From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Sun Mar 14 16:55:00 1993 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Sun, 14 Mar 1993 12:22:07 -0500 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 2979; Sun, 14 Mar 93 12:21:01 EST Received: from CUVMB.BITNET by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 7997; Sun, 14 Mar 93 12:22:08 EST Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 16:55:00 GMT Reply-To: wil@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: Lojban list From: William Stuart-smith Subject: phonetic irregularity X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch Status: OR Message-ID: I am new to Lojban and I have just received the introductory text, but I would like to comment on the phonetics. I believe I am allowing for the differences between British and American English pronunciation. 'o' seems to be irregular in pronunciation: it changes when followed by 'i'. So while 'do' is pronounced as the English word 'doe', 'kloi' (a hypothetical Lojban word) is pronounced as the English word 'cloy', rather than as the name 'Chloe'. Is this a mistake in the introductory text, or in my understanding of it? Furthermore, 'o' as in English 'doe' is not a pure vowel, but a diphthong, equivalent, or nearly equivalent, to Lojban 'yu'. From a phonetic point of view, 'o' is superfluous and could be seen as an abbreviation of 'yu', except when (if) modified by 'i' as above. From a lexical point of view, the diphthong 'o' sound is ambiguous: it might be written 'o' or 'yu'. If 'o' were to be pronounced always as in 'dot' in British received pronunciation, the irregularity and ambiguity (if I am right in suggesting that they exist) would be avoided. This sound, it seems, is not already provided for in Lojban. Wil