Tangent Constructed Chinese

[Takeshi]

Oh, I'm well aware of the fact that Postal Map Romanization doesn't have codas or pretty much anything. It seems to me to be basically Mandarin with uhh, nonpalatalized velars. Which is still better than just Mandarin I suppose. Its main and only selling point is that it's much more widely used than even GC.

 

OneEye, I think it is quite clear that this isn't supposed to be a MC reconstruction.

But I'm confused. I understand that TCC isn't supposed to be a constructed Chinese language, nor is it supposed to be a real MC reconstruction, and especially because you say you want to use it for stories, it seems to me like you are aiming to do something exactly like GC, in that you want a dialect-neutral way of representing Chinese under some kind of romanization, but just don't like certain aspects of GC, which might be very valid things. (Again, I haven't looked at GC in depth so I don't know.) But hey, if GC is too Mandarin-like, and TCC isn't then well, TCC could very well be a better designed kind of GC. I suppose I am pessimistic in that I just don't see it becoming as popular as I would want tho.

 

Don't get me wrong, I really do think your concept is interesting, but, yea, it's tough for me to get into it, especially because I don't really have a reason to.

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

Someone I met on the other forums have been trying to create his version of GC.

But I'm not really comfortable with all the "tr" and "ea" stuff because I just doesn't look "Chinese" to the average foreigner. It'd become more of "simply a tool", although I would like it to be exotic and "cool".

GC is characterized as having "the initials of Wu, the finals of Yue and the vowels of Mandarin." This TCC pretty much has them all, with semivowel mergers (being a characteristic of modern Chinese) and the merger of retroflex stops into the alveolar stops. (the reasoning has been mentioned before)

The yang rising tones and -m endings are though, stuff that seem to require more research than I'm putting effort into if I wanted to harmonize with more Chinese languages, as people have been wanting me to.

I have been focusing more on Sino Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese because people who are learning those languages that are already familiar with Chinese, do not see say, the resemblance between 東 and tou, etc. Besides being able to represent the modern Chinese languages I also hope that people could see the resemblance and go like "ah!" and immediately understand and remember any Sino pronunciations they come across.

 

So I guess it is something in between. I have, chose to represent characters like 羅 as lâ and 麻 as ma.

 

Among other things, I do not have an intention of publishing it as in write a book about it. I don't think books are fitting for a thing such as this.

[Michaelyus]

What I'd really like to see is something that can derive the modern "literary" pronunciations from GC/TCC/whatever diasystem, in the same way that Wikipedia's IPA for English Dialects does. If I wanted to recite Tang poetry in e.g. literary Puxian Min, surely that's possible!?

 

I've read parts of Chao's guide to GC, and it's just not a user's guide to it.

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

The TCC is meant to be more of a modern language thing that is a better representative of Chinese. Chao's GC appears to be more of just a tool and some things don't have a pronunciation in itself, but just an orthography that can represent the sounds of existing varieties (-aeng, -ea, etc).

 

I have tried transcribing poems with the TCC though. Currently I have elided the schwas in most theoretical medial+schwa clusters except for w+ê and not decided to distinguish between say, yi and i cause I think that it`s more modern-Chinese like. (And ``ae`` has been merged with ê) It partly has to do with diacritics but I thought it sounded better this way. An example:

 

Chwên Hieu/ by Mêng~ *Ghâu/-*gnien

Chwên mien put kâk hieu/

*Chiu~ chiu~ mhwên dêi nieu/

Ya~ lâi fung yu/ shieng

Hwa lâk ci tâ sieu/

 

While I think that constructing departing tones in both Cantonese and Mandarin as departing is already sufficient for one of the focuses of the TCC (the reason I use â and not "o"), I have put ghâu as rising, as one of the earlier commentors have wanted, to show the yâng zhiâng tone of MC as rising.

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

I hope that the TCC can be used
- when there’s a need to refer to a general Asian concept
- in general fiction and games when a Chinese is needed that isn’t a specific variety (so if it took place in HK you’d use Canto instead)
- to somewhat facilitate learning Japanese/Chinese/Koraen/Vietnamese
- to recite poetry if desired

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

I transcribed “Chwen Hieu” in CTCC. This would probably be what some of you are looking for. Below, I marked rising tones with “/” and departing tones with “~”. (Correction on my previous TCC transcription: 知 should be “ti” instead)

tɕʰuən xiæu/ - mɐŋ~ xɑu/ ɲiæn

tɕʰuən miæn puət k(ɨ)ɑk xiæu/

tɕʰyə~ tɕʰyə~ ɱuən dəi* niæu/

jiæ~ lɑi fuəŋ juə/ ɕiæŋ

xuæ lɑk ʈiə tɑ siæu/

*<diai> in my (Middle) Chinese transcription

 

[OUTDATED]

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

http://tcchinese.tumblr.com/post/84225120750/this-is-my-revised-general-chinese-romanization

[Takeshi]

It has a phonemic labiodental nasal? Really? Why?

 

But okay, I get your point. GC can't be used to transcribe/recite poems in the same way, so this is a good merit for the existence of TCC I suppose.

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

I have explained the reason before.

The mh sound corresponds to the "Mandarin w and Cantonese m". Originally it was TCC vh. Though since I wanted to reflect Sino-Japanese and Sino-Korean in orthography as well and both imitate the initial 微 as m, I used that. Cantonese and Mandarin merely merged it with another existing initial. I could merge it with m, but it would fail to represent Mandarin and Vietnamese, as well as a bunch of Chinese varieties.

The TCC in itself was primarily meant to be a language Romanization that can be interpreted a number of ways and not really something to be spoken out loud too much so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Because if it were spoken out loud the tones would need to be considered, although I have talked about it.

 

But seriously I would benefit from some sort of appreciation instead of the endless complaints at such an interest and I've lost motivation for it because of it and still they're coming endlessly

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

This is a new TCC-based modern Chinese transcription I made.

This time made with an aim to get recognized instead of all bashes.

EDIT: revision may be needed on rounded division I of rime class ai

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

http://tcchinese.tumblr.com/post/86098169460/ok-i-made-a-table-of-the-emc-initials-and-i

EDIT: Wait, 潮 is division III but it starts with a retroflex stop initial?

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

I wonder if it's plausible to theorize the div I a's as back (as they correspond to o), div II's as central and div III and IV's as front because they tend to correspond to "e"s

But then they also correspond to schwas while div II has a medial in Mandarin...

 

Edit:

I mapped the TCC into the classical rimes again. This is the general picture. The ones with asterisks next to them may be subjected to revisions. The Romanization used for the rime class is not part of TCC.

The choice for <eu> has to do with Sino-Japanese while <ou> has to do with English, Sino-Japanese and Mandarin. Both are there to avoid ambiguities when diacritics are omitted.

Note that <e> is treated as a vowel in its own right in TCC, although both it and <a> come from CTCC /æ/.

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

http://tcchinese.tumblr.com/post/86286131275/modernized-tcc-of-the-current-version-except

 

After my second-time mapping of the TCC sounds into the classical rimes, I’m considering revising it to this. Those with two asterisks are the newest changes, although they are not yet finalized.

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

New analysis and TCC update posted on tcchinese.tumblr.com

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

Skipped several updates here. Go to the blog for my complete updates.

 

From a book a bought, the 近古韻部 as well as some example characters I omitted, and the modern 18 [Mandarin] rimes were listed in a table. I though, have my doubts on whether it was really referring to Late Middle Chinese and its accuracy, as it seems to imply. For 齊微, it gives the example characters 知(TCC -i), 筆(TCC -it, MC -iêt), 雷(TCC -wâi).
I tried to map the rime class on them, but it seems like the same class has been repeated several times. The medial has been given in square brackets for some cases. In the second column, the finals are mapped to my MC transcription, while the third column gives the TCC readings/finals of the CHARACTERS shown in the second.

 

Also, 入 might be written as gnip instead.

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

Thinking of rewriting TCC -u as -o (originally o is only present in -ong) because of how Sino-Kr, Sino-Jp, Sino-Viet, Canto and to an extent Hokkien.

 

Actually, I wonder if the Sino-Xenic -o/-u distinction is like the -ong/-ung distinction: something that has been merged in Mandarin and Cantonese, but preserved in Sino-Japanese and Sino-Korean

Although, from Baxter's notation, there's no distinct -u and -o from the 遇 rime class...

 

 

Any of you know why the reconstructed -u, despite having only one rime in MC, often becomes -o (like in 步, 古, 五, etc) in the earlier Sino-Xenic borrowings?

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

http://tcchinese.tumblr.com/post/86894548470/convention-notes-does-not-cover-the-decision-of-the

Convention notes

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lhu8jXa6Pw

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

Important update (contains Middle Chinese notation)

 

I was investigating the PRime -woi rime, and it is found that the Cantonese -ui and -eoi are indeed related (test using the -ui vs -eoi relationship), as they come from the same rime (although -eoi also comes from the -ü rime). This has previously not been found out in the Cantonese classical rimes post.

 

As stated before, Cantonese is said to have the tendency to open high vowels into diphthongs. Here, ü remains only after palatal initials, whereas -u remains only after velars (otherwise -ou, merging with the MC -âu [效一等] rime).

 

The third table investigates where the Cantonese -yun came from, and their corresponding Mandarin values.

 

Note: Cantonese generally has the tendency to stretch -wâ- into u (along with its -ie- > -i- stretch like in 鹽 yiem > yim), which is seen in characters like 官 and 會.

 

http://tcchinese.tumblr.com/post/89435169825/i-was-investigating-the-prime-woi-rime-and-it-is