Examples of EL Phonetic Writing


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Various pitch tones and rhythms

Tone characters work to show pitch tones for the left next vowel or independent syllable voiced consonant.
Combining or positioning tone bases next to each other, a variety of tones can be expressed.
A flowing of the sound level and the pitch are visually shown.

The next explanations are about from the left to the right of the upper characters.
(For each element p-base, see the section of Diacritics)


flat high, flat low, very high, a little low


medium level to high, low to medium, down from high to medium, down from medium to low


go up and down, go down and up, flat long high, flat long low


starts from low and gradually higher extending the sound, and goes very high

Pitch is an important element for Chinese vocal communication.

Above four are pronunciations of Chinese words written as the same ma in English.
The meanings of them are all different:
from the left to the right, (Mom), (hemp), (horse), (speak ill of). ("Beginners Chinese" by Aihara Shigeru)

Try the next rhythmic variation of click, ejectives and humming.

     



As you see above, EL expressions about pitches and rhythms are not so exact as musical scales.
But they have more hints than just alphabets or other scripts;
please enjoy filling the sound image with your own taste.

Strange Sounds

Please have fun recording various strange voices and sounds,
and enjoy unusual pronunciations.
You may find a new ability with your own sound instrument.

# A mimic of a frog sound by an African man: .

# Do you know what sounds are the next? Yes, these are records of someone's snores.
,     ,    
If correctly recorded, it might help a doctor to diagnose the snorer.

# Have you ever heard throat songs as Khoomei or Tuvan, which have duplicated sounds in solo?
Try this approximant: {13,14,31,70, long}, maybe you can do it.

Record of a local language

When recording the pronunciation of some local language in EL,
(32): It works as the period of a sentence.
At that time, one blank space is taken before starting the next sentence,
as well as the definition system.

(gb): It works like a comma in English.
These are not related to pronunciation, but relate to a break between pronunciations.
Any local letters/characters are the most convenient for recording each own language.
By writing the sounds in EL, you can see the features of each local language objectively.

 
This is a popular Japanese haiku by Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827).
Traditional haiku is formed with 5-7-5 (totally 17) syllables in Japanese.

The EL phonetics for this haiku pronunciation:

 
   

Since this haiku has the author’s own name,
I added the name identification bracket as my name with no sound for it.
Also I put a blank space between words for easiness to see from where to where is for a word,
although Japanese language doesn’t use the kind of space.

The English Alphabets for the same pronunciation:
YASEGAERU MAKERUNA ISSA KORENI ARI

Some Japanese people might not be able to get what you pronounce as this,
because their [ r ] is not like yours, but .
Both phonetic expressions are longer than the original Japanese.
Usually traditional scripts work the best for a person's own language,
but not for other languages.

The following is an English translation of the same poem.
(from “Little Picture of Japan” edited by Olive B Miller, The Book House For Children, 1954)

Poor Little Frog, so lean and thin,
Fight on and don't give in, --
ISSA is with you

The following EL phonetics are for the pronunciation of that English transiation :

   
     
         
     

The Japanese script for the same English:

プア リトゥル フロッグ、ソー リーン アンド シン
ファイト オン アンド ドント ギヴ イン、
イッサ イズ ウイズ ユー

This time English based people might be confused by this Japanese pronunciation,
with unnecessary vowel additions and lacking of consonants.

Alphabet is a convenient script, but for the global usage,
none of traditional alphabets/syllabics are enough.
The EL phonetics don’t look so convenient, but if you get used to it,
it rationally tells you about the way to pronounce;
expressing more details than any others, as you want.
Also since being separated from meanings, the system need not to change,
unless human vocal organs happen to change.

EL phonetic writings usually need to be long for correctness,
but the definition writings are much simpler and shorter.
The following is my EL definition translation of the same haiku,
including phonetics for the name part only.




It looks much shorter, doesn't it?
EL usually and mainly uses the definition system; the phonetics is used
for only vocal expression parts as above example.
You usually read EL writings in your mother tongue for meanings.
But when you get used to it, EL might immediately let you call a vision
without any sound, as seeing a landscape.

See the ideograms and the grammar sections for the EL definition system.

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Written by Yoshiko. English checking by Stan (1997).
You are welcome to use this system to teach or to learn another language.