From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Wed Jul 07 2004 - 12:22:16 CDT
On 07/07/2004 17:04, Mike Ayers wrote:
>
> ...
>
> Are you just trying to kick up dirt here, or were you
> genuinely unaware that National Geographic is an American
> publication? I specified "American", as opposed to "English speaking"
> in this case for that reason, also because the British are known to be
> more familiar with, and therefore tolerant of, various diacritics. I
> doubt, however, that this would have any bearing on Vietnamese, which,
> while it uses familiar looking diacritics, uses them in very
> unfamiliar (to Europeans in general, as best I understand it) ways.
>
Indeed we British are more tolerant. Most of us have learned at least a
little French and so vaguely know what e acute sounds like, perhaps also
e grave, and that e with an accent is not silent, as in café. Other
accents we tend to understand as marking stress and/or length, which
works for Spanish and probably also António's Portuguese. So we do a lot
better in guessing pronunciation than we would do if the diacritics were
stripped off completely, even if we don't actually understand properly
what they mean.
-- Peter Kirk peter@qaya.org (personal) peterkirk@qaya.org (work) http://www.qaya.org/
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