[KS] Romanization & Dog Rib

[John Woo]

The subject of the awkwardness - to say the less - of transcriptions like 
'dogrib' has been discussed on and on, but reading the last few postings, 
something came to my mind: Mr. Schroepfer's advocacy of a  consistent 
transcription system is a very important point. For one, MR is consistent, 
even though some people might not use it consistently. Now, we should expect 
an improvement from any new system. It is quite the contrary that is 
happening. This new system seems much closer to a European language grammar 
book: a lot of very important rules, but so many exceptions...
Transcription on a one-to-one basis, whatever happens in the process, 
reminds me a lot Pinyin. In Cantonese, we use a transcription system derived 
from English. However, there have been attempts to produce a standardized 
romanization of Cantonese, using Pinyin. It is much more logical and 
systematic, even though the result looks like a cross between putonghwa and 
biology (especially when you note the tones with numbers). Hence, pakfan 
(white rice) - very similar to paekpan - is transcribed as bag fan. Do you 
really think that the image that occurs to Cantonese speakers is a puch'ae 
in a kabang? Nay...
Just my tow pence
J.W. Woo
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