Re: OT: Guessing the Spelling

On Sun, 9 Aug 2015 23:39:32 +0900
<jrmt@almas.co.jp> wrote:

> Richard,
> 
> > As far as I can make out, knowing the Cyrillic spelling (аав) and
> > knowing what the Mongolian script spelling looks like still leaves
> > one with two alternatives - O and U.  Are people missing an obvious
> > clue as to the spelling?

> It is not the people missing something, actually it is the computer
> program is asking people to make clear distinguish of the
> alternatives in one second.

Sometimes one can work out which sound has been dropped.  Greg seemed
to imply that if one knew the Cyrillic spelling (or, almost
equivalently, pronunciation)and what the traditional Mongolian looked
like, one should be able to work out how to spell the traditional
Mongolian.  I was challenging this claim.

> But the Mongolian people using
> Traditional Mongolian (not Cyrillic Mongolian) is accustomed to the
> handle the writing shape quickly,  but not to the original
> pronunciation.

Exactly.

> I am not sure what objectives are you considering, 

I was merely pointing out that Greg's objections were unreasonable.
Alternatively, people need to lean to speak Written Mongolian before
they try to write it.  It makes one suspect a conspiracy to
make the Mongolian script too difficult to use!  Perhaps it is anyway -
the original attempt to achieve mass literacy in the Mongolian script
was a failure, and Phags-pa and the todo variant are evidence of the
inadequacy of the classical system.

On the other hand, the multiple spellings of 'Mongol' are, so far as I
am aware, much more difficult to excuse.

This post *is* diverging from the primary purpose of the list, which
is why I put 'OT' for 'off-topic' in the subject field of the post.

Richard.

Received on Sunday, 9 August 2015 15:56:22 UTC