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on 2/23/04 10:44 AM, HandyDad at lsulky@hidden.email wrote: > --- In ceqli@yahoogroups.com, Rex May - Baloo <rmay@m...> > wrote: >> on 2/22/04 8:53 PM, HandyDad at lsulky@r... wrote: >> >>> --- In ceqli@yahoogroups.com, Rex May - Baloo > <rmay@m...> wrote: >> >> zv, zg, zd okay. I have a theory that dz is less clear than ts, and > zh and >> dzh aren't very distinguishable ? not nearly as much as x and c. > > I guess because I'm exposed heavily to Quebecois French, my > impression differs. In Quebecois, zh and dzh are strongly > distinguished, as are z and dz. x and c, not so much; ts is > unheard-of. I'll be. Really? I'm just going by what I know about languages. Big languages and the four sounds. If they're listed, they have them: Mandarin x c j Hindi x c j English x c zh* j *just barely! Spanish c zh Japanese x c j French x zh German x c Swahili x c j Portug x c? zh Russian x c zh Arabic x c j Indonesian x c zh* j *maybe Italian x c j Anyhow, that's what I came to. x/c often differentiated, but rarely does a language have zh/j contrast. Anyhow, this uses up the 26 letters nicely:) > > --SNIP-- >>> Solutions are: >>> >>> 1) Prohibit initial consonant clusters (therefore, all consonant >>> clusters). >>> >>> 2) Require full [e] pronunciation of letter "e" everywhere. >> >> I'll go along with this one. Now, 'e' at end of words should be > pronounced >> either as in bed or as in santé. I have no problem with the first >> pronunciation, but some do. Now, we have to distinguish > between e and ey, >> and that requires definite emphasizing the latter, almost to the > extent of >> making two syllables of it. > > Okay, that solves the problem as far as I'm concerned! And I > agree about the pronunciation of "ey" -- it's almost "eyi". Also, I > tend to cut "e" quite short when at the end of a word, just to guard > against its diphthongizing. Yes. I think Japanese makes a very strong difference, much the same way, between e and ei. > >>>> but if you think about it, it's analogous to the c sound >>>> x is to c as s is to ts. They're both actually affricates, as is j, >>> not >>>> clusters. >>> >>> Quite so. Remember way back when I was urging that 'zh' be >>> represented by "j" and 'j' by "dj"? And if we're going to have > "ts", >>> then why not "dz"? :-) >> >> As I wrote above, I don't thing those distinctions are as > distinguishable. >> You run into ts/s contrasts everywhere, almost, but never into > dz/z >> contrasts. Something about the voicing makes them harder to > distinguish, I >> think. > > By permitting schwa buffering, these other consonant clusters > don't have to be specifically forbidden; we just won't invent any > words that use them. Names might still use them, of course. Indeed. -- Rex F. May (Baloo) Daily cartoon at: http://www.cnsnews.com/cartoon/baloo.asp Buy my book at: http://www.kiva.net/~jonabook/book-GesundheitDummy.htm