Richard Wordingham wrote
:

> This message is encoded in UTF-8.
>
> At a LearningThai forum (
> http://www.thailandqa.com/forum/showthread.php?p=53513 ) we are
> discussing how to transliterate 'Adam Mickiewicz' from Polish to Thai.
> We are handicapped by the fact that the original poster is the only
> native Polish speaker. The transliteration of 'Adam' was dictated more
> by Thai than by Polish - we aren't shifting from อาดัม. For 'Mickiewicz'
> I'm working from a broad transcription as [mit͡s'kʲevit͡ʃ] (IPA),
> [mit_s"k'evit_S] (X-SAMPA). The main debate is on how to indicate the
> stress. Thai has an iambic stress, and would naturally stress the final
> syllable.
>
> The indication of tones in transcriptions from non-tonal languages is
> optional, but they may be used to show the stress.
>
> When transliterating English, the stress of a word like 'visa' is
> normally shown by leaving the first syllable with no tone mark, implying
> the tone contour 33, and marking the second syllable as falling 41.
> English monosyllables ending in stop consonants are normally borrowed in
> the high tone (55). What marking would be appropriate for a stressed,
> open Polish syllable? My feeling is that it should be a high (453) or
> rising (24) tone. (The high tone is dependent on the syllable type -
> some authorities refuse to equate the two, despite the well nigh
> impossibility of finding a contrasting pair.) I presume we would also
> have to fix the tone indication on the final syllable - the default is a
> high tone (55), but it could be converted to a falling (41) or low (22)
> tone.

The unmarked intonation contour in a simple declarative statement in
Polish (as in a matter-of-fact answer to the question "What was that
poet's name?") consists of a rather high head (typically downdrifting if
the prenuclear sequence is long enough), a mid-high or falling nucleus
and a low tail. The nuclear stress is therefore on the last syllable
linked to the high tone. I don't think the syllable type plays any role.
The nuclear intonation is falling if it's on last syllable of the
intonational phrase (given the Polish stress pattern, this happens when
the stressed word is both phrase-final and monosyllabic), but otherwise
there's hardly any perceptible change in the F0 of the stressed syllable.

> There is a minor debate on how to transcribe <c>. I am proposing that
> it be treated as though it were <ts>, as the only Thai affricates are
> [t_S] (X-SAMPA) (usually used in a pinyin-like fashion for foreign
> voiced consonants, such as English [d_Z]) and [t_S_h]. The alternative
> being proposed is actually to transcribe it using a Thai consonant for
> [k_h]! (There's a pinyin-like aspect here, too - Thai has no [g]. Thai
> also lacks syllable-final phonation contrasts, though it has acquired
> phonologically marginal syllable-final fricatives from English.)

I suppose both [t s] and [t_S] would sound equally OK to a Pole, and
either would do better than [k_h]. The cluster would be more faithful to
the melodic content, the affricate to the count of segments. BTW, the
same family name occurs as <Mic'kiewicz>, with [t_s'], though it isn't
the official pronunciation of Adam M.'s surname.

Piotr