Newly Acquired Linguistics Vocabulary

ksarvestani
 March 29, 2009, 06:21 AM posted in General Discussion

Linguistics: 语言学 - yu3yan2xue2
Phonetics: 语音学 - yu3yin1xue2
Pronunication: 发音 - fa1yin1
Grammar: 语法 - yu3fa3

My specialty is in phonetics, so my next goals are figuring out how to say "consonant" and "vowel."

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changye
 March 29, 2009, 06:49 AM

Hi ksarvestani

There are a few Chinese translations for consonant and vowel.

Consonant 辅音 (fu3yin2), 子音 (zi3yin1), 声母 (sheng1mu3)
Vowel 元音 (yuan2yin1), 母音 (mu3yin1), 韵母 (yun4mu3)

辅音/元音 are broadly used in mainland China, and 子音/母音 in Taiwan (and probably in Hong Kong). The latter pair are also used in the PRC, though.

I guess that 子音/母音 are perhaps originated in Japanese, which is the reason they are primarily used in Taiwan, although I'm not sure about this.

As for 声母/韵母, they are almost exclusively used in traditional Chinese phonology (音韵学). Western phonology is commonly referred to as as 音系学 in Chinese.