/zh/ replacing /dzh/?

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 9/25/02 3:27:43 PM Eastern Daylight Time, mam at THEWORLD.COM
writes:

> Jesucristo, no "h". Spanish is more sensible than English that way.

Yes.  Typographical error on my part.  "Jesucristo" is correct.

However, not for the reason you suggest.  In Spanish "ch" is considered to be
a single letter  and is always pronounced /tsh/.  Greek "ch" as in
"Christian" is always rendered "c" in Spanish.

As for being "more sensible", the reason is that there exists the Spanish
Academy which issues strict rules on spelling.  Their policy on spelling is
to keep things 100% phonetic, e.g. Greek "ph" is "f" as in "tele/fono".  The
only variation from 100% phonetic that I know of occurs in the New World,
where the letter "x" can vary from its Academy standard, e.g. "Me/xico" is
/'me hee co/ no /'meks ee co/.

         - Jim Landau