Chinglish

[LanDi Liu]

On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 10:47 PM, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com> wrote:
> We can reduce variability by using a standard pronunciation source like m-w.com, a very good one.
>
> I've got praat.  Somebody tell us how to copy the m-w.com voicing and compare waveforms and formant numbers.

Well, you can download Audacity and record the m-w sounds, then put
them into Praat.  Download Audacity here:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

It's easier to use than Praat.  Once you have the m-w pronunciations
in Praat, you can see the numbers for the formants for each vowel, and
compare the vowels in different words.

I'm glad you're considering looking at measurements.  If I stand
outside, it's obvious to my eyes that the Sun and the Moon are equal
distances from the Earth, but we all know that's not so.  I have very
good, and well-trained ears, especially for hearing vowels, but I
wouldn't dream of making statements about vowels to the linguistics
community without backing up those statements with some sort of
measurements.  Or if I did, I wouldn't do so very seriously.

Good luck with the formants.

Randy

 But it's obvious to my ear that the vowel sounds for "i" are
different in the following,
>
> ching vs chin
> wing/wink vs win
> king/kink vs kin
> think/think vs thin
>
> It's more than an allophone thing.  It's a full phoneme shift.
>
> Here's a thought.  Suppose you take the word "sheep" ~shee.  That's a true long e, right, as pronounced in m-w.com.  And you replace "p" with "ng" to make nonsense word ~sheeng (with a true long e).  Then say to other folks: "Spell this word - ~sheeng."  I predict they would spell it "shing" and say it rhymes with all the other "ing" words, like wing, sing.
>
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
> See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at authorhouse.com.
>
>> Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2008 08:59:18 -0500
>> From: gordonmj at MISSOURI.EDU
>> Subject: Re: Chinglish
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Matthew Gordon
>> Subject: Re: Chinglish
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> You can't ever take variability out of the equation. Each human vocal tract
>> is unique. Your [i] will have different acoustic characteristics from mine
>> due simply to the fact that they're played on different instruments. In
>> fact, there is intraspeaker variation too; each time you pronounce an [i] it
>> will differ acoustically from the last time you pronounced one.
>>
>>
>> On 8/27/08 7:57 PM, "Tom Zurinskas"  wrote:
>>
>>> I would like to trust the numbers to identify vowels. I've played with Praat
>>> (I assume the "aa" is pronuounced "ah" like "Saab" (foespeld ~aa in truespel).
>>> I'm not practiced at it but I find it hard to determine vowel identity by
>>> numbers or wave forms. If this is possible with practice, it would be a good
>>> thing, taking human bias and variability out of the equation.
>>>
>>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>>> See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at
>>> authorhouse.com.
>>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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--
Randy Alexander
Jilin City, China
My Manchu studies blog:
http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org