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Rendering Taishanese "thl" initual sound to English speakers
Thread poster: Paul Yee
Paul Yee
Paul Yee
Canada
Mar 27, 2020

I'm translating an English language work for the stage that contains Taishanese dialect. The project requires that the actors (who are not Taishanese speakers) speak Taishanese on stage. The actors are skilled at learning different languages and will be coached re dialects. My difficulty is with the "thl" initial sound of Taishanese. In the web sites that I visit, I find different ways of approaching this pronunciation. In many cases where the "thl" sound should appear as initial, as in 相, it... See more
I'm translating an English language work for the stage that contains Taishanese dialect. The project requires that the actors (who are not Taishanese speakers) speak Taishanese on stage. The actors are skilled at learning different languages and will be coached re dialects. My difficulty is with the "thl" initial sound of Taishanese. In the web sites that I visit, I find different ways of approaching this pronunciation. In many cases where the "thl" sound should appear as initial, as in 相, it sounds more like an "s" or "th" sound. Indeed, it seems that most words that start with "thl" are equally understandable with an "s" or "th" initial. Even in the Chinese community where I grew up with Taishanese, that "thl" sound wasn't that obvious. Question: how important is it to retain and use the full "thl" sound for Taishanese in a project such as this? ▲ Collapse
 
LIZ LI
LIZ LI  Identity Verified
China
Local time: 03:13
French to Chinese
+ ...
Well Mar 30, 2020

Hi Paul, I'm not sure that you're able to find answers here at proz.
I'm not Toishanese, but I assume the "thl" prononciation, which is to me, a stronger version of "th" is quite a typical one to characterize people from Taishan.
Google or Baidu videos with "台山话“ and see what you can get. (This is what I did for my last assignment in Hakka)

[Edited at 2020-03-30 09:57 GMT]

[Edited at 2020-03-30 18:13 GMT]
 
pkchan
pkchan  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 15:13
Member (2006)
English to Chinese
+ ...
Toisanese Chop Suey Apr 1, 2020

Toisanese Chop Suey 台山话杂碎
http://taishanesetalk.blogspot.com/
 


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Rendering Taishanese "thl" initual sound to English speakers






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