--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, Marco Cimarosti <marco.cimarosti@...>
wrote:

> *1: I'll certainly discard these as they won't be known by average

Italians.

> Unlike Chinese restaurants, which are ubiquitous in Italy, Indian
> restaurants are uncommon and only to be found in main cities (and

are very

> expensive, so not so popular...). Curry, however, is well-known

from Chinese

> cuisine and is found sometimes in Italian cuisine itself.

Naan is the new comfort food of Vancouver. However, we still love a
good spaghetti.

>
> *2: C'mon, what's a "pautta"!? At least a hint: is it something

you can eat

> or something that can eat you?

Neither, Buddha. (I did recheck the vowel on this one.)
The other one is Deepavali but too obscure, sorry.

>
> *3: Is this only the historical emperor Ashoka, or is it also a

common name

> for men?

The emperor I believe.

>
> *4: Possibly a bureacratic term only to be seen in official

documents,

> right?

I saw it as an easy example of word beginning with an independent
vowel form on a Tamil learning site. However, I have seen it
elsewhere. I have definitely seen amerikka elsewhere too in 'North
America'. For many things I have seen both loanwords and native
Tamil words. You probably know that there is no comprehensive and
reliable online Tamil dictioanary that is easy to access so I can't
check with an authoritate source. These are just words that I have
seen on Tamil sites.

>
> > I do have a nice list of Canadiana [...]
>
> Thanks, no. It would be hard to explain why most of my Tamil

samples are

> related to Canada. :-)

That is what I thought.

>
> The only word that I miss a bit is the noun "Tamil" itself.

I reposted my page with Tamil at the top - 'thamizh'. To my flawed
perception Tamil is pronounced as you expect from the English
spelling 'Tamil'. The /zh/ value given to the final 'l' seems to
differentiate in spelling the back 'l' from a front 'l' I have never
heard a Tamil say anything close to 'thamizh' although that is how
it is transliterated.

> Japanese, Chinese, and Korean come to mind. In Japanese, the

intervening

> vowels are almost invariably "i" after palatals (e.g. "mecchi"

= "match")

> and "u" after other consonants (e.g. "birudingu" = "building").
>
> But I've found a similar trend for cluster splitting in most

script which

> are somehow "syllabic", e.g. Maldivian ("kureditu kaadu" = "credit

card").

>

That is what I thought but didn't have examples.

> However, it must not be only a consequence of writing system:

e.g., the

> central and southern Italian pronunciation for "soft" and "hard"

(English

> loanwords, used as abbreviatoon of either "soft porn" and "hard

(core) porn"

> or "software" and "hardware") is /'sOffete/ and /'arde/.

And "ìcchese"

> (/'ikkese/) is a regular variants for "ics" (/'iks/: the name of

letter

> "X").

Possibly, but the argument from the Tamil seems to be that they
don't alter the pronunciation, they simply perceive the near-
voiceless vowel which Hindi and English speakers do not perceive.
The Tamil have considered but more or less rejected using all the
grantha characters for consonant conjuncts. It is an ongoing
debate. They won't use the pulli or consonant plus inherent vowel
form.

>
> Now, how about Yi, Cree or Inuktitut anyone?
>
> In Inuktitut I have "Inuit", "Europmiuk"

(= 'Europeans'), "silabiks"

> ('syllabics'), and "Kanada". As the script was originally for

Cree, I'd like

> to have also some Cree words.

I had to uninstall my Cree editor since it was a also a keyman and
interfered with my Tamil keyman. I lack the time and patience to
sort it all out so I chucked Cree for a while.

Suzanne

> Yi (aka Lolo, spoken in Yunnan, China) is the language which

worries me

> more, as I can't really find anything anywhere, either on paper or

on the

> net.
>
> --
> Marco