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Why don’t Asian langs have a "see" sound | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6442 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 41 of 48 21 March 2010 at 3:28am | IP Logged | |||||
Sure. The way you pronounce the vowel in 'boot' probably qualifies. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| karaipyhare Tetraglot Groupie Paraguay Joined 5588 days ago 74 posts - 150 votes Speaks: Portuguese, Spanish*, English, Guarani Studies: German, Italian, French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 42 of 48 25 March 2010 at 4:34am | IP Logged | |||||
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the palatalization of the consonant due to the presence of a sound near is also
visible in the majority of Brazilian Portuguese accents, including the Standard Pronunciation, where [t] becomes [tʃ] and [d] becomes [dʒ] tempo = /tempu/ leite = /leitʃi/ time = /tʃimi/ verdadeiro = /verdadeiru/ verdade = /verdadʒi/ disse = /dʒisi/ 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| minus273 Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5768 days ago 288 posts - 346 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Ancient Greek, Tibetan | Message 43 of 48 25 March 2010 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
Not any more. However, in careful/older pronunciation, etymological /hi/ is pronounced [ɕi], while etymological /si/ as [ʃi]. The few (granted, an exaggeration) youngsters still speaking the language use the Mandarinish [ɕi] for both. Decades ago, the prestige dialect of Suzhou/Soochow (then much more prestigious than the urban boors of Shanghai) had a clear [si], but the /-i/ rhyme began to be pronounced as a fricative [ʒ], so I suppose it had now become [ʃʒ] - no luck. Edited by minus273 on 25 March 2010 at 2:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| MmeFleiss Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5985 days ago 58 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog Studies: Japanese, French, Spanish | Message 44 of 48 26 March 2010 at 6:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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"Si" definitely exists in Tagalog. In fact, that sound by itself represents a commonly used personal topic marker.
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| lithium Newbie China Joined 5351 days ago 2 posts - 3 votes | Message 45 of 48 04 April 2010 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, Mandarin has a sound like "see"，or rather, Mandarin used to have a sound like "see".
You can search for "尖团音" in wiki or Google, and you will find out how this kind of pronunciation disappears. As you may noticed before, in Mandarin, 剑(means sword) and 箭(means arrow) have the same pronunciation jian(pinyin). But how could these two simple and important weapons have the same pronunciation? In ancient China, when a general said 拿jian来(give me a jian), the soldier wouldn't be confused, because one sounded like "jian"（团音）, and the other sounded like "zian"（尖音）. Another example you may take is Tsinghua University(清华大学).But now it should be qinghua(pinyin) or chinghua(English). "尖团合流" was a very stupid decision made by some Party. It means that "尖音" and "团音" become the same. This harms Chinese by reducing one tenth of Mandarin syllables! Just take any Chinese dictionary and look up for ji qi xi, and you will be overwhelmed by the numerous homophones that should be separated in different syllables. Take English for example, zip becomes jeep, sip becomes ship, see becomes she...isn't it a disaster? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| DrM Newbie United States Joined 6228 days ago 12 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai | Message 46 of 48 05 April 2010 at 2:35am | IP Logged | |||||
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In Thai the word for colour, สี (See), is very common as well.
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| minus273 Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5768 days ago 288 posts - 346 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Ancient Greek, Tibetan | Message 47 of 48 06 April 2010 at 2:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
But anyway, the jian-tuan distinction didn't exist in 19th-century Beijing speech, either. The governments (starting from the first ROCs, so it's not some random measure imposed by the Party) and the media industry in Shanghai had both decided to elevate its phonological system as the National Tongue, so the merge of jian and tuan initials is a necessary, though maybe unfortunate, consequence of Beijing's prestige. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cyborg Ninja Newbie United States Joined 5348 days ago 17 posts - 18 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 48 of 48 07 April 2010 at 4:46am | IP Logged | |||||
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I can't believe nobody mentioned this. There's a passage in the Bible that reminds me of the s/sh topic. It's where we get the word "shibboleth" from.
"Gilead then cut Ephraim off from the fords of the Jordan, and whenever Ephraimite fugitives said, 'Let me cross,' the men of Gilead would ask, 'Are you an Ephraimite?' If he said, 'No,' they then said, 'Very well, say "Shibboleth" (שיבולת).' If anyone said, "Sibboleth" (סיבולת), because he could not pronounce it, then they would seize him and kill him by the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell on this occasion." - Judges 12:5-6 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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