Rom"?
The French no longer use "Londres" and "Moscou"?
The Italians no longer use "Parigi" and "Vienna"?
Is it really only the barbarian English-speakers who have their
own names for famous cities now?
david shobe
Gerard van Wilgen (gvwi...@worldonline.nl) wrote:
: Beijing? Where on Earth may that be?
: I can remember a time when the capital of China used to be referred to
: in English by its English name, just as people used to (and still do)
: refer to "Wien", "Aachen", "Torino", "Moskva" and
: "Khrungthepmahanakon" as "Vienna", "Aix-la-Chapelle", "Turin",
: "Moscow" and "Bangkok".
This brings up a question I've wondered about for awhile. On old maps
of China the capital is referred to as Peking. Is the change
Peking -> Beijing the result of phonological changes in Mandarin
(/p/ -> /b/ and /k/ -> /dZ/) or is "Peking" a "corrupted" form
due to mis-hearing of the name?
--David Shobe
wat...@hk.super.net
The version I heard here in Hong Kong was that the British postal
officials who came up with a lot of the "English" spellings for Chinese
places back in the mid 1800s consulted a Cantonese speaker for many of
them, who of course, pronounced Peking as p@k king in his dialect.
As for Gingko, I suspect the medieval Chinese for those kanji -
something like "ngyen ghang" found its was into Japanese with a reading
something like "gyin kang", and then - as usual - the final -ng decayed
to the long "o" or "gyin koo". At least that's what seems to happen with
thise "ng" sounds. Like Tokyo: MC "tong kyang" --> Japanese "too kyoo".
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "david" == david shobe <dsh...@unlinfo.unl.edu> writes:
david> This brings up a question I've wondered about for awhile.
david> On old maps of China the capital is referred to as Peking.
david> Is the change Peking -> Beijing the result of phonological
david> changes in Mandarin (/p/ -> /b/ and /k/ -> /dZ/) or is
david> "Peking" a "corrupted" form due to mis-hearing of the name?
No. "Peking" is a phonetic transcription of how a Southerner
(probably a Cantonese speaker) pronounce the 2 characters which name
the current Chinese capital. "Beijing" is, on the other hand, the
Pinyin form of the same characters. The two different spellings is
due to the divergence in pronunciation of different Chinese dialects,
rather than a recent phonological change.
Being mutually unintelligible dialects, it is natural to expect that
Cantonese speakers pronounce the 2 characters in a different way from
Mandarin speakers. Even so, they still think that it is the SAME
name--because it consist of the same characters in the same sequence.
In the Chinese culture, a name can be simply a cluster of characters,
whose pronunciation can vary across dialects. So, we often ask, upon
learning another dialect, "How is my name pronounced in this dialect?"
To us, a name is the same name as long as the same characters are
used, irrespective of whether the pronunciation is different in
different dialect.
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "John" == John Richardson <cat...@islandnet.com> writes:
John> What Chinese form does
John> it represent? The Cantonese version of Guangdong?
The word "Guangdong" (i.e. "Canton" in Cantonese) names a province,
while "Guangxi" is an adjacent province. Here, "dong" means "east"
and "xi" means "west". So, it is not hard to guess that Guangdong
lies to the east of Guangxi.
Alan Gould
In article <L0SPHBAY...@esplond.demon.co.uk>, Rosalind Walter
<rosa...@esplond.demon.co.uk> writes
>What is the meaning of "samisdat"? I do not recognise it as Russian or
>any of the other languages which seem to be the source of interlingua.
The word is 'samizdat'. It means an unofficial, or underground
publication, mainly in the ex Soviet Union.
Steinar Midtskogen
[STAN MULAIK]
> >Aside from the fact that Latin, not being truly dead, doesn't (yet)
> >need reviving, I can only say that I took Latin for three years in
> >school, and my experience makes me extremely doubtful of the
> >possibility of teaching it in a reasonable amount of time and to a
> >reasonable level of usefulness to any significant number of people.
>
> Io es de accordo con isto. Latino classic ha su valor pro illes qui
> vole studiar le romanos e le manuscriptos medievo. Mais su grammatica
> es troppo difficile pro europeos moderne pro servir como un lingua
> auxiliar quotidien. Del altere latere, interlingua es similar al
> protoromance, que es un variante del latino parlate per le populo
> commun de Roma, e que es le ancestre del linguas romance.
In mi opinion le latino classic e interlingua non son comparabile con
respecto de lor applicationes. Como tu ha scribite, interlingua servi
como un lingua auxiliar (io dicerea que illo es le melior option in
Europa e America hodie), ma illo care alicun cosa importante. Io non
sape sin falta que illo care, ma io crede que le simplicitate de
interlingua es importante in iste respecto. Como lo explicar... Il
me sembla que interlingua solmente es un multo potente instrumento de
communication, ma le latino (o qualcunque lingua real) con su
grammatica complexe pare esser apte a communicar plus
"artificiosmente". Quando autores magne adoptara interlingua, illes
requirera additiones al lingua, a fin que illes pote "jocar" (in le
senso positive) con le lingua. Si isto occurrera, io time que
interlingua perde un parte de su fortia como un lingua simplice. Ergo
il es importante que interlingua e latino ha applicationes distincte.
On dice que latino es multo difficile. Il ha plure inflectiones, sed
su grammatica es bastante regular, dissimile le grammatica "simplice"
anglese. Durante tres o quatro menses del autumno del anno ultime io
studeva le latin, que se videva esser satis a leger e scriber (ma non
sin errores). Depost io ha usate le lingua de tempore in tempore pro
non lo oblidar.
Pardona, per favor, mi lingua imperfecte (e interlingua e latino).
Lingua Latina et Interlingua, ut mea fert opinio, non comparandae sunt
respectu sui usūs; ita est ut scripsisti, quod interlingua est linguā
pro auxiliariā, dicam equidem eam esse in Europā Americāque optimam
optionem hodiernam, at ei deest res quaedam magni momenti. Nescio
certo, quid desit, existimo autem interlinguae interesse
simplicitatem. Quomodo explicam? Interlingua est quoddam
instrumentum potentissum communicandi tantum, ut mihi videtur, sed
lingua Latina (vel quaecumque lingua vera) implicatione suā apta
videtur (ut ita dicam) ad communicandum artificiosius. Cum auctores
magni interlinguam ceperint, iis opus erunt additiones ad linguam, ut
linguā ludant (sensu bono). Si hoc acciderit, timeo ne interlingua
partem potentiae linguarum simplicium perdat. Itaque interest ut
interlingua ac latinitas usūs distinctos teneant.
Linguam latinam esse difficilissimam dicitur; sint multae flexurae
verborum, at grammatica eius fere est constans, dissimilis grammaticā
"simplici" Anglicā. Latinae studebam autumno anni superioris, per
menses tres quattuorve, quod satis visumst ad legendum scribendumque
(tamen non sine erroribus). Deinde linguā quondam usus sum, ne eam
dediscerem.
Ignoscite, quaeso, meae linguae imperfectae (Latinaeque
Interlinguaeque).
--
Steinar Midtskogen, stud.scient. informaticae; http://www.ifi.uio.no/~steinarm/
Stefano MacGregor
STAN MULAIK <psc...@prism.gatech.edu> wrote in article
<5np2t6$2...@acmex.gatech.edu>...
d...@donh.vip.best.com (Don HARLOW) writes:
<<Si, Esperanto es un "real" lingua. Illo es parlate per milles de
individuos.
Le question pro me es si esperanto conserva mi hereditage linguistic
que
es commun inter mi lingua materne, le anglese, e altere linguas
europee.>>
It is not Esperanto's goal to preserve linguistic heritages of
other languages directly. Since it does not aim to replace any other
language, it aims not to disturb those heritages.
Instead, it has its own heritage, distilled from those of all of
its speakers, many of whom do not have Indo-European languages as
their mother tongues. The more heritage added to it by Hungarians,
Koreans, Finns, and others, the more the rest of its speakers gain.
Other languages will preserve their own linguistic heritages.
--
-- __Q Grafo Stefano MAC:GREGOR \ma-GRE-gar\
-- -`\<, Fenikso, graflando de Marikopo, Arizono, Usono
-- (*)/ (*) <http://www.goodnet.com/~stevemac/ttt-hejm.htm>
--------------- Batalu kontraux spamo: <http://www.cauce.org/>
John M. Lawler
E.M. <eug...@tony.arsusda.gov> writes:
> The reason to change a name or at least spelling is always
> **politics**.
Indeed, for official entities, official spelling is a political
phenomenon. How could it be otherwise?
> The choice between "Aix-la-Chapelle" and "Aachen" depends on
> whether or not you are a francophile.
That's probably right (though there are also germanophiles and
the sets are not disjoint), but most Americans who know of it
would pronounce it simply as "X" (the name of the letter) when
speaking English.
We're all thrilled to have found at least one French city with a name
anybody can pronounce. "La Chapelle" is attempted by the ambitious,
difficulty 1.5, unless they go for the optional light final /l/, which is
diff 2.5.
"Aachen", on the other hand, contains two non-English sounds, long /a:/
and the velar allophone of /x/. This is at least diff 4.0 for most
Americans, so for those of us who know or care, "X" marks the spot.
P.S. I'll be out of net contact for a while.
See you in mid-July, or maybe earlier at ALA
(I'll be with the GODORT bunch).
Cheers,
- John Lawler University of Michigan Program in Linguistics
-------------------------------------------------------------
"Using Computers in Linguistics: A Practical Guide" Routledge 1998
Online Appendices: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/ling/jlawler/routledge/
Keith C. Ivey
jnu...@forest.drew.edu (jeff nunner) wrote:
>Right, so that country in West Africa is really the Ivory Coast, not Côte
>d'Ivoire? And it's Upper Volta, not Burkina Faso? Hmmm... I thought I had
>a hard time when I told my parents I was going to study in the Andean
>country I call [tSile] and not [tSIli]...
I think the situation is different for country names than for
city names (or at least the names of nonfamous cities). Most
languages have names for countries, and they often don't
correspond to the names the inhabitants of those countries use.
For example, the English word "Chile" is generally pronounced
[tSIli] (as your parents pronounce it); [tSile] is a Spanish
word, and using it in the middle of an English sentence seems
odd or even affected. To me, it would be the equivalent of
saying "I'm going to France", and pronouncing "France" as
[fra~s], complete with a uvular "r", or using "Deutschland" in
place of "Germany" in an English sentence.
Didn't the change from "Upper Volta" to "Burkina Faso" result
from an actual change in the name of the country, rather than an
attempt (as in the cases of Beijing and Cote d'Ivoire) by
speakers of one language to change the vocabulary of other
languages?
Paul J Kriha
[...]
>What is the meaning of "samisdat"? I do not recognise it as Russian or
>any of the other languages which seem to be the source of interlingua.
It is a common Russian word. That is, at least last 20-30 years.
I came across it first time sometime in the early sixties.
It is a result of a contraction of "samo-isdat'" ie. self-issued,
self-produced. It usually refers to literature of political nature,
clandestinly typed, carbon copied and distributed.
Paul JK.
--
Know what's weird? Day by day nothing seems to
change, but pretty soon everything is different.
Brian M. Scott
On Sat, 14 Jun 1997 16:41:23 GMT, kci...@cpcug.org (Keith C. Ivey)
wrote:
[snip]
>I think the situation is different for country names than for
>city names (or at least the names of nonfamous cities). Most
>languages have names for countries, and they often don't
>correspond to the names the inhabitants of those countries use.
>For example, the English word "Chile" is generally pronounced
>[tSIli] (as your parents pronounce it); [tSile] is a Spanish
>word, and using it in the middle of an English sentence seems
>odd or even affected. To me, it would be the equivalent of
>saying "I'm going to France", and pronouncing "France" as
>[fra~s], complete with a uvular "r", or using "Deutschland" in
>place of "Germany" in an English sentence.
I don't think that the examples are all comparable. With 'Chile' and
'France' the question is purely one of pronunciation; 'Deutschland'
and 'Germany' are completely different names. And when pronunciation
is in question, there are at least three possible responses. One can
attempt a native pronunciation; as you say, that sounds odd in an
English sentence (and requires annoying vocal contortions). One can
use a native English pronunciation (/tSIli/, /fr&ns/). Or one can
compromise to some degree, as I do: I say /tSile/, but it most
definitely isn't [tSile]. (I already have /a/, not /&/, in 'France',
and the 'n' is articulated very lightly; but I don't use uvular 'r'.)
I haven't paid a lot of attention, but it seems to me that educated
speakers in the U.S. tend to adopt the compromise pronunciation in
such cases. It also appears that this occurs least often in the case
of the most familiar names, like 'France'.
>Didn't the change from "Upper Volta" to "Burkina Faso" result
>from an actual change in the name of the country, rather than an
>attempt (as in the cases of Beijing and Cote d'Ivoire) by
>speakers of one language to change the vocabulary of other
>languages?
I wouldn't characterize either of these in this fashion. 'Cote
d'Ivoire' and 'Ivory Coast' are of course simply translations of each
other, so this is an example of yet a third type. 'Beijing'
represents yet a different situation, being merely a respelling of a
name that hasn't changed, one designed to produce a better
approximation from the naive speaker.
Brian M. Scott
Leland Bryant Ross
In a previous article, kci...@cpcug.org (Keith C. Ivey) says:
>de...@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff) wrote:
>
>>Funny, I thought the custom of referring to cities by local names became
>>pretty general in all European languages after WWII. At least, I don't
>>hear Germans referring to "Danzig" and "Pressburg" except historically.
>
>So the Spanish no longer use "Nueva York" and "Marsella"?
>The Germans no longer use "Kopenhagen" and "Rom"?
>The French no longer use "Londres" and "Moscou"?
>The Italians no longer use "Parigi" and "Vienna"?
>Is it really only the barbarian English-speakers who have their
>own names for famous cities now?
Certe en Esperanto (kaj dum vi afisxas cxi tien mi respondados) oni
parolas pri "Novjorko" kaj "Parizo", "Kopenhago" kaj "Varsovio", "Moskvo"
kaj "Tokio", "Vieno" kaj "Marsejlo", ktp. Mi mem logxas en "Seatlo"
(kvankam mi ne atendas, ke cxiu Esperantisto en Togolando aux Irano sciu,
kie kaj kio estas Seatlo). Pri la nuna uzado de "Dancigo" (aux "Gdajnsko")
mi ne scias, pli ofte mi renkontas gxin en neasimilita formo. Kaj mi ne
ofros opinion pri tio, cxu Esperanton (kaj cxu la usonanglan) Daniel "Da"
konsideras euxropaj lingvoj...
Certainly in Esperanto (and as long as you're posting to s.c.e I'll keep
replying) one speaks of "Novjorko", "Parizo", "Kopenhago", "Varsovio",
"Moskvo", "Tokio", "Vieno", "Marsejlo" etc. I myself live in "Seatlo"
(though I don't expect every Esperantist in Togo or Irano to know where
and what Seattle is). I don't know about the current use of "Dancigo"
(or "Gdajnsko"), I encounter it more frequently in an unassimilated
form. And I shan't offer an opinion as to whether Daniel "Da" considers
Esperanto (or American English) European languages...
--
L B Ros' <> "On croit toujours qu'une langue artificielle est une langue
POB 30091 <> mineure, une langue du type *"Me Tarzan, you Jane"*, ce
Seattle WA <> n'est pas le cas de l'esp'eranto." -- Umberto Eco
98103 Usono <> "Profesoro Eco tute pravas." -- Liland Brajant Ros'
STAN MULAIK
"Stefano MacGregor" <Stev...@GoodNet.Com> writes:
>STAN MULAIK <psc...@prism.gatech.edu> wrote in article
><5np2t6$2...@acmex.gatech.edu>...
>d...@donh.vip.best.com (Don HARLOW) writes:
>Le question pro me es si esperanto conserva mi hereditage linguistic
>que
>es commun inter mi lingua materne, le anglese, e altere linguas
>europee.>>
> It is not Esperanto's goal to preserve linguistic heritages of
>other languages directly. Since it does not aim to replace any other
>language, it aims not to disturb those heritages.
> Instead, it has its own heritage, distilled from those of all of
>its speakers, many of whom do not have Indo-European languages as
>their mother tongues. The more heritage added to it by Hungarians,
>Koreans, Finns, and others, the more the rest of its speakers gain.
> Other languages will preserve their own linguistic heritages.
Le objecto de mi preferentia pro un lingua que conserva le hereditage
linguistic es un lingua auxiliar pro le civilisation occidental e
europee.
Interlingua es le natural option pro un lingua auxiliar pro le Europa,
proque illo conserva le hereditage linguistic commun de Europa. Illo
es le option natural pro un lingua auxiliar del civilisation occidental,
proque illo es un standardisation del formas linguistic commun al linguas
de iste civilisation.
Interlingua non esseva create pro servir un certe function. Illo jam
existeva in potential quando le IALA (International Auxiliary Language
Association) decideva orientar su effortios a constatar e standardisar
le elementos international in le varie linguas europee, le qual a ille
tempore (1939-1951) esseva le medios del communication in le scientias,
le geopolitica al nivello international. A ille tempore le civilisation
occidental esseva le prime fortia pro le internationalismo. E illo es
ancora un fortia major pro le internationalismo. Totevia, mi puncto es
que interlingua jam existe como un phenomeno, le phenomeno del vocabulario
international in le linguas del civilisation occidental. Quando on ha
constatate iste phenomeno in un forma standardisate, alora on cerca
situationes in que illo pote esser utile. Iste phenomeno non essera
utile a tote gentes in tote situationes international. Illo non es
particularmente apte pro le communication inter chinese e japonese.
Mais illo pote servir ben le communication inter congolese e sudafricanese.
Le congolese sape le francese e le sudafricanese le anglese, e interlingua
es un denominator commun inter illos.
In altere parolas, le interlingua es un phenomeno objective, extracte
per methodos objective. Illo es assi lo que illo jam es.
STAN MULAIK
Steinar Midtskogen <stei...@ifi.uio.no> writes:
n mi opinion le latino classic e interlingua non son comparabile con
|respecto de lor applicationes. Como tu ha scribite, interlingua servi
|como un lingua auxiliar (io dicerea que illo es le melior option in
|Europa e America hodie), ma illo care alicun cosa importante. Io non
|sape sin falta que illo care, ma io crede que le simplicitate de
|interlingua es importante in iste respecto. Como lo explicar... Il
|me sembla que interlingua solmente es un multo potente instrumento de
|communication, ma le latino (o qualcunque lingua real) con su
|grammatica complexe pare esser apte a communicar plus
|"artificiosmente". Quando autores magne adoptara interlingua, illes
|requirera additiones al lingua, a fin que illes pote "jocar" (in le
|senso positive) con le lingua. Si isto occurrera, io time que
|interlingua perde un parte de su fortia como un lingua simplice. Ergo
|il es importante que interlingua e latino ha applicationes distincte.
|On dice que latino es multo difficile. Il ha plure inflectiones, sed
|su grammatica es bastante regular, dissimile le grammatica "simplice"
|anglese. Durante tres o quatro menses del autumno del anno ultime io
|studeva le latin, que se videva esser satis a leger e scriber (ma non
|sin errores). Depost io ha usate le lingua de tempore in tempore pro
|non lo oblidar.
|Pardona, per favor, mi lingua imperfecte (e interlingua e latino).
Vostre interlingua es excellente. Io non comprende le grammatica del
latino e io vos admira pro vostre complimento in apprender a scriber lo.
Io opina que le latino es plus difficile in su grammatica que alicun
lingua del gruppo angloromance--al minus pro parlantes de iste linguas.
Io ha subscribite a latin-l, un listserv pro inseniantes del latino,
e io notava que sovente le elementos subtil del lingua esseva multo
difficile, mesmo pro le inseniantes. Totevia, iste mesme difficultate es
anque un attraction, un defia al individuo a superar. A vices io ha
facite le demanda a me mesme si interlingua non esserea plus attractive
si illo conserva le accordo de numero e genere inter adjectivo e
substantivo, o le inflexiones de person in le verbos como in le linguas
romance. Le attraction esserea le defia. Mais le anglese monstra que un
lingua complexe e ric pote exister con generalmente un plus simple
grammatica--ben que le anglese ha multe subtil exceptiones, que es su
defia.
Gerald B Mathias
Mark Rosenfelder (mark...@huitzilo.tezcat.com) wrote:
: Not quite the same topic but I'm too lazy to give it its own thread--
: anyone know why "ginkgo" is spelled that absurd way? The OED is no help,
: except to provide attestations of various spellings. It's borrowed from
: Japanese _ginkyo_, so why don't we spell it that way? (The original
: Chinese word is yin2xing4, which nicely shows how far Japanese and
: Mandarin cognates can differ.)
OK, I'll start a new one.
I think years ago (back in the 50s or 60s) I tried briefly to find a
Japanese source for "ginkgo," but gave up.
When did the Japanese use the word _ginkyo_? Who borrowed it? I'll try
to remember to check the resources at the office next time I go in, unless
somebody else takes care of it.
The ordinary word for the ginkgo in Japanese is _ichoo_. The small
dictionary I keep here at home says it is from "Chinese," and gives
the characters for "duck" (something like "tshia" in Mandarin?) and
"leg" (*also* something like "tshia" in Mandarin?). (Or maybe "duck"
would be "ya"? It's the "turtle-shell bird.")
The nut is called _ginnan,_ so at least a "gin" like that of "ginkgo"
is attested in MJ.
(Trying to cross-post to sci.lang.japan)
--
Bart
"Without ice cream there would be darkness and chaos." --Don Kardong
"I wished I would of said that." --Buck A. Yarrow
Gerald B Mathias
It turns out I didn't have to start a new thread!
Mike Wright (dar...@scruznet.com) wrote:
: Mark Rosenfelder wrote:
: [...]
: > Not quite the same topic but I'm too lazy to give it its own thread--
: > anyone know why "ginkgo" is spelled that absurd way? The OED is no help,
: > except to provide attestations of various spellings. It's borrowed from
: > Japanese _ginkyo_, so why don't we spell it that way? (The original
: > Chinese word is yin2xing4, which nicely shows how far Japanese and
: > Mandarin cognates can differ.)
: I would guess that "ginkgo" is a misspelling of "gingko", which is a bit
: closer to the Japanese, since the syllabic /n/ does become [N] before
: velars.
Can you use "[N]" to write a velar nasal? In any event, Japanese and
English are the same in this regard, so "ginko" would have been the
natural spelling. (Cf. "He's a cashier at the bangk.")
: Strangely enough, however, that kanji combination is actually pronounced
: "ginnan" in Japanese, and means "ginkgo nut", while the word for the
: tree is "ichou", which is written nowadays in hiragana, though Nelson's
: and Rose-Innes show it as an alternate reading of the kanji.
: It kind of looks as though some early transliteration of the kanji was
: done by a non-native who looked at the individual characters and made
: some assumptions about their pronunciation in combination.
: This would be an easy error to make, since the pronunciation "gin"
: (silver) is the Sino-Japanese reading (ondoku), while "nan" for the
: second kanji comes from the native Japanese reading (kundoku) "an"
: (apricot).
There is nothing native about "an," any more than there is about "gin."
There was no Japanese word for that fruit, apparently, or else it was
given up in favor of a "recent" borrowing ("anzu") from Chinese; it is
what in known as "tooon" (the extra "n" must be the same sort of liaison
phenomenon that shows in "tennoo," "setchin," etc.).
: It may be that it was pronounced "ginkyou" at some earlier time, and
: that "ginnan" is more modern. _Ueda Daijiten_ would be one place to
: look, if you want to pursue it that far. What is the earliest citation
: given in OED?
The kan'on of the character in question is theoretically "kau > koo."
Maybe Mike is right, and some wise guy made the word up on the basis of
a mistaken reading based on dictionary entries for the individual
characters? Far-fetched, but this question has to have a far-fetched
answer...
Steinar Midtskogen
[STAN MULAIK]
> A vices io ha facite le demanda a me mesme si interlingua non
> esserea plus attractive si illo conserva le accordo de numero e
> genere inter adjectivo e substantivo, o le inflexiones de person in
> le verbos como in le linguas romance. Le attraction esserea le
> defia. Mais le anglese monstra que un lingua complexe e ric pote
> exister con generalmente un plus simple grammatica--ben que le
> anglese ha multe subtil exceptiones, que es su defia.
Io es de accordo, io vole solmente adder que le debilitate de anglese
como un lingua auxiliar es su plure e inconsistente nuances semantic;
io crede que le consequentia de un carentia de inflexiones es major
complexitate de semantica (naturalmente, le latino ha plure nuances
semantic tamben - specialmente proque illo ha un historia longissime,
ma mi impression es que le semantica de anglese es minus logic). A mi
proposito: Con interlingua on pote tener un semantica consistente,
assi illo haberea un advantage importante como un lingua auxiliar. Ma
si interlingua sera un lingua general (non solmente auxiliar), io
crede que on addera complexitate semantic, e le lingua devenira como
anglese, sin le advantage de hodie. Ergo io crede que il es
importante promover interlingua solo como un lingua auxiliar (como on
lo promover hodie), non como alique plus general (e pejor) si (quando :)
illo sera popular.
(Hm, io resubscribera a latin-l)
Tibi assentior, solum addam debilitatem linugae Anglicae pro linguā
quādam auxiliariā esse suos multos inconstantesque colores semanticos;
exitum inopiae flexionum esse implicationem maiorem semanticae
existimo (scilicet, multos colores semanticos habet lingua Latina
quoque - praesertim causā suae historiae longissimae, at semantica
Anglica minus dialectica est, ut mihi videtur). Ad propositum:
semanticam constantem Interlinguae teneamus, ut commodum auxiliariae
linguae habeat. Si Interlingua autem factura linguam esse
universalem, addetur, secundum rationem meam, implicationes
semanticas, lingua igitur similis Anglica fiat, sine commodo hodierno.
Ergo Interlingua pro linguā auxiliariā tantum promovendast (ut hodie
promovetur), ne quamdam universaliorem (peioremque) fiat si (cum :)
gratiosa fuerit.
wat...@hk.super.net
I've spent the last 30 years working in Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan,
Manchu, Mongol, etc., and since I started reading this newsgroup, I've
been bemused to see all this Interligua and Esperanto stuff popping up.
I thought only a few Chinese studied it as a kind of hobby [they still
publish a lot of Esperanto in China]. To me, it looks like a variant of
Spanish or Italian. Since a way over a billion people already read
Chinese characters, I think we have an obvious candidate - especially
now that writing in Chinese is as easy as this:
<big5>
何 故 學 假 做 語 言 乎 漢 文 已 經 有
</big5>
Plus, very little in the way of troublesome grammar to worry about: no
pesky tenses, genders, declensions, conjugations,... just logic and
ideas.
It's an idea, anyway. My opinion only.
Jens S. Larsen
Skribis John Richardson skrev / wrote / schrieb:
[note f'ups - quotes deleted]
> Essentially, Russian and German are used [in IALA Interlingua]
> as tie breakers when there's no consensus on the form or
> meaning of a word among English and the major Romance
> languages. The Russian and German words that are going to
> count are ones like 'intelligentsia' or 'zivilisieren' -
> loanwords from Western languages (not that 'intelligente' and
> 'civilisar' require this kind of tie-breaking).
Something similar takes place in Esperanto, except that words of pure
Slavic or Germanic descent are often used to fill in the semantic
gaps in the Romance vocabulary. An example:
voli : to want to <- German wollen, Italian volere
flugi : to fly <- German Flug [flight], Italian volare
s^teli: to steal <- German stehlen, Italian volare
[...]
> Look at it from this perspective. The problem facing all IALs
> is getting enough speakers to make them worth learning.
No, it is not. The problem facing the idea of an international
language is that most people are still locked up in a national way of
thinking. The problem facing those who want to preserve other
languages than English is the widespread idea that any activity should
increase material wealth in order to be taken seriously.
[...]
> Interlingua aims to break out of this predicament, in three ways.
> (1) It is designed to be understood by hundreds of millions of
> people who have never even heard of it, let alone learnt it.
> Its value doesn't depend solely on the number of other
> Interlinguans around. You can communicate with a monolingual
> Spanish or Italian speaker, for example. You can write texts
> that most educated English speakers can understand.
What do the interlinguans have to say, that is so important to get out
to speakers of Spanish and Italian and educated speakers of English,
that they can't wait for translations or people learning the language?
> (2) If you understand one of the source languages, you can
> learn it more or less by reading it. You don't have to make an
> upfront investment of time before you can profit from it as a
> passive user.
I still find it harder to read than German, and only slightly easier
than Spanish. (My languages are Danish, Esperanto, English, German,
French, Latin, Greenlandic and Spanish/Italian/Russian ordered from
native to smattering).
> It's true that learning to use Interlingua actively is harder,
> but this point has been vastly exaggerated by some of the
> critics.
Well, if you are allowed to translate directly from one of the source
languages, as one sometimes gets the impression, then for
West-Europeans the active use can't be that difficult indeed.
> As with any language (including Esperanto I suppose) you learn
> by observing and imitating. To be fair, I admit that you'll
> eventually want to pick up an Interlingua dictionary, and it
> wouldn't hurt to glance at a grammar.
Fair to whom? One important goal of foreign language learning is to
make language visible. When you learn Esperanto, again and again you
are offered common sense solutions to the problems of expressing
yourself. In Interlingua the appeal is only to the `learned
vocabulary' and scarcity of morphology.
> (3) The third point is one I've already made: the effort you
> make in learning Interlingua is intellectual capital for
> studying one of the source languages (or related languages
> like Latin). THis advantage applies to non-Western Europeans
> as well as to speakers of one source language who are trying
> to learn another. We Interlinguans don't really foresee a
> world where everyone learns Interlingua to the exclusion of
> other second languages.
Nobody really does, I think; the goal of an international language is
to widen the section of the population who learns any second language.
> So, to sum up, the basic "strategy" of Interlingua is to offer
> a language that's (1) useful to people who haven't studied it
> and (2) useful for purposes other than communication with
> other Interlinguans. To use the biz-school lingo that seems to
> be the true international language of today, we try to keep
> entry costs to a minimum while maximizing payback by
> identifying ancilliary benefits.
And where is the profit for those who market the product?
> Now, not all Interlinguans would accept this view. As far as I
> can tell, Interlingua has always had an "esperantist" faction
> that sees its primary value as being a IAL in the conventional
> sense.
Except that the esperantist faction of the Esperanto movement takes
exception to the "A" in IAL.
> Others seem to take the view that Interlingua exists, it is
> suitable for various purposes, and no one purpose is
> essentially better than any other. I suppose they'd be happy
> to see it used in schools as a way of improving general
> language skills (the way Latin sometimes is).
Any language can be used for that if the teacher has the linguistic
skills. They seldom have.
> If it found a role in international conferences, or for
> tourists, so much the better.
[...]
> The problem is, you can't be completely fair to all languages
> if you're following Interlingua's strategy. The impossible
> ideal is an IAL that's comprehensible to Chinese and Hindi
> speakers as well as Westerners. Interlingua takes the view
> that European languages have a vast common heritage (largely
> based on Latin, and more prominent in some languages than
> others), and that this is a good starting point for an IAL
> following this strategy. No doubt, you could construct an
> interlingua based on the Slavic languages or a kind of Far
> Eastern interlingua (interscripta?) based on Chinese
> characters. But these wouldn't be "fairer" than IALA
> Interlingua, they would just turn the problem around.
The Chinese characters actually do function as a kind of Far-Eastern
Latin, i.e. a learned pidgin. However, they are wound up with such an
utter contempt for the spoken language, and such a lack of purely
grammatical heritage, that as an international language they'd work
only in writing for Far-Eastern snobs. Classical Arabic does not have
those faults, but the same as a Germanic or Slavic interlingua would
have, and as the Anglo-Romance Interlingua does have, namely being
tied exclusively to one group of languages. Esperanto may have more
ties to Romance languages than to any other group, but they are not
exclusive the way they are in Interlingua.
> It's worth noting too, that Esperanto uses a vocabulary base
> very similar to Interlingua's. I've read that it's about 85
> percent Romance, with about 120 German words, and only a
> handful of Slavic ones. I think most IAL-ers instinctively
> realise that a totally "fair" vocabulary (20 percent Mandarin,
> 7 percent English, 1 percent Amharic, etc.) is a non-starter,
> as is a randomly generated vocabulary equally incomprehensible
> to everyone.
Well, those that occupy themselves with Loglan/Lojban don't trust
their instinct on this, and they've actually generated a vocabulary
more or less that way. Anyway, if millimeter fairness should prevail,
then the proportions should change along with the number of speakers
of the source languages, but of course the international language
gets a life of its own once it's published.
[...]
> Even many critics admit that Interlingua is pretty language;
> whether it would give you the same linguistic pleasure as a
> natural language is another question.
That's up to oneself -- de gustibus non disputandum. BTW, both
Interlingua and Esperanto are `natural' languages by definition,
inasmuch as they are used between people for communication or
ceremonial purposes.
> Some types of literature depend very much on the "gnarly"
> qualities of natural languages - which tend to be stripped
> away in IALs, less so in Interlingua than others. But
> presumably you enjoy reading Esperanto, so who knows?
I'm not sure what "gnarly" means, but if it's a reference to puns,
then they exist in Esperanto as much as in any language, only that
they are easier to access (and avoid) than in most second languages.
If it's a reference to the existence of common presumptions of the
speaker/writer and hearer/reader, then it builds up with time and
until then (and also later) loans from other languages can be used.
There are a few quotes in German and Latin in Zamenhof's Esperanto
writings, for instance, but that would seem somewhat pompous to do
today, at least when not accompanied by a translation.
--
Jens Stengård Larsen <http://dorit.ihi.ku.dk/~steng>
Don HARLOW
On Sun, 15 Jun 1997 18:30:43 +0800, wat...@hk.super.net wrote:
>I've spent the last 30 years working in Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan,
>Manchu, Mongol, etc., and since I started reading this newsgroup, I've
>been bemused to see all this Interligua and Esperanto stuff popping up.
>I thought only a few Chinese studied it as a kind of hobby [they still
>publish a lot of Esperanto in China]. To me, it looks like a variant of
>Spanish or Italian. Since a way over a billion people already read
>Chinese characters, I think we have an obvious candidate - especially
>now that writing in Chinese is as easy as this:
>
><big5>
>何 故 學 假 做 語 言 乎 漢 文 已 經 有
></big5>
>
Argh! This is _not_ a very good advertisement for Chinese...
Apart from which, there are several reasons why futurists should pay
some attention to Chinese as a potential contender, at least in the
ranks of the ethnic languages. One is that, globally, it is more
widespread than people seem to think, though primarily restricted to
the ethnic Chinese diaspora (not completely, though -- my brother,
among others, uses it regularly). Another is the rapidly -- and, for
some, frighteningly -- growing Chinese economy, which _may_ put China
at the top of the economic heap in a relatively few decades (unless,
of course, the Chinese government does something stupid -- and the
Chinese government, like all other governments, is not immune to such
a temptation). And, of course, speakers of the Chinese national
language already outnumber speakers of any other language (including
English) by greater or lesser margins, depending on where you go for
your figures -- and the figure is increasing by about a hundred
million every decade.
Addressing only the question of a _written_ international language
(which is what you have done), Chinese is considerably less
attractive. The primary problem is that it is very difficult to
leverage each stage of learning to the next stage -- far more so than,
say, with English, in which once you have learned to read a few
hundred words you can, with some egregious exceptions, read all the
rest. This may not be a problem for a language which a child will
learn over years (half an hour a day in spelling lessons all the way
through grade school) without having any actual use for it; but for
somebody who is fully grown and needs to learn to read the language in
a matter of minutes ... that's simply not possible for Chinese.
As far as the spoken language is concerned, it is not clear to me how
easily those not born to the language can handle its tone system. I
have tried, with some success -- if contributing to the amusement of
those around me can be counted as success. Of course, a "basic
Chinese" shorn of the tone system could probably be devised (I'm not
sure how the resulting problem raised by the huge number of homophones
would be resolved), but then we'd no longer have Chinese, but be back
to the question of a planned language similar to Esperanto or
Interlingua, at least in conception.
Don HARLOW
http://www.webcom.com/~donh/
(English version available at http://www.webcom.com/~donh/dona.html)
Prince Vermillion
In article <33A3C4...@hk.super.net>, wat...@hk.super.net wrote:
[suggesting Chinese as a World Language]
> It's an idea, anyway. My opinion only.
An idea better than many, but the problem lies in the fact that China does
not have enough cultural weight (yet) for the majority of the world to
accept its language. This, and the tonal aspects make for an alien
experience to most people lacking in a tonal language. The same goes for
the writing, which is not intrinsically bad, just an alien experince for
most people.
1 billion is a lot of people. 1 billion speak Chinese. 5 billion is more. 5
billion don't.
I suggest that linguists compile the most commonly used sounds and
grammatical devices and try to arrange them into a language. Remember,
everyone is going to have to compromise if we want a global language.
- Dave
--
Be like a Bobbit to send me mail.
David Sticher
http://members.global2000.net/sticherd
The drowsy and yet somehow alert Sticherus Maximus
Mike Wright
Gerald B Mathias wrote:
>
> Mark Rosenfelder (mark...@huitzilo.tezcat.com) wrote:
>
> : Not quite the same topic but I'm too lazy to give it its own thread--
> : anyone know why "ginkgo" is spelled that absurd way? The OED is no help,
> : except to provide attestations of various spellings. It's borrowed from
> : Japanese _ginkyo_, so why don't we spell it that way? (The original
> : Chinese word is yin2xing4, which nicely shows how far Japanese and
> : Mandarin cognates can differ.)
>
>
> I think years ago (back in the 50s or 60s) I tried briefly to find a
> Japanese source for "ginkgo," but gave up.
>
> When did the Japanese use the word _ginkyo_? Who borrowed it? I'll try
> to remember to check the resources at the office next time I go in, unless
> somebody else takes care of it.
Please. Some of us don't have many resources for Japanese. (Or, they're
buried in unmarked boxes on high shelves in the garage, that are covered
with dust, and likely to be full of rather agressive Black Widow
spiders.)
> The ordinary word for the ginkgo in Japanese is _ichoo_. The small
> dictionary I keep here at home says it is from "Chinese," and gives
> the characters for "duck" (something like "tshia" in Mandarin?) and
> "leg" (*also* something like "tshia" in Mandarin?). (Or maybe "duck"
> would be "ya"? It's the "turtle-shell bird.")
It's "yajiao" in Mandarin - actually "duck foot", which makes sense
considering that the shape of the ginkgo leaf resembles a duck's webbed
foot. I found this in only one of several Mandarin and Holo
dictionaries. A more common name in Mandarin seems to be "baiguoshu"
("white-fruit tree" - which also explains the name "yinxing" that
translates as "silver apricot" and seems to be the source, via Japanese,
of the word "ginkgo".)
[...]
--
Mike Wright
____________________________________
email: dar...@scruznet.com
WWW: http://www.scruz.net/~darwin/language.html