The Fifty United States, etc.

["Mark E. Shoulson" <shoulson@CTR.COLUMBIA.EDU>]

>Date:         Tue, 2 Aug 1994 14:23:28 +1200
>From: Chris Handley <chandley%OTAGO.AC.NZ@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU>

>Thus Mark:

>>Whew.  I was worried I'd really lost it.  But a thought occurred to me: why
>>are we transliterating "th" as "t"?  Honestly, "f" sounds lots closer to my
>>ear.  Ask any 3-year-old who's still working on English phonology, and
>>you'll hear stuff like "norf" and "souf".  Ditto with "v" for the voiced
>>th.  Has this been considered any?  Just a thought.
>>
>Depends where you come from -- any good Afrikaner will say an 'f' sound
>there without even blinking (bear me up Van Dyk), but equally a good German
>will use  a hard 't' in the same circumstances.

Oh, certainly "t" is much more commonly heard as a substitute for "th"
among languages that don't have it when quoting languages that do.  But is
it the right choice?  I suppose it's subjective, but in terms of actual
closeness of sound "f", as a fricative, sounds way closer to "th" than "t",
which can't even last a comparably amount of time.

>Chris Handley.

~mark