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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Pronouncing your name in another language
Message-ID: <1995Jan20.132522.202@midway.uchicago.edu>
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Organization: University of Chicago
References: <3f5tif$l5o@nic.umass.edu> <9501423.14645@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> <rharmsen.138.00046F62@knoware.nl>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 13:25:22 GMT
Lines: 36

In article <rharmsen.138.00046F62@knoware.nl> rharmsen@knoware.nl (Ruud Harmsen) writes:

>Can someone clarify about this way to write Chinese? [Pinyin]  I 
>heard that the  distinction p-b ( and likewise t-d, k-g etc,etc) in 
>Chinese is not voiced-voiceless, but aspirated-non aspirated. 

In Pinyin, yes.  Keep in mind that there are many varieties of Chinese
and many ways of transcribing each of them.  The commonly-used Yale
transcription of Cantonese also uses b,d,g, etc. for voicelesss con-
sonants.

>Yet I 
>heard a Chinese say 
>Beijing once with a sound that looked like a voiced b to my ears. 

What language was he speaking?  If it was English, he may well have
been anglicising the pronunciation.  There was some discussion of this
earlier in the thread, i.e. not code-switching for the sake of
pronouncing a single word.

>There are 
>many kinds of Chinese I suppose, does that explain it?

Not really.  All the varieties of Chinese that I know of have either
a voiceless-voiceless aspirated (Mandarin, Cantonese) or voiced-
voiceless-voiceless aspirated (Hoklo) contrast in the stops.  There-
fore, they should all be able to say 'Beijing' (although keep in mind,
this is the form only in Mandarin; Cantonese is Bakging [pakkeng], for 
example).

If I posted anything incorrect, don't worry:  Scott Horne will come
along and correct it. ^_^
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
