Re: Literary phonetic alphabet

Nathan Sanders wrote:
In article
<81ce11a0-c5b2-428e-83aa-af9d6691c4ee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Iain <iain_inkster@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sep 26, 6:46 pm, Nathan Sanders <nsand...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article
<0430595d-f8da-48cd-a161-f7b427daa...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,

Iain <iain_inks...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 25, 9:33 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sep 25, 2:15 pm, Iain <iain_inks...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sep 25, 5:17 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

No amount of "respelling" can teach someone to pronounce sounds that
don't exist in their own dialect.

Which is why I think it would be good if their existed an IPA in which
poetry etc could be written.

IPA _does_ exist, and anything can be written in it.

But the shortcoming of the IPA is that it requires more memorisation
than most normal people are prepared to make. A 26 character IPA is
what international poetry needs.

26 characters won't cover the full range of sounds that exist in the
world's languages. That's why the IPA is so large.

And I'm not proposing\seeking an alphabet that specific.

Oh, sorry, I saw "language" where you actually said "dialect".

And parenthetically, 26 characters *is* enough for one language --
you're forgetting the possibility of digraphs etc.

How is memorizing a digraph different from memorizing a separate
single symbol? Either way, you have to memorize something!

Exactly. In what we talking about, I don't see, Iain, any difference
between (a) invented extra characters, (b) characters modified
with various diacritics, or (c) digraphs.

Take for example Czech. It has some 42 letters all based on the
Latin set of 26, and makes heavy use of several different diacritical
marks. There is also at least one native digraph <ch>.
It has its own place in the alphabet between <h> and <i>.
Apart from looking different and taking two print positions instead
of just one it's not any easier to memorize its pronunciation and
grammatical rules related to its presence than of any other letter.


Using digraphs also leads to potential ambiguity (is TSH a stop plus
fricative (rat shit) or an affricate (rachet)?), and potential
confusion when similar digraphs represent dissimilar sounds (if TH,
KH, and SH represent fricatives, then what does PH represent?).
Nathan

The digraphs get badly mangled most often when present in foreign
words. It's sometimes too easy for a reader to incorrectly assume
that he knows which language a particular foreign digraph is from.

Recently I watched a TV program about Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The English language commentator kept consistently and labouriously
mispronouncing 'Auschwitz' as if it were spelled 'Aus-schwitz'.
God knows how he managed that, perhaps he "identified" the
German word 'aus' and then pronounced 'ch as it were a French
digraph. :-)

pjk

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Literary phonetic alphabet
    ... A 26 character IPA is ... what international poetry needs. ... How is memorizing a digraph different from memorizing a separate ... Using digraphs also leads to potential ambiguity (is TSH a stop plus ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Literary phonetic alphabet
    ... A 26 character IPA is ... what international poetry needs. ... How is memorizing a digraph different from memorizing a separate ... Using digraphs also leads to potential ambiguity (is TSH a stop plus ...
    (sci.lang)
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    ... Unicode characters into Ascii equivalents would not work? ... What happens when you translate: ... Only THOSE characters would be translated into digraphs. ...
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  • Re: Typography of programs
    ... Nor is a simple character-by-character translation really plausible ... Unicode characters into Ascii equivalents would not work? ... BTW, I meant digraphs in the C sense, not the meaning you made up. ...
    (comp.lang.c)