<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><pre id="nonprop"><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arabic-L: Thu 19 Nov 2009
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <<a href="mailto:dilworth_parkinson@byu.edu">dilworth_parkinson@byu.edu</a>>
[To post messages to the list, send them to <a href="mailto:arabic-l@byu.edu">arabic-l@byu.edu</a>]
[To unsubscribe, send message from same address you subscribed from to
<a href="mailto:listserv@byu.edu">listserv@byu.edu</a> with first line reading:
unsubscribe arabic-l ]
-------------------------Directory------------------------------------
1) Subject:Buckwalter transliteration query
-------------------------Messages-----------------------------------
1)
Date: 19 Nov 2009
From:<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; white-space: normal; ">Andrew Freeman <<a href="mailto:andyf@u.washington.edu" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; ">andyf@u.washington.edu</a>></span></span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; white-space: normal; "></span>Subject:Buckwalter transliteration query
<br></span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; white-space: normal; "><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; ">Hello all,<o:p></o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.5in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; ">MY Question: How do I represent the contrast between the pairs /ay/:/ee/ and /aw/:/oo/ in Arabic and Buckwalter transliteration? <o:p></o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.5in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="AR-SA" dir="RTL" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">بَيْت</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> = /bayt/ Sana’a or /be:t/ in Aden.<o:p></o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.5in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; ">I cannot finesse this entirely because I am trying to do a close phonetic transcription and label audio sequences for a speech recognizer.<o:p></o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "> I am working with several transcriptions that are in a style similar to the “Library of Congress” transcription scheme for Semitic languages:<o:p></o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.75in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in; "><span>1)<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman'; "> </span></span><span dir="LTR"></span>The pharyngealized/emphatics are represented with a dot under the symbol for the phonetic segment.<o:p></o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.75in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in; "><span>2)<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman'; "> </span></span><span dir="LTR"></span>The ‘cayn’ is written as a super-script ‘c’, except for in utf8 text contexts where the superscript does not exist, in which case it is simply written as a lower case ‘c’.<o:p></o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.75in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in; "><span>3)<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman'; "> </span></span><span dir="LTR"></span>These texts represent late phonological processes such as intervocalic voicing of stops and the backing and rounding of high front vowels in pharyngealized contexts in the transcription.<o:p></o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.75in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in; "><span>4)<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman'; "> </span></span><span dir="LTR"></span>For all intents and purposes I can transform this transcription into and out of International Phonetic Alphabet without changing any of the information content.<o:p></o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.5in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in; ">I am also working with tools and transcripts that have been trained on the LDC corpora which uses the Buckwalter transcription or even just Arabic script. For all intents and purposes the Buckwalter transliteration can be transformed into Arabic script (and vice versa) without changing any of the information content.<o:p></o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in; ">My problem is that I have texts in both transcription styles that contain utterances from more than one dialect. The dialects in question are the “San’ani” identified Yemeni urban dialect and the “Ta’izzi/Adeni” identified Yemeni dialects.<o:p></o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "> Why is this a problem?<o:p></o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.75in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in; "><span>1)<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman'; "> </span></span><span dir="LTR"></span>The Northern Yemeni dialects including Sanaani maintain the /ay/ and /aw/ diphthongs in words inherited from Old Arabic. According to the only all accounts that I have seen (Feghali, 1990, 1991), Adeni produces these sounds as /o:/ and /e:/ which is what happens in most dialects with which I have any familiarity.<o:p></o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in; ">Maintaining this contrast in IPA is not problem. Preserving this contrast in Arabic script and Buckwalter transliteration is not so obvious. I suppose I can introduce the ‘e’ symbol into the Buckwalter transliteration scheme. However, using ‘o’ is not an option because it is already being used to represent the sukuun.<o:p></o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; ">MY Question: How do I represent the contrast between the pairs /ay/:/ee/ and /aw/:/oo/ in Arabic and Buckwalter transliteration? Any suggestions are ideas?<o:p></o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; ">Andy Freeman<o:p></o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; ">(206)225-0386<o:p></o:p></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Calibri, sans-serif" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br></span></font></div></span>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
End of Arabic-L: 19 Nov 2009
</span></font></p><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div></pre></body></html>