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From: mac@uvacs.UUCP (Alex Colvin)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Re: R & L in Chinese
Message-ID: <170@uvacs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Feb-86 13:40:33 EST
Article-I.D.: uvacs.170
Posted: Thu Feb 13 13:40:33 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Feb-86 04:51:05 EST
References: <6333@utzoo.UUCP> <26400001@uiucuxe> <56@druri.UUCP> <2078@utcsri.UUCP>
Organization: U.Va. CS dept.  Charlottesville, VA
Lines: 20

> In article <56@druri.UUCP> clive@druri.UUCP (StewardCN) writes:
> >In Korean and Japanese, I believe nearly as true in Chinese,
> >there is _no_ differentiation of the sounds we think of as 
> >R or L.  

> In Cantonese, 'R' does NOT exit: there is only 'L',
> whereas in Mandarin, they have both.  They like to add the
> character 'er' to the end of other words as a sign of affection,
> e.g. "tseeng peean-er", meaning 'Peking accent'.  In this case
> it is pronounced almost identical to the American "er".

Interesting.  This sounds like the use of /-l/ suffix in German as a
diminutive.

There is confusion between /r/ and /l/ even in IE languages.  Rajah vs.
Lajah in different Prakrits.

To top that, the same word is pronounced Dakota, Lakota, or Nakota,
depending on the dialect.