Re: Chinese dictation

From: Sean O'Leathlobhair (jwlawler_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 11/23/04 

Date: 23 Nov 2004 10:09:19 -0800

Richard Herring <junk@[127.0.0.1]> wrote in message news:<Wf3rOHDJ+woBFw8l@baesystems.com>...
> In message <d1835a57.0411230129.10a9822a@posting.google.com>, Sean
> O'Leathlobhair <jwlawler@yahoo.com> writes
> >Lee Sau Dan <danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote in message
> >news:<87sm7127te.fsf@informatik.uni-freiburg.de>...
> >> >>>>> "Dylan" == Dylan Sung <dylanwhs.tsktsktsk@pacific.net.hk> writes:
> >>
> >> Dylan> If you're distinguish characters from another character,
> >> Dylan> you could say it's the one with such and such a radical and
> >> Dylan> means so and so as in the compound XY.
> >>
> >> Just like "Janet(te)? With 'et' or 'ette'?".
> >> Or "D (B)? Bravo or Delta?", or "B for boy or D for dog?".
> >>
> >> Is that so difficult to understand?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> >>> How do you write [huz sOrd] in English?
> >> >> I don't know. Please spell it for me.
> >>
> >> Dylan> who's sword or it could be whose sword
> >>
> >> Yeah. It's strange that 2 persons who learnt English as L2 can
> >> communicate this way, and that apparently native speaker is seeking
> >> help from us.
> >>
> >>
> >> Dylan, could you explain to Richard how come you know the spellings
> >> "whose" and "sword" should be used to write down the words [huz sOrd]?
> >
> >The most obvious inference from Richard's request is that he is
> >unfamiliar with IPA.
>
> Or he's making a point about how spelling can be used to resolve an
> ambiguity in an alphabetic writing system ;-)

I was replying to LSD's surprise that two L2 speakers of English could
communicate in IPA when a native speaker could not. My reply was that
this should not be surprising. IPA may be useful to learners of
English but it is not necessary for native speakers. So I do not find
it surprising that some non-natives are familiar with English in IPA
and some natives are not.

Similarly intermediate learners of Mandarin could probably communicate
in Pinyin. I can read and write considerably more Pinyin than
traditional script yet I have met native speakers who do not know any
Pinyin. Is this as strange?
 
> > Is there some special reason why a native
> >speaker should be familiar with it? It is not taught in schools and
> >in my experience, it is not commonly known among native speakers. It
> >is not even commonly used in foreign language lessons in school. I
> >only encountered it when my interest in language went further.
> >
> >It is actually evidence for the effectiveness of the English script.
> >Natives don't feel the need for IPA or any other alternative spelling
> >(e.g. Pinyin or Romaji). IPA transcriptions of English may be useful
> >to foreign learners, as IPA transcriptions of foreign languages are to
> >me, but most natives do not feel the need for it.
> >
> >I have an English dictionary with IPA but I use it mostly for helping
> >foreign friends. I use it occasionally with English friends to give
> >them examples of IPA prior to showing them one of may foreign language
> >dictionaries.
> >
> >On your original question, "Who's sword" is rather contrived. Can you
> >give an example of a conversation that uses it? It would seem to
> >require someone called "Sword". In general, context should make it
> >quite clear which is correct.
>
> In the context of this discussion, context is exactly what's being
> assumed to be absent.

Ideally context would never be required but English spelling is not
ideal. Nonetheless, most of the time it is not required and it is
rare that more than a few adjacent words are required to resolve the
ambiguity.

Even in a very regular language such as Spanish, context is sometimes
required for dictation. There are a number of homophones
distinguished in writing only by accents and I think that the silent h
adds a few more.

I think that even Esperanto has some problems in which the word
boundary is unclear.

In none of these cases (English, Spanish or Esperanto) does the
problem render the script unusable.

Seán O'Leathlóbhair

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