Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 April 6

= April 6 =

Pinyin "iong"
In the Pinyin article, "iong" is placed under the "Finals beginning with ü" section, but is analysed as i + ong (which seems more logical). Why is this so? I have never heard it pronounced with [y].

Also, why is "ong" always analysed as "ueng" and given to be pronounced as [ʊŋ]? To me, it sounds more similar to [ɔŋ]. Double sharp (talk) 03:16, 6 April 2012 (UTC)


 * The first issue you identify looks to me like an error, though I don't have the expertise to fix it properly. As for your second question, I agree that this vowel, pronounced by native speakers, is not exactly [ʊ].  However, it is also certainly not [ɔ], even though it is spelled with 'o' in Pinyin.  I think that it is a near-back vowel like [ʊ], but a bit more open than [ʊ].  The vowel is more central and closer than [ɔ].  I cannot find a symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet vowel diagram for the appropriate position in the diagram.  I think [ʊ] is an approximation for a sound that apparently lacks a standard IPA symbol.  Marco polo (talk) 15:19, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree it's not [ɔ]. If you pronounce a word like, say, xiong, with a real [ɔ] (the sound in "caught", at least if you're from the eastern United States), you get something that sounds very rednecky and not Chinese. I don't think there is an [ɔ] in Chinese except maybe in the interjection 哦. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 01:19, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's definitely not [ɔ]. But it really doesn't sound like [ʊ] at all, and anyway I said "more similar". I agree with Marco polo. (About "iong" being placed with the finals beginning with ü, this may be inherited from zhuyin, where "iong" is written as "ㄩㄥ" (üeng).) Double sharp (talk) 06:16, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

It's also a matter of phonological analysis. Chinese is tricky in this regard, because there isn't much morphology to shift sounds around and see which is an allophone of which. So claims tend to be based on what makes the analysis simple or beautiful, rather than on any direct evidence. I'm not convinced a phonemic analysis (whether /üəŋ/ or /ioŋ/) is terribly insightful in such situations. — kwami (talk) 07:29, 7 April 2012 (UTC)