#loanword

Extract of a conversation I was having with someone on Cantonese loanword types:

Friend: Are english loans in cantonese commonly assimilated to cantonese phonology? To what extent?

Me:

I think there are 3 levels 1. non-lexicalized 2. semi-lexicalized 3. fully lexicalized

fully lexicalized are words that have dedicated hanzi, I'd say perhaps the first is like code-switching. The second type are words that have a standardized pronunciation that fits almost perfectly if not fully perfectly into Cantonese phonology, but without hanzi

1. ? [nothing came to mind then] 2. haai1 lai1 taa*2 (highlighter) 3. 的士 (taxi)

It's hard to place sometimes. For example the word pro6 (/pʰɹou˨˨/ ”professional”). Technically canto of course doesn't have /r/, so it's not easy to judge whether this is a case of code-switching or semi-lexicalized.

哇，你好pro呀！ "wow, you're very professional!"

It's been noted (Multiple scansions in loanword phonology, Silverman, 1992) that [the last syllable of] Cantonese loanwords have a tendency to receive the 變音 (tone 1 or 2). I think this can be a way to classify type 2 or 3. By this standard, pro6, which doesn't use tone 1 or 2, would fit into group 1, which also makes sense since /r/ isn't in native Canto phonology.

[...]

there is a structure: stressed syllables use tone 1 unstressed syllables use tone 4 epenthetic syllables use tone 6 final syllable uses 變音

“佢同佢好friend”, literally “he and he very* friend” (= they’re very good friends)

“佢同佢好唔friend”, literally “he and he very not friend” (= they aren’t good friends at all)

“噉hard sell嘅”, literally “[that’s] so hard sell” (= that’s promoting/praising it so much**)

*: It is true that 好 can mean “good” but in this case it means “very”, so it does not mean “good friend” but rather, “very friend”. This can be exemplified by substituting 好 with a synonymous “非常”, which cannot mean “good”. Additionally, the negation, if it meant “good”, would have had to be 唔好 (not good), rather than “好唔”

While working on my Masters’ thesis, I had the opportunity to read Silverman’s 1992 paper on Cantonese loanwords, “Multiple scansions in loanword phonology: evidence from Cantonese“. The paper made a finding that in many of the older Cantonese loanwords, the “variant/changed tone” (變音; LSHK: bin3 jam1; Ball: pín꜄ ꜀yam) phenomenon occurs with loanwords from English. An example would be 的士 being pronounced dik1 si*2, with the variant tone instead of the modal pronunciation of “dik1 si6″ (which would otherwise follow tonal rules of loanwords, where epenthetic and unstressed syllables carry low tones*). The variant tone, according to Chao, is also used to distinguish general objects from familiar objects, such as general smoke (jin1) vs cigarette smoke (jin*1).

Silverman mentioned that the variant tone could be summarized into being a morphemic tonal suffix [˥] which attaches itself to the original tone the syllable carries.

This explains how the variant tone for modal tones 4, 5, 6 become phonetically identical to tone 2 on the surface, while the variant tone for modal tone 1 becomes high level. The reason for this is smoothening.

If you consider the starting point of tones 4, 5, 6, they all start low, and after attaching the high tonal suffix, get smoothened to a plain low to high contour tone (i.e. the same as tone 2):

Tone 4 smoothening: [˨˩ + ˥] > [˨˩˥] > [˨˥] > [˦˥]

Tone 5 smoothening: [˩˧ + ˥] > [˩˧˥] > [˩˥] > [˦˥]

As for tone 1, for a lot of speakers today, the high level and high falling tones are no longer distinguished, so it would be hard for speakers of such accents to remember which tone 1 used to be which. However, from this rule, it could be deduced that high falling is the modal tone 1, and that high level is the variant tone 1, because:

Tone 1 smoothening: [˥˧ + ˥] > [˥˧˥] > [˥˥]

Thus, for those interested in studying historical Cantonese phonology, this could be a useful way to remember which tone is which.

Of course, the big takeaway here is that the variant tone could be interpreted as being a tonal suffix [˥].

Transcribe #loanword into #Russian? Don't be a wimp and just write them in #English as is

OK. I have a confession to make. Time to ‘fess up, so to speak. It’s important…. and embarrassing at the same time. Alright, breathe in breathe out. Ahem Being my native language, Russian is not my forte and never has been. Surely, I can communicate in it, as well as any other native Russian speaker, after all it is this language that I grew up with, but when it comes to writing… That’s where…