Re: Learning Hangul (Was Re: Neosyllabaries)

--- "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
wrote:

<snip>

> > > > How so? Are there exceptions, or do you mean
> > > > that the usual Romanization is full of holes?
> > >
> > > "The usual romanization" is a 1-to-1
> > > transliteration.
> >
> > Actually there seems to be 2 standard
> > romanizations and 1 ad-hoc one in my experience:
> >
> > One uses a diacritic over "o" and "u" for vowels
> > not in English.
> > The second uses "eo" and "eu" (and may have other
> > differences).
> > The one I think of as ad-hoc may well only be used
> > for people's names in passports and such and
> > uses "oo" where the other systems would use "u".
> >
> > Do all three of these systems reflect the spelling
> > rather than the pronunciation?
>
> Yes. That's why they're called transliterations and
> not transcriptions.

I know many people differentiate transliterate and
transcribe with the former having the sense "map
letters of language a to letters of language b" and
the latter "map the sounds of language a to the
letters of language b".
Unfortunately, most dictionaries don't make this
distinction so why the smart arse tone?

Here's what Merriam Webster online says:

transliterate: to represent or spell in the characters
of another alphabet

transcribe: 2 a: to represent (speech sounds) by means
of phonetic symbols

And how is every member of this group to know "That's
why they're called transliterations and not
transcriptions". I don't know the names of he systems
and you didn't give them.

> > > If it's "full of holes," then so is Korean
> > > orthography. If you call English spelling "full
> > > of holes," then so is Korean -- it's
> > > MORPHOPHONEMIC.
> >
> > I'm sure Korean orthography is more logical than
> > English orthography but that doesn't mean an
> > amatuer foreigner can figure it out without being
> > taught. Maybe a bit like an English speaker trying
> > to get used to French orthography without being
> > taught.
>
> Why would you think the _orthography_, as opposed to
> the writing system, is "more logical than English"?

Because I think Korean spelling is more consistent
than English spelling. I would think consistent
equated with logical. Where did I oppose the
orthography and the writing system?

I suppose the hangul writing system could be thought
more logical than the English one due to the shapes of
some of the letters and they way they fit each
syllable into a box. But the English writing system
isn't illogical... Not that anyone was talking about
this...

Andrew Dunbar.

> --
> Peter T. Daniels
> grammatim@...
>

http://en.wiktionary.org -- http://linguaphile.sf.net/cgi-bin/translator.pl

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