Update:
2011-12-31 06:49 PM +0630
TIL
ENGLISH PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY
Introduction
intro02-0.htm
Daniel Jones. Edited by Peter Roach, James Hartman and
Jane Setter. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Scanned by Maung Kan Tun and edited by U Kyaw Tun, M.S.
(I.P.S.T., U.S.A.). Not for sale. Prepared for students
of TIL Computing and Language Center, Yangon, MYANMAR .
index.htm |Top
DJPD16-indx
Part 2-1
Principles of transcription
2.1
Phoneme principle
Note: In the original book under the caption Principles of transcription,
there were subheadings:
2.1 Phoneme principle ; 2.2 Vowels and diphthongs ; 2.3 Consonants
2.4 Non-English sounds; 2.5 Stress; 2.6 Syllable divisions
2.7 Assimilation; 2.8 Treatment of /r/ ; 2.9 Use of /i/ and /u/
2.10 Syllabic consonants; 2.11 Optional sounds; 2.12 Elision
These have been regrouped into 3 folders for convenience of presentation as
webpages.
UKT notes
Contents of this page
DJPD16-roman08
UKT:
I am extending the two sections presented in DJPD16
"Principles of transcription" and
"Phoneme principle" to help the Bur-Myan
(those who speak Burmese and write it in Myanmar
script living in the country of Myanmar and abroad)
speakers to comprehend the English pronunciations better.
I am presuming that my target audience, the Bur-Myan
elders comprising the monks, nuns, and seniors of age
60+ that they are already literate to some extent in English
- up to the Matric or University Entrance level, and some
Pali particularly the Pali they use to recite their
Buddhist prayers.
It is important for us to differentiate a language
from the script in which it is written. English,
French and Spanish are languages, and they are all
written in the basic Latin script with various
diacritics. Similarly, Hindi, Pali and Sanskrit are
languages and they are written in Devanagari script.
Thus we have: English-Latin (Eng-Lat), French-Latin
(Fr-Lat) and Spanish-Latin (Sp-Lat). Similarly, we
have Hindi-Devanagari (Hin-Dev), Pali-Devanagari
(Pal-Dev), and Sanskrit-Devanagari (Skt-Dev) in
India. And Burmese-Myanmar (Bur-Myan), Karen-Myanmar
(Karen-Myan), Mon-Myanmar (Mon-Myan), Pali-Myanmar
(Pal-Myan) and Shan-Myanmar (Shan-Myan) in the country
of Myanmar or the "Myanmarland". The unifying
script is Myanmar, and each indigenous language spoken
in Myanmar is technically a Myanmar* language.
* The word "Myanmar"
{mran-ma} is used for the country, the person and
the language. Since there are many indigenous languages
in Myanmar such as Chin
{hkying:}, Kachin
{ka.hkring}, Karen
{ka.ring}, Mon
{mwan} and Shan
{rhûm:} in addition to the language of the majority, I
feel that it is necessary to denote the language spoken
by the largest part of the population as Burmese
aka Bama
{ba.ma}. Please note that the spelling "Bama"
is my own and "Burmese" is the widely accepted
spelling outside Myanmar.
On the orthography of Shan
{rhûm:} - a word of apology to my siblings among
whom my wife and I had lived for a few idyllic years
in Taunggyi: The word Shan has a very fricative sibilant
sound and there is nothing rhotic about it. Therefore
the use of
{ra.} with IPA /r/ is not appropriate. Since there are
no basic fricative sibilant aksharas in Bur-Myan, I've
looked into Skt-Dev for parallels. Among the {a.wag}
consonants there are:
Skt-Dev/IAST/IPA: - Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Alphabet_of_Sanskrit_Transliteration
110309
य y [ j ]; र r [ r ], ल l [ l ], व v [ ʋ ]
- semi-consonants aka semi-vowels
श ś [ɕ], ष ṣ [ʂ], स s [s]
- sibilants
UKT: Remember Romabama is in ASCII characters. Secondly,
Bur-Myan and Pal-Myan are thibilant languages with
[θ]-sounds, I have to use an approximation for
practical purposes. The following is for Pal-Myan
primarily:
Pal-Dev/Romabama - UKT110309
य {ya.}; र {ra.}, ल {la.}, व {wa.}
- semi-consonants aka semi-vowels
श {Sha.}, ष
{Sa.} - sibilants
स {þa.} - thibilant (Note: I use the
Old English "thorn" character þ instead
of the modern English digraph <th>).
The orthography of "Shan" should include a basic
fricative sibilant akshara similar to Skt-Dev श {Sha.}.
The sound is clearly related to ष {Sa.}
and not to plosive stop
{sa.}. The Pal-Myan plosive stop
{sa.} is represented in Pal-Lat as palatal <c>. Palatal <c>
is supposedly absent in Eng-Lat in spite of the fact that
a word such as <success> /səkˈses/ is made
up of two syllables in which the coda of the first syllable
is represented by /k/ which is very close to /c/,
and the onset of the second syllable is /s/. The word
<success> /səkˈses/ has a parallel in
Bur-Myan
{þic~sa}.
Therefore, I have to invent a basic akshara to represent
श {Sha.}.
{sa.} -->
{sha.} -->
{Sha.}
I propose to spell Shan as
{Shûm} .
To be unequivocal about the land of Myanmar, we
use the compound word
{mran-ma præÑ}. The word
{mran-ma neing-ngûn} probably refers more to the political
unit rather than to a land-mass with physical-geographical
boundaries. However, this second point should be checked by
those more knowledgeable than I. -- UKT110309
Thus the spoken language of the majority is Burmese-Myanmar
(Bur-Myan) meaning the Bama speech
{ba.ma sa.ka:} written in Myanmar script
{mran-ma sa}. To refer to an indigenous language such as
Karen we should say Karen-Myanmar (Kar-Myan) meaning the
Karen speech written in the Myanmar script.
The Myanmar script is the unifying
script of the land of Myanmar.
Speech divides us, Script unites us!
When transcriptions and transliterations are used, we
have: Pali-Devanagari (Pal-Dev), Pali-Latin (Pal-Lat),
Pali-Myanmar (Pal-Myan), Pali-Sinhala, Pali-Thai, etc.
I am attempting to introduce Burmese-Latin which have
named Romabama. It is a transliteration (not a transcription)
of Burmese-Myanmar. My hope is to extend Romabama to
become a workable transcription.
If you are a Burmese-speaker born in the land of Myanmar
(Burma), you should remember that once a person has passed
his teens, there is almost no way in which in he can emulate
a "native" English-speaking person. (What you
mean by "native" would depend on which
English-speaking country you are referring to. Remember
"native English speaker" is not the only one
from Britain nor from the United States where there are
many dialects and each is as good as the other.)
You are most likely to be phoneme-deaf. Similar to a
color-blind driver who can still differentiate the red,
yellow and green traffic lights, you can still differentiate
the various English phonemes which are about 42 in number.
You may not be able to speak like a native-born English
speaker, but you will still understand every word that
he utters. Furthermore, if you speak the Burmese language
(officially dubbed the "Myanmar language or Myanmar")
fluently, you will hear the difference between similar
Burmese and English phonemes. And once you learn in
your own sweet way, how to pronounce an English phoneme
differently from a similar Burmese phoneme, your English
pronunciation would become more understandable to a
non-Burmese speaker.
Since the phonemic transcription in this DJPD16 is in
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), it is imperative
that you know how the human speech is produced. I've
provided you with diagrams of speech organs and places
of articulation (POA) for some phonemes.
For those in Myanmar who would like to hear the
pronunciation by native-English speakers, I'd included
some sound clips in the previous editions of my work.
However, since I am finding that most of the times, they
do not work, I have stopped the practice. However, you
can go online and listen from various sources. Here is
one from UCLA: click on
Sounds and languages -The IPA chart sounds (this link no longer works -
UKT110311). I must urge those who have internet access
to go online and listen. You will find unexpected
pronunciations: /n/ in isolation sounds like Bur-Myanr
{nga.} instead of
{na.}. After listening to sounds represented by various
characters, I am beginning to wonder whether I am
hearing-challenged or simply put -- deaf!
Contents of this page
The basic principle of the transcription used is, as in
all previous editions, phonemic. This means that
a small set of symbols is used to represent the sounds
that can be shown to be distinctive in Eng-Lat, so that
replacing one phoneme by another can change the identity
of a word. We do not usually add phonetic detail such as
the presence of glottal stops, aspiration or vowel
devoicing. It is usual to put slant brackets /.../ before
and after symbols representing phonemes (e.g. the word
<cat> would be represented phonemically as /kæt/).
(æ = U00E6). [UKT ¶]
UKT: Transcription of a simple word like <cat> is
not easy unless we use two killed consonants in the coda.
This would be going against the rule set for Bur-Myan
orthography. However, since <cat> is a
"loan" word from a foreign language, we may
use more than one killed consonant in the coda. A view
concurred by my good friend U Tun Tint of MLC. - UKT110307
<cat> /kæt/ -->
*
{kakt}
<sat> /sæt/ -->
*
{sakt}
<tat> /tæt/ -->
*
{takt}
<pat> /pæt/ -->
*
{pakt}
If you are working on Eng-Lat alone you will find that discussing
phonemes is unnecessary complex. My approach is to take the four languages
of BEPS together and then proceed to Eng-Lat. For such a work it is
sufficient to compare only three phonemes:
IPA /p/ /t/ /k/ represented by
Eng-Lat <p> <t> <k> or
{pa.-þän} 'sound of
{pa.}',
{ta.-þän} 'sound of
{ta.}',
{ka.-þän} 'sound of
{ka.}'.
CAUTION: Unlike Bur-Myan
{pa.},
{ta.}, and
{ka.}, the Eng-Lat <p> <t> and <k>,
cannot be pronounced because they all lack the inherent
vowel. The Bur-Myan aksharas of the abugida are not exactly equals to
Eng-Lat "letters of the alphabet". To make the Bur-Myan
{pa.},
{ta.}, and
{ka.} equal to the Eng-Lat, we have to kill the inherent
vowels present in the aksharas.
{pa.} +
{a.þût} -->
{p}
{ta.} +
{a.þût} -->
{t}
{ka.} +
{a.þût} -->
{k}
We find the same situation in Skt-Dev
क + viram --> क्
त + viram --> त्
प + viram --> प्
However, we still use the 'oxymoron' term "sounds of Eng-Lat <p> <t> <k>"
for convenience.
IPA /p/ /t/ /k/ are all plosives and when present in the
coda are able to check the vowel (nucleus) that goes
before them. Thus they are also known as stop
consonants.
The transcription (based on what you hear) from Eng-Lat
into Bur-Myan is not straight forward because of the
paucity of consonant phonemes in Eng-Lat. I have said something on the need to
extend the IPA to include the missing consonants.
Extension of IPA for interlanguage study of BEPS : Bilabial and Dental
consonants
Extension of IPA for interlanguage study of BEPS : Palatal and Velar
consonats
The Eng-Latin
<p> <t> <k> sounds are not comparable to Bur-Myan
{pa.}
{ta.}
{ka.} unless they are preceded by the fricative sibilant <s>
{sa.} . Otherwise Eng-Lat <p> <t> <k>
sounds like Bur-Myan
{hpa.}
{hta.}
{hka.}. Thus,
<cat> /kæt/ -->
*
{kakt} -->
{hkakt}
<sat> /sæt/ -->
*
{sakt} -->
{hsakt}
<tat> /tæt/ -->
*
{takt} -->
{htakt}
<pat> /pæt/ -->
*
{pakt} -->
{hpakt}
We will test whether our above transcription with two killed coda-consonants
is a real necessity or not by dropping the seemingly extraneous "killed"
{k}
leaving only the "killed"
{t}.
{kût} --> <cut> /kʌt/
{tût} --> <tut> /tʌt/
{pût} --> <putt> /pʌt/
Changing the coda is found to affect the vowel. This probably is quite
different from Eng-Lat. I am finding that unless I accept this "fact" a
transcription deriving from transliteration is not a reality.
The Eng-Lat <p> <t> <k> sounds become comparable to Bur-Myan
{pa.}
{ta.}
{ka.} when preceded by fricative sibilant <s> (almost the same as Skt-Dev
ष ) . The combination or conjunct {ska.} {sta.} {spa.} is not allowed in
regular Bur-Myan. However, following the
{wa.hswè:} and
{la.hswè:} , Romabama has to introduce
{pa.hswè:},
{ta.hswè:} and
{ka.hswè:} ,and we get
{spa.}
{sta.}
{ska.}
.
<scat> /skӕt/ -->
{skakt}
<stat> /stӕt/ -->
{stakt}
<spat> /spӕt/ -->
{spakt}
When non-phonemic symbols are used, the convention is to use square brackets (e.g. the glottal stop
will be represented as [ʔ] (U0294). In entries in the dictionary itself, however, we do not
use these brackets, in order to keep the information simple; only in explanatory notes do we use
slant or square brackets. For an explanation of the principle of the phoneme and some of the
problems associated with it, see Roach (2000), Chapters 5 and 13. The use of phonemic transcription
in works on pronunciation (including this one) has remained in the "realist" tradition
established by Jones, while approaches to the phoneme by theoretical phonologists have changed
radically during recent decades and become much more abstract. There are a few exceptions to our
general use of the phoneme principle that should be mentioned here, however. One is the use,
in American pronunciations, of the [ ̬] ("Combing Caron
Below" U032C) diacritic to indicate the voicing and "flapping" of /t/ in
words such as <getting> /ˈget ̬.ɪŋ/ , and <better> /bet ̬.ɚ/ .
This is an important feature of American pronunciation, but speakers of British English find it
difficult to apply the rule which determines when /t/ is voiced and/or flapped. Another is the use
of the symbols [ i ] and [u], the use of which is explained in
(2.9 Use of /i/ and /u/).
Finally, it is necessary to use a number of special symbols which are not normally used for English
phonemes. This set includes some nasalised vowels used particularly in some words taken from French,
the [x] sound found in Scottish words such as <loch> , and some non-linguistic sounds
used in certain exclamations and interjections
(2.4 Non-English sounds).
Contents of this page
Contents of this page
End of TIL file