Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!newsfeed.pitt.edu!gatech!swrinde!howland.reston.ans.net!psinntp!psinntp!psinntp!psinntp!commpost!usenet
From: pardoej@lonnds.ml.com (Julian Pardoe LADS LDN X1428)
Subject: Re: Esperanto - phonetic?
Message-ID: <DMD7K4.Kzr@tigadmin.ml.com>
Sender: usenet@tigadmin.ml.com (News Account)
Reply-To: pardoej@lonnds.ml.com
Organization: Merrill Lynch Europe
References: <4etl5h$3o7@epx.cis.umn.edu>
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 17:36:03 GMT
Lines: 39

Keith_Swayne@mindlink.bc.ca (Keith Swayne) wrote:
--> It has always bothered me that although one of the goals of Esperanto has
--> been a one letter to one sound ideal, this does not seem to be the case.
--> There is an exception, at least in practice. The letter c is pronounced by
--> most Esperantists exactly the same as ts. Accurate dictation is lost unless
--> you know the words. The whole point of true phonetic representation is
--> greatly weakened by this. I realize that Zamenhof, a Pole would make a c
--> sound different from ts, but the distinction is lost on most other speakers
--> and certainly unnoticeable in any Esperantist I've spoken with.

At least you recognize that there are people who can distinguish 'c' from 'ts'.
Most people who make this criticism don't.  But how far do you go.  As far
I as I can tell, many French people cannot say '^c' but say 't^s' instead.
Should E-o throw out '^c' too?

Nicholas J. Rezmerski <rezm0001@gold.tc.umn.edu> wrote:
-->I think the ideal is less important than consistency.  The letters t, s,
-->and c are each pronounced consistently in every word; none of them sounds
-->different when used in different words.  Each of the letters is a separate
-->phoneme with only one allophone.  The sounds for /ts/ and /c/ can be 
-->confused, but more often than not you can guess correctly which one is
-->used in a spoken word, without having to see the spelling.
-->
-->'C' is somewhat redundant, but the visual distinction has value too.

Yes, if you dropped 'c' what would you do with words that have a 'soft c', like
'centro'.   If you allow it to be pronounced /sentro/ one letter/one sound
is even more severely compromised.  On the other hand, writing 'sentro' won't
really do either.  I suppose 'c' could be /tS/, giving 'centro'/tSentro/.
That would also give us 'aceti' and 'cevalo'.  I guess we would get used
to those spellings.  Where 'c' came from latin 't' before 'i'+vowel another
solution would be needed as I don't think /statSio/ would do; 'statsio'??
Hmm!  All in all, I think 'c'=/ts/ is a good compromise.  It's not ideal but
it's better than any other solution.

-- jP --



