seeking advice

[Elizabeth J. Pyatt]

Hello:

I see that there have been questions about what the "American
transcription" system is. I was interpreting it to mean the use of
some alternate phonetic symbols - specifically s-hachek for IPA long
s, z-hacheck for Z (affricate), c-hachek and j-hachek for the
affricates; y to mean a palatal glide (vs. IPA /j/) and u-umlaut to
mean front-rounded vowel (vs. IPA /y/) and o-umlaut to mean mid
front-rounded vowel (vs. IPA o-slash); t-dot/d-dot to represent
retroflex stops; n-tilde to represent palatal n. This system is used
in some phonology textbooks such as "Phonology in Generative Grammar"
by Michael Kenstowicz.

Although it is not pure IPA, it is a valid transcription system used
by practicing phonologists, particularly those studying Native
American languages.

I have no opinion on wheter to use IPA or a modified transcription
system, although I agree consistency is important.


Furthermore, there is no reason to contribute to the general
perception that Americans just can't handle phonetic symbols, a
perception that is reinforced by the fact that American dictionary
makers, and only they, refuse to use IPA for pronunciation guides.

I think this refers to the practice of Websters and other American
dictionaries of using "cheesy" phonetic spelling as in "long i" to
represent the /ay/ or /aj/ diphthong. I also consider this to be
inane and very irritating. I hope that's not what the publisher wants.

I also concur that Americans can cope with British spellings,
although it may be a standard publish practice to translate items
into an American edition. For instance, my Handbook of the IPA,
printed in the UK by a British company (Cambridge University Press)
is using the American spelling (I did buy it in the US, so maybe it's
a special print run just for us).

So at this point, I would like to add a plea for my cheerfully
oblivious fellow citizens that if we have been exposed to American
editions of textbooks, it may be out of our control.

However, I have never heard anyone strenuously object to the
existence of British/Canadian spelling or seriously say that they
cannot read it. We just have to special order the books if we want to
see them in UK spelling (and some people do just that).

Cheers

Elizabeth Pyatt




On the other hand, some transcription traditions are older than IPA,
and I think it would look really funny transcribing Sanskrit palatal
glides with [j] and the postalveolar affricate with a [dZ].  Do we
really want to write 'joga' and 'radZa'?  Sorry, but even
German-speaking linguists write Sanskrit with 'y'.

Geoff Nathan

Geoffrey S. Nathan <geoffnathan at wayne.edu>
Faculty Liaison, Computing and Information Technology,
Wayne State University

Linguistics Program
(snailmail)
Department of English
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI, 48202

Phone Numbers
Computing and Information Technology:  (313) 577-1259
Linguistics (English):  (313) 577-8621


--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D.
Instructional Designer
Education Technology Services, TLT
Penn State University
ejp10 at psu.edu, (814) 865-0805

228A Computer Building
University Park, PA 16801
http://www.personal.psu.edu/ejp10
http://tlt.psu.edu
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