MC-in-vow.htm
by U Kyaw Tun (UKT) (M.S., I.P.S.T., USA) and staff of Tun Institute of Learning (TIL) . Not for sale. No copyright. Free for everyone. Prepared for students and staff of TIL Computing and Language Center, Yangon, MYANMAR : http://www.tuninst.net , www.romabama.blogspot.com
Addenda to edited version of A Practical Sanskrit Distionary,
by A. A. Macdonell, 1893,
http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/MDScan/index.php?sfx=jpg;
1929.
Nataraj ed. (reprint of 1914ed.), 1st in 2006, 2012.
• The sounds of a language or speech
•
Two writing systems : Abugida-Akshara
vs. Alphabet-Letter -
basis of Abugida is Sonant-Letter,
that of Alphabet is Mute-Letter.
•
Intrinsic vowel aka inherent vowel
of the basic unit of the abugida
• The Virama or
A'thut
{a.þût}
•
Iintrinsic-vowel across languages :
though the basic
Bur-Myan consonants have only one
intrinsic vowel, /a/, Mon-Myan have two, /a/
& /é/.
UKT notes :
• ASCII - for
writing text on the computer for Internet
and email.
• IAST (International
Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration) - allows
the use of Capital letters as in regular
English. That is almost the sole advantage over
Romabama. It is non-ASCII and is quite useless
for Internet and email. Moreover, it gives
wrong pronunciation for many Bur-Myan words.
- UKT 150918
In
the Human speech that we speak and hear, the vowels are the most crucial. Though
we may know a lot about consonants, their places of articulation (POA) and
manner of articulation because we can directly see these points in various
places of an open mouth. Yet we know next to nothing about the vowels because
they are produced way down in the throat in the voice-box by the vibrating
vocal folds which were known at one time as the vocal cords (sometimes
likened to guitar strings).
The structure mainly responsible is the hyoid bone which is the only bone in the human body that is not firmly attached to any other bone.
The hyoid bone is "suspended" by many muscles as shown in the figure. Speakers of different linguistic groups use different sets of muscles to produced the same vowel. Thus a vowel, say <i> /i/ or <u> /u/, is produced differently by different linguistic groups. The difference is found from group to group, from individual speaker to speaker, and even in the same individual depending on sex, age, and health. Thus a vowel is not the same - it has many overlaps.
At present the most reliable way to study the vowels is by instrumental analysis of the sound waves by acoustic phonetics. The sound produced by each speaker is recorded and the sound-waves analysed. Using a mathematical analysis known as Fourier analysis, quantitative values known as Formants, particularly F1 and F2, are found. The positions of F1 and F2 give precise positions of front-vowels & back-vowels, independent of human observers. The overlaps mentioned above are given in the figure.
The vowels production is accompanied by the movements of
the tongue-body and the lips, and they have been
described as either as front vowels
a , ɛ , e , i ,
or back vowels
u , o , ɔ , ɑ ,
and, also as as "spread" or
"rounded". The front vowels
are usually spread, whilst the back are usually
rounded.
A more realistic representation of tongue-body movement is shown by an elliptical space drawn in red. It is known as the "vowel space". It is usually described by the 2-D Daniel Jones' vowel quadrilateral.
Below, I have given two 3-D diagrams to include Sanskrit Rhotic and Lateral vowels.
Even before the discovery of electronic means to record the human voice sounds directly, attempts have been made them to record them graphically by various techniques which we call writing systems or scripts. In our study of BEPS, we are concerned with two writing systems.
The aim of a writing system is to
make a graphical representation of the
Human voice.
See Section 1, especially Human voice,
Phonetics and Phonology -
HV-indx.htm (link chk 150924)
Human Sound Production -
human-snd.htm (link chk 150924)
and look into
Graphical representation of the human
speech
and read downloaded
• Speech considered as modulated voice
by H. Traumüller, 2001?
See downloaded pdf file in TIL
SD-Library -
Traunmuller<Ô> (link chk 150910)
(I still have to work on Traumüller's work.)
Just to convey an idea can be expressed in
an ideograph such as a Yan: a symbol-filled
swastika is not a writing system to represent
the human voice. The Yan conveys an idea, a
prayer, an incantation but it does not tell
us anything about the human voice that
accompanies it.
Some of the text below are from Wikipedia:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-writing 150911
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing 150911
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictogram 150911
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinča_symbols 150911
"The early writing systems that emerged in Eurasia in the early 3rd millennium BC [about 2500 years before the birth of the Gautama Buddha] were not a sudden invention. Rather, they were a development based on earlier traditions of symbol systems that cannot be classified as writing proper, but have many characteristics strikingly similar to writing. These systems may be described as proto-writing. They used ideographic and/or early mnemonic symbols to convey information yet were probably devoid of direct linguistic content. These systems emerged in the early Neolithic period, as early as the 7th millennium BC." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-writing 150911
Then comes the pictographic writing.
"A pictogram, also called a
pictogramme, pictograph, or
simply picto, and also an 'icon'
[on the computer], is an ideogram that
conveys its meaning through its pictorial
resemblance to a physical object. Pictographs
are often used in writing and graphic systems
in which the characters are to a considerable
extent pictorial in appearance. Pictography
is a form of writing which uses
representational, pictorial drawings,
similarly to cuneiform and, to some
extent, hieroglyphic writing, which
also uses drawings as phonetic letters or
determinative rhymes. In certain modern
use, pictograms participants to a formal
language (e.g.
Hazards pictograms)." -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictogram
150911
UKT 150914: Determinative rhymes are a part of sound-to-marking system as can be seen in nursery rhymes, such as: <)) (link chk 150924)
"Twinkle, twinkle, litter star ,
How we wonder what you are"."Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky."-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinkle-Star-rhyme.22_version 150914
In the following analysis, I am giving Phonetics terms. Refer to DJPD16 (Daniel Jones' Pronouncing Dictionary, 16 ed.). In the above, you will hear only a tune: no words. Just concentrate on rhymes of:
<star> /stɑːʳ/ (US) /stɑːr/
<are> /ɑːʳ/ (US) /ɑːr/The rhyming vowel in RP (British Received Pronunciation), and GA (General American) is open-back /ɑː/
{au:}, but in Canadian dialect it is open-front /a:/
{a}. Bur-Myan speakers tend to have a Canadian pronunciation.
Next concentrate on the rhymes of:
<high> /haɪ/
<sky> /skaɪ/The rhyming vowel is the same in RP and GA /aɪ/. The common Bur-Myan spelling
{aïn} or {aing} does not do because of the ending nasal sound! At present the only option that I have to come up a new convention - that of
{a.}-killed, and write
{ aï }
Then come writing systems which represent the Human voice. "True writing, in which the content of a linguistic utterance is encoded so that another reader can reconstruct, with a fair degree of accuracy, the exact utterance written down is a later development. It is distinguished from proto-writing which typically avoids encoding grammatical words and affixes, making it more difficult or impossible to reconstruct the exact meaning intended by the writer unless a great deal of context is already known in advance. One of the earliest forms of written expression is cuneiform". - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing 150911
Representation of Human voice in writing should be a two-way street. Script --> Sound, must be as reliable as Sound --> Script. Sound ⇄ Script. However, the Alphabetic-Mute Letter system as found in English-Latin is not at all reliable as it should be. Pronounce an English word as it is spelled and you are in trouble. Using the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is quite good for Western European languages, but failed when applied to Indic languages of the Asokan genre. We will be discussing more on this line in the following paragraphs and files.
In Asokan and its derivatives there is an
inherent vowel within the basic unit,
represented by a glyph, e.g. as
{ta.}, त «ta», /ta/ [Take care of
brackets: Bur-Myan representation within
{...}, Skt-Dev representation within «...»,
IPA representation within /.../. ].
For example, the "glyph"
{ta.} (or त «ta») represents the
"sound" /ta/. This is the
basic unit of the Asokan method of writing.
The basic unit has an inherent vowel which
is said to be close to "English short
<a>". This method of writing
is now known as an Abugida. See Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abugida
150805
Though the term "Abugida" has been proposed by Peter T. Daniels in 1990, many still prefer to use its generic name "alphasyllabary". It was also known as Syllabics at one time. At present the term Syllabics is still used for Canadian First Nations' Abugida languages.
The Abugida-Akshara writing system is
described under the rubric Abugida or
Alpha-syllabic languages. The term
Abugida is a relatively new word introduced
by Peter T. Daniels only in 1990. Even now,
Abugida-Akshara system of writing
is not well understood. We must emphasize that
the syllable (pronounceable) is the basic unit
of the system. The other system is the
Alphabet-Letter writing system in which
the basic unit - the Letter - is mute (not
pronounceable). I came across these two very
different systems of writing in the website
Ancient Scripts a long time ago. As a
thank you note I am including a logo of
Ancient Scripts -
http://www.ancientscripts.com/ 150904
To
emphasize the unchanging script to sound
one-to-one correspondence the term Akshara
is used for Asokan genre languages of the Indian
subcontinent and South-East Asia, which has led
us to the hyphenated term Abugida-Akshara.
We can then use the term "Letter"
instead of "Mute Letter" for the basic
unit of the Alphabetic system. In other words:
• Abugida-writing system: sonant Akshara (pronounceable) is the basic unit
• Alphabetic-writing system: mute Letter (non-pronounceable) is the basic unit
• Sonant Akshara can be made mute, by employing an instrument known as Virama (Viram for short) known in Bur-Myan as
{a.þût}-sign -->
{t}
¤ The reverse process of above is found in Georgian where თ ( U10D7 letter Tan) is a mute letter - not an akshara.
თ + anti-viram ა (U10D0 letter An) --> თა (which is pronounced as /ta/)
Because of unchanging nature of the Akshara, the meanings of words in ancient languages and those in modern words remain almost the same. And we can rely on the Akshara representation to arrive at the basic pronunciation of ancient languages. Abugida-Akshara writing is Phonetic (rigorously specifying in which part of the mouth the sound is produced and how it is produced). If the modern descendants and their ancient fore-parents are genetically the same, we can have a fair idea of how the ancients would have spoken. However if the modern pronunciations are misrepresented by non-native phoneticians we can be in trouble. This is seen in the case of Bur-Myan words wrongly represented by Western phoneticians. Now look into the following definitions:
pho·neme n. Linguistics 1. The smallest phonetic unit in a language [sound] that is capable of conveying a distinction in meaning, as the m of mat and the b of bat in English. -- AHTD
graph·eme n. 2. All of the letters and letter combinations [script, mark, or glyph] that represent a phoneme [sound] as f , ph, and gh for the phoneme /f/. -- AHTD
UKT 150805: Read the above two dictionary meanings carefully and make the note: a glyph can represent more than one sound. It is only true in Alphabetic systems where there is no one-to-one mapping between script and speech. It is not so in Akshara systems where the aim is to have a one-to-one mapping. Bur-Myan is an Akshara system, and if you [as a foreigner] cannot find a one-to-one mapping in a person's or in a group's manner of speaking, it is your own fault or the fault of the casual speaker (commonly described as colloquial pronunciation which the foreign phoneticians rely on). It is not the fault of the system. No matter how much phonetic training the foreign phonetician may have, he is still a "prisoner" of his mother-tongue aka L1.
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis /ˈwɔːf/
linguistics noun a hypothesis, first advanced by Edward Sapir in 1929 and subsequently developed by Benjamin Whorf [a chemical engineer by training], that the structure of a language determines a native speaker's perception and categorization of experience. - Google definition. See also:
- http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Sapir-Whorf+hypothesis 150909The foreigner should make use of our adage:
/
/
{ré:tau. a.mhûn/ hpût-tau. a.þûn//}and rely on how a word is spelled in Bur-Myan.
{a.þût} - UKT 150913
Abugida-Akshara system of writing is
fundamentally different from the
Alphabetic-Letter system. To change
Akshara to Alphabet, all you have to do
is to split the basic unit of the akshara
into two phonemes, e.g. for
{ta.} splitting into /t/ and /a/, and kill
the intrinsic vowel commonly represented by
English letter < a >. Note:
though represented by a , we do not mean
that it has the exact pronunciations usually
found in English-letter a , which can
have a few number of pronunciation. See
• English pronunciation guide -
EPG-indx.htm (link chk 150912)
From Principles of Script, Ch 9.1 Devanagari, The Unicode Standard 4.0, 2003
Downloaded pdf in TIL SD-Library - Unicode4<Ô> (link chk 150908)
Consonant Letters. Each consonant letter represents a single consonantal sound but also has the peculiarity of having an inherent vowel, generally the short vowel /a/ in Devanagari and the other Indic scripts. Thus U+0915 DEVANAGARI LETTER KA represents not just /k/ but also /ka/. In the presence of a dependent vowel, however, the inherent vowel associated with a consonant letter is overridden by the dependent vowel.
Virama (Halant). Devanagari employs a [visible or explicit] sign known in Sanskrit as the virama [which I commonly shorten to viram ] or vowel omission sign. In Hindi it is called hal or halant, and that term is used in referring to the virama or to a consonant with its vowel suppressed by the virama; the terms are used interchangeably in this section.
UKT 150913: Pal-Myan does not employ a visible or explicit sign,
Because Pal-Myan does not employ a visible
The virama sign, U+094D DEVANAGARI SIGN VIRAMA , nominally serves to cancel (or kill) the inherent vowel of the consonant to which it is applied. When a consonant has lost its inherent vowel by the application of virama, it is known as a dead consonant; in contrast, a live consonant is one that retains its inherent vowel or is written with an explicit dependent vowel sign. In the Unicode Standard, a dead consonant is defined as a sequence consisting of a consonant letter followed by a virama. The default rendering for a dead consonant is to position the virama as a combining mark bound to the consonant letterform.
UKT continues:
Remember that the English syllable has the canonical structure CVC, where the consonants are mute Letters, whereas Bur-Myan syllable has CVÇ where onset C is not mute (akshara), but coda Ç is - (killed-akshara).
If I were to specify the Georgian letter
"An" ა (U10D0), as a vowel,
I can take it mean that it is the opposite
of Viram
{a.þût}
् , and call it anti-viram :
• Using the change
can turn Bur-Myan
to Georgian თა (U10D7+U10D0): both pronounced as /ta/.
A second kind is the nuclear vowel
of the syllable which has the canonical
structure, CVÇ. The first C is known
as the initial consonant or onset C,
V the nuclear vowel V, and the end
consonant or the coda Ç. Notice how
onset and coda are represented: C &
Ç . The coda has a special sign known
as the virama or viram
{a.þût}
् "the vowel killer":
{pa.} प /pa/ + viram
{p} प् /p/
{ka.} क /ka/ + viram
{k} क् /k/
Note: if a word written in Myanmar akshara
has both
{paaHT-hsing.} and
{a.þût}, it is Skt-Myan. If it has only
{paaHT-hsing.} and no
{a.þût}, it is Pal-Myan. Bur-Myan words can
have both
{paaHT-hsing.} and
{a.þût}.
It is a curious fact that the intrinsic vowel
is not represented explicitly (as vowel-signs)
in both Devanagari and Myanmar scripts, and
in other Asokan languages. Vowel signs are
those similar to "diacritical marks"
used to modify consonants. Vowel sign in
Devanagari is a circle and in Myanmar a
horizontal line.
त «ta» + ा «ā»-sign --> ता «tā»
{a}-sign -->
{ta}
त «ta» + ि «i»-sign --> ति «ti»
{i}-sign -->
{ti.}
त «ta» + ी «ī»-sign --> ती «tī»
{i}-sign -->
{ti} (represented in Mon-Myan as
- a circle within a circle)
Referring to the vowel quadrilateral note that /ɛ/ & /e/ are front mid-vowels. How you "hear" them is very subjective - Eng-Lat speakers do not even notice the presence of /ɛ/. Therefore our adage:
{ré:tau. a.mhûn/ hpût-tau. a.þûn//}Our adage backfires when Bur-Myan speakers try to pronounce English as it is written. It is probably the main problem we have to face when we try to teach spoken English to native Bur-Myan speakers, especially with those with monastic background. That was probably the reason why my father U Tun Pe's English pronunciation was inferior to that of my mother Daw Hla May. On the other hand my father's written English was superior to that of my mother, because of his knowledge of Bur-Myan grammar which can be traced to Pal-Myan.
Skt-Dev अ «ā» is written in IAST
(International Alphabet for Sanskrit
Transliteration). The notation «ā» is
non-
ASCII (American Standard Code for
Information Interchange). And thus IAST is
not suitable for writing emails. To be free
of this problem, I have designed Romabama
{ro:ma.ba.ma} 'the backbone of Burmese'
to be ASCII compatible. Romabama is
suitable for writing emails.
Romabama
We can understand why the ancient phoneticians
had not represented explicitly the intrinsic
vowel and its vowel-sign, if we look into
Mon-Myan basic consonantal aksharas. Mon-Myan
basic consonantal matrix have two kinds
intrinsic vowels, represented as
{a.} /æ/ and
{é} /e/. The second-kind is controversial
because one group of speakers pronounces it as
{é} /e/ and another group pronounces it as
{è:} /ɛ/. As examples listen to how
Velar (K-row) through Labial (P-row) aksharas
are pronounced:
Velar {ka.} row #1 - online-Mon-row1<)) (all links checked 150920
Palatal {sa.} row #2 - online-Mon-row2<))
Dental {ta.} row #4 - online-Mon-row4<))
Labial {pa.} row #5 - online-Mon-row5<))Do not think that Mon-Myan alone has two kinds of intrinsic vowels. Look into a newly invented Abugida - the Cree language invented only in the 1830s by James Evens from Devanagari script and Pitman shorthand. Notice the two (or three) types of intrinsic vowel /a/ & /e/. The /o/ may be considered to be the back-vowel variation of the front-vowel /e/, and may be counted out.
UKT 150909: Listen carefully the Palatal {sa.} row #2 - online-Mon-row2<))
- they sound affricate and not plosive-stop:
{kya.},
{hkya.},
{gyé},
{hkyé},
{ñé}
to my ears. They are fricatives as in Skt-Dev.Secondly, as in Bur-Myan, Mon-Myan gives r2c5 as
{Ña.}. However, I have determined Nya'gyi to belong to Approximants, and not to the Plosive-stops. I base my observation to the killed Nya'gyi
{Ñ} which is similar to killed
{ý}. Killed-Nya'gyi
{ñ~ña.}.
UKT 150809: The above SND-cuts are from Learn Mon Yourself (Spk-all) :
- lesson04-61<)) (link chk 150914)
which gives the pronunciation of all the 7 rows of (5x7 = 35 basic consonants). In contrast Bur-Myan has only 33 basic consonants. Inset pix shows the two extras of Mon-Myan on either side of
Listen to Approximant row #7 - online-Mon-row7<)) (link chk 150920)
and out the last three sounds. {ha.} {La.} {ßa.} {a.} {ßé}
See: Learn Mon Yourself (Spk-all) in -- MV1874-indx.htm (link chk 150914)
and proceed to Mon-Myan basic aksharas with two kinds of intrinsic vowels
- spk-all02.htm (link chk 150914)
Studying Bur-Myan and Mon-Myan together
shows that even
#1 when two spoken languages use
the same akshara-system the pronunciations
can be quite different.
Listen to Mon-Myan sounds in the attached table,
Lesson 11, go vertical. Lesson11<)) (link chk 150914)
Concentrate on Pal-Myan{pa.HTa.ma.}. It is the same in Bur-Myan & Mon-Myan:
{ma.} sounds /ma./. Now turn your attention to Mon-Myan
{ga.ta.ma.} where
{ma.}-Mon sounds /mé/.
On the other hand, studying Bur-Myan and
Pali-Myan together shows the
#2. Pali pronunciations stays the same,
when the same written script is used.
Listen to a Mon-Myan song with Pali words -
online-Mon-Dana'kutho<))
(link chk 150920)
Acronym for "American Standard Code for Information Interchange"
ASCII codes were invented to represent the text.
- UKT 150911
Understanding how to come up with a common script (or text) representing different sounds of languages in BEPS is bad enough. How to pass on the information to others globally through the Internet and email makes the problem worse. Sending text printed on paper would not do because we have to pass on the sound and video images to make the info more complete.
The American inventors
who invented the computer had the
American English in mind and ASCII
(American Standard Code for Information
Interchange) codes were invented to
represent the text. Since IPA uses non-ASCII
characters, writing English in IPA-Lat is
useless for writing on the computer. Because
of which I have to invent Romabama
which is ASCII compatible and is therefore
fit to be used as a computer language.
From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII 150904
"ASCII developed from telegraphic codes. Its first commercial use was as a seven-bit teleprinter code promoted by Bell data services."
Human ingenuity makes use of ASCII letters to draw simple figures to highly refined portraits.
See ASCII Art: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII_art 150904
Pix from Google images.
ASCII is quite useful if you know how to use it. However, it is not very useful for our work on BEPS, because of which I have to use Romabama.
Go back ASCII-note-b
Acronym for International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration .
See pdf on IAST from http://www.markfoster.net/rn/iast.pdf 150914
in downloaded TIL SD-Library IAST<Ô> (link chk 150915)
- UKT 150914: Acronyms in Alphabet-Letter writing system is easy because of the mute Letter. But in Abugida-Akshara system, to which Bur-Myan belongs, acronyms must be based on the sonic syllable. Since the syllable has at least an onset consonant and the nuclear vowel, it will have at least 2 letters for each syllable. Thus the acronym AFPFL (Antifascist People's Freedom League) does not convey much information to the people half a century later. The ideal acronym should be lossless compression of the full word.
From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Alphabet_of_Sanskrit_Transliteration 150914
The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (I.A.S.T.) is a transliteration [UKT: transliteration is different from transcription] scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Indic scripts as employed by the Sanskrit language. It is also used to romanize Pāḷi, Prākṛta and Apabhraṁśa.
IAST is especially used for books dealing
with ancient Sanskrit and Pāḷi
topics related to Indian religions. The script
is, however, insufficient to represent both
Sanskrit and Pāḷi on the same page
properly because the ḷ (l with
underdot), a vowel in Sanskrit (vocalic
/l/), is the retroflex consonant in
Pāḷi ([ ɭ ] ). Here it is
better to follow Unicode and
ISO 15919, which is in any case a more
comprehensive scheme.
Comparison with ISO 15919
[UKT: This portion is from the same Wiki article.]
For the most part, IAST is a subset of ISO 15919. The following five exceptions are due to the ISO standard accommodating an extended repertoire of symbols to allow transliteration of Devanāgarī and other Indic scripts as used for languages other than Sanskrit.
IAST is based on a standard established by the International Congress of Orientalists at Geneva in 1894. [1] [2] It allows a lossless transliteration of Devanāgarī (and other Indic scripts, such as Śāradā script); and, as such, it represents not only the phonemes of Sanskrit, but allows essentially phonetic transcription, e.g., visarga ḥ is an allophone of word-final r and s.
The National Library at Kolkata romanization, intended for the romanization of all Indic scripts, is an extension of IAST.
Go back IAST-note-b
End of TIL file
