From conlang@diku.dk Sat Mar 11 06:41:44 1995 Date: Sat, 11 Mar 1995 12:28:03 +0100 Comment: Issues related to constructed languages Originator: conlang@diku.dk Errors-To: thorinn@diku.dk Version: 5.5 -- Copyright (c) 1991/92, Anastasios Kotsikonas From: hmiller@io.com (Herman Miller) Subject: Re: Eklektu: An Introduction Status: RO Message-ID: >> kh [x] no English equivalent: as in Spanish "Jaguar" (jaguar) > >I suggest you use a German word here, like "Bach". > >> o [o] as in "Orangutan" > >You may pronounce it [o], but I've heard it [@], [@U], [O], and I some >times pronounce it like 'er' in American English. > >Try 'boat' or 'kosher' or something. Well, I started with "aardvark" and "bat", and I just got carried away with the animal names. "Orangutan" is a particularly bad example, since the unstressed o does tend to get reduced to [@]. Actually there aren't any good English examples for [o] (as opposed to Amer. [ou], Brit. [@U], so I'd probably be better off giving a Spanish example. Actually, if I were to write something for a more general audience, I'd probably describe the basic phonetics in as non-technical language as possible, and provide voice samples if possible. But so far I haven't quite fixed the set of vowel phonemes for Eklektu, and I may even include "ue" and "oe" for front rounded vowels. (So many languages have front rounded vowels that it gets awkward borrowing words from them.) Ideally, I'd just use IPA, but my software doesn't make that very easy. Thryomanes (Herman Miller) +------------ (hmiller@origin.ea.com) | "For a successful technology, reality must (thryomanes@aol.com) | take precedence over public relations, for (hmiller@io.com) | Nature cannot be fooled." - R. P. Feynman