I made a mistake of writing bieng as phieng. Also zhiâng. I'll fix those in my blog.
Was the glottal stop initial distinct from the null initial? The book I read on Late Middle Chinese didn't suggest so, and I don't think it's any more "glottal" than a normal null initial than Cantonese.
In the same way y and w are initials in Cantonese really. Like, we pronounce Jyutping "ji6" instead of "i6" whereas in Mandarin people pronounce i, although yi is also OK. They would correspond to the palatal /j/ initial in Middle Chinese, which can become y, w, or h apparently, in modern Chinese languages (運 MC /ju(ə)n~/, Man /yn~/, Canto <wan6>, Japanese <un> ). Though, y and w are sometimes listed as initials in Mandarin too but apparently not officially.
Thanks
I guess you're referring to the pitch for your system.
Well, for my TCC I haven't really explicitly stated any contour, although I recommend ˥ ˩ ˨˦ ˧ (yim bieng, yâng bieng, shiâng, khiu) or ˧ ˨˦ ˥˨ (bieng, shiâng, khiu), which is what I base off of when I think about yours. The entering tone may be pronounced in any tone, but maybe ˧ or ˥ would be desirable. When I had to respond to a question in TCC though, I just uttered the tones in Cantonese. Wasn't particularly intentional but if people spoke TCC as their first language the different between the rising tones shouldn't be a problem, although it was more because I didn't have time to think about the tones.
For the level tones, What I have in mind is, either merge them as 33, or have one at 11 and the other at 55, for yim-yâng distinctions.
I like your choice for the rising tones, although looking at Vietnamese, could the rising tone of MC be more like that of Mandarin?
The thing I'm not sure about though, is with the departing tones. While having them as falling is a good idea (I think of departing tones as mid/near-mid or falling for the first impression), would the high falling and high level distinctions be hard to keep up with, for instance by Cantonese speakers? And eventually get merged? I mean, the fall isn't as drastic as that of Mandarin's, yet Mandarin's already being misheard as high level.
I guess I'm trying to make it easier for everyone, but then I don't imagine the voiced initials are something easy to begin with... At least not for speakers like me and non-Wu and non-Min Chinese varieties. Note that while I can distinguish between the French p and b (the French p sounds lightly aspirated while the b sounds like what I pronounce as the Cantonese b), I couldn't for Wu.
I'll probably make the entering tones the same as the level tones or the departing tones, or a mix of both after Canto and Hokkien.
My choice for excluding either the voiced initials or merging the tones is that they seem a bit excessive, like I've heard that "Cantonese lost the voiced initials, so to compensate, the yang tones are created" or something but the existence of both seem a bit yeah.
Still, I like how it is right now, just a few stuff that would make it more ideal in my opinion (although I'm not sure if they are affected by pesonal preference). As well as perhaps a variation between the labio-dental nasal and approximant, considering how both Sino-Jp and Sino-Kr borrowed that sound as /m/. For the case of Sino-Japanese borrowing this sound as /b/, the normal 明 (TCC m-) initials become /b/ in Kan-on (where mh becomes /b/) as well, so it's not limited to the 微 (TCC mh-) initial.
[tcchinese.tumblr.com]
Was the glottal stop initial distinct from the null initial? The book I read on Late Middle Chinese didn't suggest so, and I don't think it's any more "glottal" than a normal null initial than Cantonese.
In the same way y and w are initials in Cantonese really. Like, we pronounce Jyutping "ji6" instead of "i6" whereas in Mandarin people pronounce i, although yi is also OK. They would correspond to the palatal /j/ initial in Middle Chinese, which can become y, w, or h apparently, in modern Chinese languages (運 MC /ju(ə)n~/, Man /yn~/, Canto <wan6>, Japanese <un> ). Though, y and w are sometimes listed as initials in Mandarin too but apparently not officially.
Thanks
I guess you're referring to the pitch for your system.
Well, for my TCC I haven't really explicitly stated any contour, although I recommend ˥ ˩ ˨˦ ˧ (yim bieng, yâng bieng, shiâng, khiu) or ˧ ˨˦ ˥˨ (bieng, shiâng, khiu), which is what I base off of when I think about yours. The entering tone may be pronounced in any tone, but maybe ˧ or ˥ would be desirable. When I had to respond to a question in TCC though, I just uttered the tones in Cantonese. Wasn't particularly intentional but if people spoke TCC as their first language the different between the rising tones shouldn't be a problem, although it was more because I didn't have time to think about the tones.
For the level tones, What I have in mind is, either merge them as 33, or have one at 11 and the other at 55, for yim-yâng distinctions.
I like your choice for the rising tones, although looking at Vietnamese, could the rising tone of MC be more like that of Mandarin?
The thing I'm not sure about though, is with the departing tones. While having them as falling is a good idea (I think of departing tones as mid/near-mid or falling for the first impression), would the high falling and high level distinctions be hard to keep up with, for instance by Cantonese speakers? And eventually get merged? I mean, the fall isn't as drastic as that of Mandarin's, yet Mandarin's already being misheard as high level.
I guess I'm trying to make it easier for everyone, but then I don't imagine the voiced initials are something easy to begin with... At least not for speakers like me and non-Wu and non-Min Chinese varieties. Note that while I can distinguish between the French p and b (the French p sounds lightly aspirated while the b sounds like what I pronounce as the Cantonese b), I couldn't for Wu.
I'll probably make the entering tones the same as the level tones or the departing tones, or a mix of both after Canto and Hokkien.
My choice for excluding either the voiced initials or merging the tones is that they seem a bit excessive, like I've heard that "Cantonese lost the voiced initials, so to compensate, the yang tones are created" or something but the existence of both seem a bit yeah.
Still, I like how it is right now, just a few stuff that would make it more ideal in my opinion (although I'm not sure if they are affected by pesonal preference). As well as perhaps a variation between the labio-dental nasal and approximant, considering how both Sino-Jp and Sino-Kr borrowed that sound as /m/. For the case of Sino-Japanese borrowing this sound as /b/, the normal 明 (TCC m-) initials become /b/ in Kan-on (where mh becomes /b/) as well, so it's not limited to the 微 (TCC mh-) initial.
[tcchinese.tumblr.com]