[HCDX]: Re: DX Report 99-78/Chinese Lesson

[Thomas Roth <th.roth@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi Glenn and all,

I must say I was mildly surprised to find my mail to you and Wolfgang B.
included in todays DX Report. Not only has it nothing much to do with
dxing - I also never meant to put myself under the spotlight like this
and would have preferred to be asked whether or not it´s alright to
publish it. Also, I might have phrased things slightly different. 

Anyhow, we don´t need to make a fight out of this now. I just felt I
should state my feelings about it. With this the matter is closed for me
and, I shall continue enjoying your DX-Reports.

By this I´d also like to invite Olle Alm to share some of his knowledge
with us. It would definitely make ID´ing Chinese stations a lot easier.
Should anyone be interested in discussing things Tibetan with me,
she/he´s of course very welcome. But I doubt it´ll be of much interest
for this here DX-list...

A very merry xmas and a happy and healthy New Year to all, and lots good
of DX !!! 

73 de Thomas


Glenn Hauser wrote:
 
> THIS DAY'S CHINESE, TIBETAN LESSON
> 
> As in 6260, ``Quinghai'' PBS: The correct spelling of the province is
> Qinghai, without the "u" that people tend insert due to influence from
> Spanish or French. The "q" in Chinese is pronounced like English ch +
> h. The combination "qui" does not exist in the modern Chinese
> latinization system, which is called "pinyin". The pinyin system uses
> a number of letters and letter combinations in a way that is very
> different from western usage. The reason is that the system wants to
> cover all the different sounds in Chinese without using other than the
> basic Latin letters. A few other rules: b, d and g are pronounced like
> English p, t and k but without a following weak h sound (i.e. as in
> French and Spanish), while p, t and k are pronounced with a very
> strong following h sound. "ian" (as in dian) is pronounced "yen", and
> consequently "dian" becomes "tyen". The wellknown word "guangbo
> diantai" for broadcasting station becomes "kwangpo tyenthai" ("th"
> pronounced as separate t + h). In addition Chinese has a system of
> tones, meaning that a syllable can be pronounced with a rising,
> falling, falling+rising or constant pitch, each giving a different
> meaning to the same syllable (most often several different meanings
> for each tone). This system also exists in such languages as
> Vietnamese, Tibetan and Thai. Cantonese has eight tones. ----
> 
> I can write more on this subject if you want me to, primarily
> concerning pronunciation rules. 73s (Olle Alm Sweden via Wolfgang
> Bueschel)
> 
> Thanks a lot indeed, and yes - Olle is right in all but one point. But
> frankly speaking, the correct transliteration or rather transcription
> of Mandarin, or any other Chinese language for that matter, has always
> mystified me. Surely there´s some sort of standard. For Tibetan we use
> the 'Wylie-transliteration', which is internationally accepted. But
> then, Tibetan employs letters (30 of them + 4 vowel signs) instead of
> signs. I´ve always wondered how you transliterate a sign...
> 
> Where Olle is wrong is in saying that Tibetan belongs to the languages
> that have a tonal system. I speak all three major dialects of Tibetan
> pretty fluently and spent years upon years among them, I should
> know... ;-) Wonder where he got that information from. Surely a lot of
> nonsense is taught at quite a few Tibetological departments of western
> universities... 73 de (Thomas Roth, Germany)   ###
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