Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT: 2445-2449 (13-17 May, 2013) Weekly Comic Discussion Thread
ankhtahr:
soulsynger: well, ß is called ss (Eszett), and originated as ligature of the long s (ſ) and the z, which was written as "ʒ" in Fraktur. This ſʒ ligature became a separate letter as ß, but is transcribed as ss.
Redball: the sounds are different. Try "Bäcker" and "backen" as an example for the difference between a and ä, "grüßen" and "Gruß" for ü and u, and "öffnen" and "offen".
Akima:
--- Quote from: GarandMarine on 16 May 2013, 10:40 ---It's a quirk of German education in the United States that umlauts are taught as a "modifier" instead of a separate letter. At least in my personal experience.
--- End quote ---
I think that's just because English hardly uses diacritic marks, so we concentrate on the unadorned letter. The diaeresis in Zoë, naïve perhaps. The accents and circumflexes in French loanwords like café, cliché, fiancé(e), pâté probably don't count, nor accents in romanisations of other languages like Pokémon.
The Pinyin romanisation of Chinese uses the diaeresis or "umlaut" to distinguish u from ü. We think of the latter as a separate vowel, and apply tones to it in the usual way. It is a hassle on most computer systems because typing it requires two diacritic marks over the same letter. We often get round it by using the letter v (which does not exist in the Pinyin alphabet) to represent ü but that is far from perfect because most keyboards won't let us place a tone-mark over the letter v. Learn Mandarin pronunciation in six minutes. :-D
In English, I've been using ss for the eszett in place of ß ever since a new colleague kindly pointed out that his name was not pronounced Kebbler... :oops:
ZoeB:
--- Quote from: Akima on 16 May 2013, 15:55 ---I think that's just because English hardly uses diacritic marks, so we concentrate on the unadorned letter. The diaeresis in Zoë, naïve perhaps.
--- End quote ---
I don't use it - it comes from the Greek Ζωή anyway. Zeta Omicron Eta(acute). English, as you say, often dispenses with such things.
Re Pinyin to English - A significant number of students in my class are from China, and others from Chinese families resident in SE Asia (2/3 of them). Only 10% are native English speakers.
There's a Xian Zhang and a Jian Zhang. And a Jingwei Zhang too, but at least that's spelt differently. I'm seriously considering doing a short Mandarin course, as it's unfair to expect no give-and-take in the communication. They all are fluent in English, it's just a matter of courtesy on my part to be able to greet them, congratulate them on a good mark, ask how they are etc. As I do in Arabic, Thai, Spanish, German etc. Oh yes, and Afrikaans. Even knowing 10 words and phrases of a language can be useful.
westrim:
--- Quote from: GarandMarine on 16 May 2013, 10:40 ---It's a quirk of German education in the United States that umlauts are taught as a "modifier" instead of a separate letter. At least in my personal experience.
--- End quote ---
It's deliberate, not a quirk. Few enough of the words in introductory courses use them that they can get away with it, and leave their more extensive use as a hurdle to jump later in favor of grammar like genders and conjugation.
--- Quote from: Akima on 16 May 2013, 15:55 ---In English, I've been using ss for the eszett in place of ß ever since a new colleague kindly pointed out that his name was not pronounced Kebbler... :oops:
--- End quote ---
Unless you saw his name spelled with it before hearing his name (or of eszetts), how did that happen? For that matter, how often do they come up in your writing?
Kugai:
Ooooh Claire
Treading dangerously there.
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