Re: [sinhala-technical] LTRL Suggestions

[Harshula <har...@gm...>]

On Wed, 2008-05-14 at 18:46 +0600, Asanka Wasala wrote:
>         
>         > #define XK_Sinhala_nga
>         > #define XK_Sinhala_angx
>         
>         
>         Why the "x"?
> 
> both  ඞ & ං sounds /ang/. But ං is widely used, thus to denote the
> specialty we used 'x'. 
> eg. ලඞකාව, ලංකාව = /langkava/
> 
> ඞ  = ang
> ං = ang
> :
> ඞ  = angx
> ං = ang

If we are going to introduce arbitrary characters to the #define, I'd
rather go with "ang2". It's a bit more obvious and avoids a non-Sinhala
speaker thinking that the 'x' is meant to be pronounced.

>         > #define XK_Sinhala_nyja
>         > #define XK_Sinhala_nja
>         
>         
>         Sounds good.
>         
>         BTW, are "nya" and "jnya" appropriate for:
>         ඤ - taaluja naasikyaya (nya)
>         ඥ - taaluja sanyooga naasikyaya (jnya)
> 
> yes. 
> 
>         
>         Can you think of anything better?
> 
> ඥ = ජ්+ඤ = j+nya = jnya is fine I think. 

Are you happy with ඤ = "nya"? I thought it was closer to "nja"?

>         > #define XK_Sinhala_tta
>         > #define XK_Sinhala_ta
>         >
>         
>         > #define XK_Sinhala_ta
>         > #define XK_Sinhala_tha
>         >
>         > #define XK_Sinhala_tha
>         > #define XK_Sinhala_thha
>         
>         
>         That won't work, you need to consider all 4:
>         ත - alpapraana tayanna (ta)
>         ථ - mahaapraana tayanna (tha)
>         ට - alpapraana ttayanna (tta)
>         ඨ - mahaapraana ttayanna (ttha)
> 
> normally, in transliteration (as in sms language that) we widely use
> 'ta' to denote ට and not ත. ත is usually denoted by 'tha'. 
> 
> eg. tavuma = ටවුම ( town), kete = කැටේ (cube) , kata = කට (mouth)
> bath = බත් (rice) thaththa = තාත්තා  (father) තනියම = thaniyama
> (alone)
>  
> I think now you can understant why we went for above definitions.

Perhaps I should have elaborated on why it would not work. Using your
suggestion we get:
----------------------------------
ත - tha
ථ - thha
ට - ta
ඨ - tha
----------------------------------
Note, ත collides with ඨ. Both use "tha".

Do you guys have another suggestion? Otherwise we are stuck with the
de-facto scheme for these 4 letters. I would really like to hear a
suggestion that can replace the de-facto scheme.

>         Similarly, you need to consider all 4 for:
>         ඩ - alpapraana ddayanna (dda)
>         ඪ - mahaapraana ddayanna (ddha)
>         ද - alpapraana dayanna (da)
>         ධ - mahaapraana dayanna (dha)
>         
>         I was considering the usage of "z" (to denote a more dental
>         sound) but
>         it is confusing and inaccurate. Examples of "z" usage:
>         http://www.nongnu.org/sinhala/doc/transliteration/sinhala-transliteration_3.html
>         
> 
> same as above!.

Ditto.

>         What's the IPA transliteration for:
>         ශ - taaluja sayanna (sha) 
>         ෂ - muurdhaja sayanna (ssa)
> 
> ශ -palatal  = /ʃ/
> ෂ - retroflex (toung further back) = /ʂ/ 
>         
>         Which one has the tongue further back?
> 
> In spoken Sinhala, we normally pronounce the same sound "palatal
> fricative" for both ශ and ෂ. 
> 
> Following is an extract from the book "An Introduction to Spoken
> Sinhala,  W.S. Karunatillake"
> "The Symbol ෂ which is meant to represnt the retroflex sibilant /ʂ/
> '( +a), is pronounced like palatal sibilant ශ /ʃ/ (+a)"

BTW, which page is it on?

> ශ -palatal  = /ʂ/

? That's different to what you said above.

> ෂ - retroflex (toung further back) = /ʃ/ 

? That's different to what you said above.

> but, remember native Sinhala speaker will only produce /ʃ/.

Thanks, that clears up my confusion.

> hope this helps.
> 
> Asanka, Chamila

Thanks for all the help! If you both can spare the time, please help
with resolving the remaining issues.

cya,
#