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From: John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>
Subject: Re: Transliteration of Cantonese
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Daniel von Brighoff wrote:

> What the Cantonese hear as a length distinction (short vs. long),
> Americans hear as a quality distinction (central vs. back).  I imagine the
> actual phonetic distinction is a combination of the two, but I haven't the
> data to support this.

By what I understand, Cantonese "short" vowels are at once short,
lax, and centralized.  Which of these you label the phonemic
distinction is up to you.

-- 
John Cowan						cowan@ccil.org
			e'osai ko sarji la lojban
