From gordon.dyke@bluewin.ch Fri Dec 13 10:59:56 2002 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Fri, 13 Dec 2002 10:59:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from mta12n.bluewin.ch ([195.186.4.221]) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.05) id 18Mv2N-0007mI-00 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Fri, 13 Dec 2002 10:59:51 -0800 Received: from oemcomputer (62.202.162.57) by mta12n.bluewin.ch (Bluewin AG 6.5.032) id 3DDA492F002910AD for lojban-list@lojban.org; Fri, 13 Dec 2002 19:59:45 +0100 Message-ID: <00ec01c2a2d9$ba919060$39a2ca3e@oemcomputer> From: "G. Dyke" To: References: Subject: [lojban] Re: [h] (was: RE: Re: Aesthetics Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 19:59:12 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 X-archive-position: 3532 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: gordon.dyke@bluewin.ch Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list And: > Anyway, this long excursus into phonetics is all rather a > sidetrack. I am confident that, generalizing across individuals, > /'/ and /x/ are particularly susceptible to confusion if /'/ > is realized as a voiceless dorsal approximant (as I'm sure it > must often be). There are various ways of coping with the potential confusion. > One might make /x/ extra-scrapey. One might make /'/ > lateral or dental. Or, even though the official prescription doesn't > license it, one might make /'/ breathy-voiced (or even a voiced > dorsal fricative), as Nick reckons people do, and as I do in casual > pronunciation. I had been wondering what all the fuss was about ('cos I have no trouble distinguishing between [h] and [x]) until I saw that I do know (and hope to gain both linguistic and conversational knowledge of) a language which distinguishes between [h] and [x]: swiss-german minimal pair: "chalt"/"halt" (cold/halt) For those of you who love quirky languages (like And). Swiss-German must be one of the quirkiest in SAE both in grammar and in phonetical relation to German mu'o -- http://www.myepfl.ch/gregory.dyke e'osai ko sarji la lojban - www.lojban.org "That man is such an ignoramus, Father." [...] "Stand inside his soul and see the world through his eyes. You will feel the pain he feels because of his ignorance, and you will not laugh." -- Chaim Potok, "The Chosen"