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Salve Draco,

As z is a voiced s, zh is a voiced sh. I believe the IPA has it here as the 's' in vision.

Gnæus Dionysius Draco wrote:Salve Scerio,

Why the 'h' after the 'z'? Is it pronounced like the second part of the first sound in 'journalist' then? Or something different altogether?

Vale!
Draco

Salvete iteum, Tergeste et alii

Concerning your question about the Taiwanese writing system, I might have some thoughts to share with you, Tergeste.

It is a complex history. In that way that, for starters, there have been and still are numerous indigenous dialects (wheather we should speak of languages is an ongoing debate), each with its own organisation. When it comes to the writing system, Taiwan is now mainly a Hancha- nation, like mainland China, meaning they use Chinese characters. But here, it becomes complex. It is certain that they use characters of Classical Chinese without simplifying them like the PRC has done. So this is an answer to your question.

The question in my view is how long will this situation continue? There is a tendency on Taiwan of strong relations with Mandarin Chinese now, through education etc. They are getting closer, and at a certain point in the future, a merger is not unthinkable. But it remains to be seen, because there will be nationalism involved... Where that would end with regards to the writing system, I can only guess. The logical thing would be to adopt the simplified characters. But maybe that is wishfull thinking on my part.
What is certain, is the fact that the best language education in and on Mandarin Chinese is on Taiwan, where it exists next to the many dialects spoken in Taiwan. But we can divide them into four major categories which are popular to most of Taiwanese. Apart from Mandarin, they are: Fukienese, Hakanese, and Cantonese.

I hope this was a usefull contribution. I don't know if my answer is as it should be, but it is a complex matter and I am only a student of limited knowledge.

Optime vale.
Menc

And let me add that I too believe Chinese sounds awkward to an non speaker. Japanese sounds so much better, doesn't it? After all, it is a differently constructed language...

But when you begin to understand a little, it can be fun. Or frustrating Mainly so when it comes to imported DVD or video. They are all in Cantonese , because most of the Chinese emigrants come from the soutthern coastal provinces and they speak Min dialects, amongst whom Cantonese has a standard role.

C ya!

Salve Scerio,

Q. Valerius Scerio wrote:Salve Draco,

As z is a voiced s, zh is a voiced sh. I believe the IPA has it here as the 's' in vision.

Gnæus Dionysius Draco wrote:Salve Scerio,

Why the 'h' after the 'z'? Is it pronounced like the second part of the first sound in 'journalist' then? Or something different altogether?

Vale!
Draco

Ah, yes, that was what I meant. In my constructions of alien languages, I use <zh> for exactly the same sound. It has always bothered me how sf or fantasy writers insert q, h and y at random without it meaning anything, so I vowed not to make the same mistake.

Optime vale,
Draco

Salvete Amici,

I didn't vote for any of these languages since I don't know what makes a languages beautiful on one hand, on the other hand of those languages listed I know only Latin.

What I always wondered was if there is really a way to find out how Latin was pronounced. There are these discussions how to prounounce for example the names Caesar or Cicero.

When I watched this horrible Jesus movie by Mel Gibson (one reason to watch it was that the people spoke ancient languages, i.e. Aramaic and Latin) they pronounced the Latin like Italian. So I had problems in the beginning to understand the words, but got used to it after a while. Of course there might have been accents, that a person from Roma spoke differently than one from Pompeii etc., like nowadays we North Germans speak with a much different accent than the Bavarians.