Chinglish

[Tom Zurinskas]

I can play 'em.  How do I download them?


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 15:15:31 -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: "Gordon, Matthew J."
> Subject: Re: Chinglish
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> You can also download the wav files directly from m-w.com
>
> On a Mac you just click the sound icon which opens a new window to play the
> sound. Then you hold down 'control' and click the "click here to listen with
> default audio browser" link. This gives you the option to download the
> linked file which is in wav format and is readable in Praat.
>
>
> On 8/28/08 11:37 AM, "LanDi Liu"  wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 10:47 PM, Tom Zurinskas  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
>>>
>>> _________________________________________________________________
>>> Get thousands of games on your PC, your mobile phone, and the web with
>>> Windows(R).
>>> http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/108588800/direct/01/
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Randy Alexander
>> Jilin City, China
>> My Manchu studies blog:
>> http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

_________________________________________________________________
Be the filmmaker you always wanted to be—learn how to burn a DVD with Windows®.
http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/108588797/direct/01/

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