Re: Haiku for Photography

Pete wrote:
Robert Coe wrote:
Japanese syllables are phonologically simpler than those of English and, to a
first approximation, reflect the time it takes to pronounce them. A long vowel
adds a syllable, as does a special phoneme that can introduce a hesitation
into the pronunciation of certain stops, notably "t" and "k" (akin to the
pronunciation, in English, of the "t" in "thirteen"). And when a vowel is
dropped or devoiced, as often happens between two voiceless consonants, it
retains its syllabic value. My college linguistics professor liked to use, as
an example, the English word "asks", pronounced with a relaxed British accent.
A Japanese speaker would not find the word phonetically strange, but might
hear it as having five syllables.

So if a 17-syllable haiku were read (in Japanese) to an English speaker, he
might well hear it as having fewer than 17 syllables. But if one writes a
haiku in English, I would maintain that it should consist of seventeen English
syllables. The point is obviously debatable, as is the notion that it even
makes sense to call something written in English a "haiku". But I think that's
what makes the most sense.

Many years ago, my total failure to learn Japanese has left me unable to count English syllables, for the reason Bob states above.

At the time, a newspaper had a mix of hiragana, katakana, and a subset of Chinese characters. English was thrown in sporadically to give it a "modern look".

Pete




A number of years ago I became absolutely fascinated with both Chinese and Japanese. Though I had no hopes of learning either of the languages...I wanted to at least find the logic behind those incomprehensible symbols.

Though, today I could have gone no further than a Google search...
this was before such things were possible.

I also recall the library had a Chinese to English dictionary
which I withdrew. When I got home I noticed that not only had it been printed in 1939...it was originally a Chinese to French dictionary that had been translated into English...

aargh!
.

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