Chinglish

[Paul Johnston]

Tom:
Using a dictionary source, however good, does NOT reduce variability,
which is a core property of ALL human languages.  Sorry we mere
mortals, and yes, you too, don't follow the Almighty Gods at Merriam
Webster.  Nostra culpa. We learned to speak around our parents, not
books or computer speakers.
P. S.  I DO have an allophonic difference between sin and sing, but
the second is nowhere near my vowel in scene.  For me, sin has a
fronted barred-i, sing has a more "textbook" [I] (which appears
before velars, I think), and scene has a very slightly retracted
[i].  Sin and sing are at the same height, both lowered relative to
the sound in scene.  As I've said before, my dialect area is close to
both your native one and where you live now.  I suspect you have a
similar allophonic setup to mine and don't know it.

Paul
On Aug 28, 2008, at 10:47 AM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Chinglish
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> 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.  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.
>>>
>>
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>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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