Re: [OT?] Seeking for sample words in Yi, Cree, Lao, Sinhala, Tamil

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, Patrick Chew <patchew@...> wrote:

>
> _pri_nce [phrIns], more than likely [pirins]
> _Bru_nswick [brVnzwIk], probably [paransvik]~[baransvik] (not

long -aa-,

> I'd think)...

[pirins] and [piransvik] on the site that I have looked at. Thanks
for engaging in the discussion, Patrick. I don't have the
opportunity right now to do any primary research so I will have to
let it rest for a bit. However, thanks for engaging in the
discussion. I have nothing against caffeine and I did read your
entire post.

Suzanne McCarthy

>
> Tamil writing itself would not be constrianed by Unicode

encoding...

> Unicode encloding only constrains those of us who are trying to
> digitally present Tamil... so far as we know, all
> modern/contemporary/current needs for actualized Tamil should be
> accomodated by the Unicode standard... (note:

grantha/pali/sanskrit

> extended letters, if they ever existed in Tamil, are not included

in the

> Unicode block of Tamil... largely due to the sponsoring bodies not
> wanting or considering them)...
>
> My assumption would be that Tamil speakers who have not been

exposed to

> many loanwords or "foreign sounds" will still follow the

stereotypical

> description of Tamil by: adding epenthetic vowels to break up

clusters;

> by avoiding voiced obstruents in initial position (given that

voiced

> obstruents are restricted in current colloquial Tamil); etc etc

etc.

> Given that the above words are non-native, they will probably be
> "marked" in the Tamil speaker's mind as that and that loanwords

(and

> onomatopoeics) allow voiced obstruent onsets, it's possible..

though

> more than likely they will still be _written_ with <p>...
>
> The prior arguments that "because Tamil has [voiced obstruents in
> initial position]" it will then readily accomodate other voiced

initial

> obstruents doesn't hold with me. While there are many who will be

able

> to incorporate these novel segments into their phonemic inventory,

the

> previous trends of loanword adaptation/nativization have shown

that

> Tamil *will* devoice these segments... there are of course,

counter

> examples of new segments being introduced into languages due to

contact,

> but.. who knows what Tamil'll do...
>
> An example of "well Language X has Segment 1 in it's inventory,

so it

> should be able to accomodate it from Language Y" is pretty lame. A
> concrete example is Spanish > English... a *very* common word for

many

> parts of the nation: "taco"... Current North American English (all
> Englishes?) has [thakhow] (/takow/); source language (Spanish),

however,

> has [tako] (both unaspirated)... English, however has unaspirated
> versions of /t/ and /k/, c.f. <tie> vs <sty>, <kill> vs.

<skill>...

> (note also that for most American English speakers, voiced

obstruent

> initials /b, d, g/ are actually lax and unvoiced...) Phonemically,

they

> are not constrastive... and they are environmentally

conditioned...

> normative English phonotactics disallows unvoiced unaspirated

obstruent

> initials... hence, we don't say "taco" like the source language...
>
> ok.. enough caffeinated babbling...
> -patrick
>
> suzmccarth wrote:
>
> > So back to my original question - does Spoken Tamil have initial
> > consonant clusters such as "pri" (Prince) and "bru" (Brunswick)or
> > not? Are these represented as "piri" and "pira" in Tamil

because of

> > their actual pronunciation in ST, because of the constraints of
> > Unicode, because of the perception that Tamil writers have of

Tamil

> > pronunciation of these sounds or because of LT tradition? Why not
> > put a a pulli over the initial consonant? (I do realize that

this

> > wouldn't differentiate the initial voiced/voiceless contrast.)
> >
> > Suzanne