Re: Origin of 'hoomu'

On 7/12/05 1:24 AM, "Paul Blay" typed:

> "Ben Bullock" <usenet@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote ...

>>
>> If ふ used the same /h/ sound as はひへほ then surely ふぉ would be the same
>> as ほ and ふぁ would be the same as は and ふぇ would be the same as へ and
>> ふぃ would be the same as ひ. I don't think it can be the same sound.
>
> Your conclusion may be (mostly) correct but your reasoning is flawed.
>
> <disclaimer>I'm no phonetics expert, even slightly</disclaimer>
>
> Two separate, and somewhat contradictary, things to consider.
>
> 1. Kana, particularly _katakana_ of sounds not represented in 'original'
> Japanese
> can be used to represent spellings which aren't differentiated in sound when
> spoken.
>
> In other words just because ヴァージョン (4,510,000 goobits) is differently
> written
> to バージョン (4,540,000 goobits) doesn't mean that someone listening to a
> random
> person on the street asked to read one or another from a clipboard* can
> consistently
> tell which version is being read.

I disagree. While many people will not bother going through the contortions
necessary to pronouncing something like ヴァンクーバー in the manner
intended, many do, and it is quite different from バンクーバー. IMO, that ヴァ
　ヴィ　ヴ　ヴェ　ヴォ stuff both looks and sounds horrible. (Jeff, now it's
time for you to push your nutty idea again.)

It can equally be argued that saying that "It isn't Fuji, it's Huji" is
flawed reasoning. It is neither, or both, of those things. The deal about
Hepburn is that it was designed to get *English* speakers to say something
approximately like the Japanese. It's pretty good for that. It becomes
pretty hopeless for speakers of most other languages though.
"Fuji" gets an English speaker to say something closer to ふじ than "huji"
does, because both fu and ふ involve some labial frication: labio-dental for
the former, bilabial for the latter (I think it's a fricative, anyway).
But what is a Mexican going to do with either of them?



>
> 2. ファ フィ フェ フォ, and their rarer cousin フゥ, exist specifically to
> distinguish the
> 'f' starting spelling/sound. Therefore there is necessarily a stronger link
> between
> 'f'nes and those combinations.
>
> However I (mostly) agree with you in that /I/ also /think/ that the start of
> フ doesn't
> (usually) sound the same as the start of ヒ etc. This is, however, almost
> certainly a
> large part cultural background and not necessarily true in an absolute sense.
> I'm sure
> lots of Japanese people /think/ that 'la' and 'ra' sound the same but that
> doesn't mean
> that they are right in an absolute sense.
>
> In fact there are probably two ways of saying フ one on the /hu/ side and one
> nearer
> the /fu/ side. Japanese would generally have not distinguished between the
> two of
> them but given the large exposure to English language it is more likely that
> they are
> distinguishing between them now.
>
> * Don't forget to double-blind test if you try this at home.

.

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