From sentto-44114-2647-mark=kli.org@returns.onelist.com Wed May 10 22:09:26 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: shoulson-kli@meson.org Received: (qmail 26462 invoked from network); 10 May 2000 22:09:21 -0000 Received: from zash.lupine.org (205.186.156.18) by pi.meson.org with SMTP; 10 May 2000 22:09:21 -0000 Received: (qmail 19654 invoked by uid 40001); 10 May 2000 22:09:58 -0000 Delivered-To: kli-mark@kli.org Received: (qmail 19651 invoked from network); 10 May 2000 22:09:58 -0000 Received: from fi.egroups.com (207.138.41.182) by zash.lupine.org with SMTP; 10 May 2000 22:09:58 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-44114-2647-mark=kli.org@returns.onelist.com Received: from [10.1.10.38] by fi.egroups.com with NNFMP; 10 May 2000 22:09:57 -0000 Received: (qmail 18636 invoked from network); 10 May 2000 22:05:57 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m4.onelist.org with QMQP; 10 May 2000 22:05:57 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO postfix1.free.fr) (212.27.32.21) by mta1 with SMTP; 10 May 2000 22:05:57 -0000 Received: from tam.n (marseille2-2-63-202.dial.proxad.net [212.27.63.202]) by postfix1.free.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2BCF02839E for ; Thu, 11 May 2000 00:05:46 +0200 (MEST) X-Sender: elrond@tam.n To: Lojban List Message-ID: From: Elrond MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list lojban@egroups.com; contact lojban-owner@egroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list lojban@egroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 00:04:50 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [lojban] Pronounciation Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi, After an initial look-through of the Lojban book, and some reading on phonetics and some other pronouciation guides, I came back on the first chapters, and I re-heared the recording of gismu pronounciation that is available on the Internet at ftp://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/pub/lojban/ I mean, especially the recording of the gismu in Lesson 02, Exercice 2-1, given as a sample of the tape recording that (?) accompanies the textbook. I do not know who are the two people who made this recording, but gee, what horrible english accent they have !!!! (joke) I suggest people who are not native english speakers having a hear of it and comment back here... First, let me include in this message the gismu list, as I could write it back when listening to the recording, and compare it with the original: Decoded: Original: botpi botpi << blabi* blabi carni carmi << pencu pencu dakfu dakfu cibni cidni panva fanva << terpa kerfa << ganlo ganlo debji degji << jumpu jamfu << pelji pelji kandi kandi (undecipherable) moklu lujvo* lujvo cilre* cilre manku manku (undecipherable) carmi nandu nandu bunre* bunre pendi penbi jimpe* jimpe xrapli** rapli << srera* srera (undecipherable) sanli rafsi* rafsi kamji tamfi << (undecipherable) betfu valsi valsi tavla* tavla xabri xadni << garxi darxi << zutse* zutse nazdi nazbi << ("*" denotes that I deciphered a word mainly because I already have used it often, and that I knew the complete word because I recognized part of it. See below for "**".) One problem is the quality of the recording itself. The low sampling rate induces some possible confusion between unvoiced and voiced stops in consonant clusters or at beginning of words (garxi/darxi, debji/degji, nazdi/nazbi etc), and *might* also be the cause of my confusion between stops and fricatives (*amji/*amfi, *erfa/*erpa etc); although I suspect some problem in the voicing of the speakers' fricatives in the latter case. Indeed, as always seen in the purest english accents, the recording demonstrates obvious english voicing problems. I nearly can't hear any "r"'s, which is quite confusing with "x"'s for someone (like me) who's read in the guide that "x"'s were unvoiced guttural fricatives, that are heard (at least by me) nearly the same as native english "r"'s!! Seems also to me that the pronouncing of the "r" in the english ways induces an english speaker to voice or roll the "x" (the "xabni" in the recording demonstrates that); this is incorrect lojban IMHO. Note that the recording is also sortof 'inconsistant', as I ended up (after being trained to voiceless "r"'s) hearing "xrapli" instead of "rapli"! But that's not the main point. Unless I am completely wrong, the worst of all is my understanding of "jum" where "jam" was intended, and the many mistakes I had to consciously correct involving possible j/c, f/v and more generally voicing of consonants. It looks like english speakers are shy about sharping their vowels and voicing their fricatives!! I really do not know how to express that exactly, but I feel like it is an unconscious reflex of the english mouth, too, to "round" vowels and make them sink into another at the end of the voicing (which is thus made worse when the vowel follow a voiced fricative and precedes a voiced consonant, for example, as in the "jam" case.) This commentary is not intended to offend the authors of the recording. The fact is, if this recording is given as an sample of spoken Lojban, I have postulated that many english native speakers think it is the right way to pronounce lojban sounds. I hope this is not the case, but anyway I want to say that I clearly believe that this recording is *not* a good lojban sample. Neither is, according to me, the other accompanying recording featuring a discussion between two lojbanists, as I found in it the same pronounciation problems. Therefore, I decided to work on making some lojban sound samples made with another accent than english (in my case, it will be french). I think it would be a good idea if other people speaking natively other languages could record some samples as well; if needed, as my ISP allows us a fairly large storage space on personal web sites, I could set up a sound records resource page. You can find the first recordings at http://grey.havens.free.fr/lojban/sound-records/ Best regards, raph PS: if anyone doesn't want to download the (big) RIFF (.wav) files, and is unable to uncompress the bzip2 compressed files, drop me a mail and I'll recompress them in the gzip format. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *--- FREE VOICEMAIL FOR YOUR HOME PHONE! ---* With eVoice Now you can keep in touch with clients, vendors, co-workers, friends and family ANYTIME, ANYWHERE. Sign Up Today for FREE! http://click.egroups.com/1/3426/3/_/17627/_/957996596/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe, send mail to lojban-unsubscribe@onelist.com