{"ID":23475029,"CreatedAt":"2026-09-18T01:09:05.407443952Z","UpdatedAt":"2026-09-20T18:11:56.143995915Z","DeletedAt":null,"paper_url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.19736","arxiv_id":"2609.19736","title":"A Phonemically Comprehensive, ASCII-Only Romanization Scheme for Thai and Lao: Systematic Cross-Lingual Correspondence and Chinese-User-Friendly Design","abstract":"This paper proposes a phonemically comprehensive, ASCII-only romanization scheme for Thai and Lao, treating the two closely related languages as a unified cross-lingual design problem. The scheme represents segmental contrasts, vowel length, and lexical tone while maintaining one-symbol-one-phoneme transparency and systematic correspondence between Thai and Lao. The scheme prioritizes synchronic phonetic correspondence, including correspondence with Pinyin and Jyutping where applicable, while preserving historical-phonological correspondence where it does not conflict with phonetic transparency. Tone uses a compact single-digit default notation, supplemented by optional tone-value and historical tone-category representations. The resulting scheme provides a readable, keyboard-friendly, and machine-processable phonemic representation for language learning and cross-lingual speech processing.","short_abstract":"This paper proposes a phonemically comprehensive, ASCII-only romanization scheme for Thai and Lao, treating the two closely related languages as a unified cross-lingual design problem. The scheme represents segmental contrasts, vowel length, and lexical tone while maintaining one-symbol-one-phoneme transparency and sys...","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.19736","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2609.19736v1","authors":"[\"Zijie Zhang\",\"Tan Lee\"]","published":"2026-09-17T06:00:20Z","proceeding":"cs.CL","tasks":"[\"cs.CL\"]","methods":"[]","has_code":false}