From arj@nvg.ntnu.no Sat May 12 17:35:39 2007 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list llg-board); Sat, 12 May 2007 17:35:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sabre-wulf.nvg.ntnu.no ([129.241.210.67]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1Hn23h-0002Bd-DG for llg-board@lojban.org; Sat, 12 May 2007 17:35:36 -0700 Received: from hagbart.nvg.ntnu.no (hagbart.nvg.ntnu.no [129.241.210.68]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by sabre-wulf.nvg.ntnu.no (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1ABDE94BE6; Sun, 13 May 2007 02:28:25 +0200 (CEST) Received: from hagbart.nvg.ntnu.no (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by hagbart.nvg.ntnu.no (8.13.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id l4D0SPQO027864; Sun, 13 May 2007 02:28:25 +0200 Received: (from arj@localhost) by hagbart.nvg.ntnu.no (8.13.8/8.13.1/Submit) id l4D0SO7U027863; Sun, 13 May 2007 02:28:24 +0200 Date: Sun, 13 May 2007 02:28:24 +0200 From: Arnt Richard Johansen To: m.kornig@sondal.net Cc: llg-board@lojban.org Subject: [llg-board] Re: the vowel "o" Message-ID: <20070513002824.GC18621@nvg.org> References: <1178994024.46460568a9a8b@ssl0.ovh.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <1178994024.46460568a9a8b@ssl0.ovh.net> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i X-NVG-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-NVG-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-From: arj@nvg.ntnu.no X-Spam-Score: 0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 297 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: llg-board-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: llg-board-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: arj@nvg.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: llg-board@lojban.org X-list: llg-board On Sat, May 12, 2007 at 08:20:24PM +0200, m.kornig@sondal.net wrote: > Hello, > > I'm trying to learn lojban. Mainly in order > to find out whether or not it is easy to > learn, speak and use. If it is not, then > lojban is not for me. There are enough > difficult languages around, I think. How difficult a language is to learn, of course, depends on whom you ask. It seems that the general consensus in the community is that Lojban is not particularly easy as constructed languages go, but much easier than natural languages. > I'm a bit confused about the pronunciation > of the lojban vowel "o": According to your > booklet "What is Lojban?" the sound is similar > to the "o" in the English words "joke" and > "note". But these English words actually > feature diphthongs, don't they? Yes. > So I wonder whether the lojban "o" is meant > to be a diphthong or not. > > Could you please clarify this? It is not meant to be a diphthong. > May be the lojban "o" is more like the English > "got" or "Tom"? We could explain it that way, but that runs the risk of confusion, because of the cot/caught merger in some U.S. dialects. Ie. they might think that it should be pronounced as "a". > Or there is no equivalent sound in the English > language at all? But then you want to take out the > words "joke" and "note"! Perhaps, but there is no /ou/ diphthong in Lojban, so there is no risk of confusion if people mispronounce it. Also, the description in IPA is completely unambiguous. > And find something better, > may be examples from some other language? > I would appreciate French or German examples for > instance. Appendix A in the booklet has pronuncation guides in the remaining five "the six source languages" - Chinese, Spanish, Hindi, Russian and Arabic. We'll consider adding pronunciation guides for French and German on our web site, and possibly in a future version of What is Lojban?. As for German, every Lojban letter is pronounced the same as in German, except for c, j, v, x, z, and '. If you want to know more, perhaps you would like to join the lojban-beginners mailing list? You can subscribe at http://www.digitalkingdom.org/cgi-bin/lsg2.cgi/ . -- Arnt Richard Johansen President, Logical Language Group