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From: Alex Martini <alexjm@umich.edu>
Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: pronunciation
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 17:24:49 -0400
To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org
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On Jun 21, 2006, at 5:39 AM, Newton, Philip wrote:

> la .aleks. cu cusku di'e
>
>> I would bet {ml} as in {mlatu} does, as well as {jr} as in {bajra}
>> and {kt} from {cukta}. These types of pairs aren't allowed in
>> English, so they're a tricky to wrap the tongue around.
>
> {kt} is not allowed in English? How do you pronounce "sucked" or  
> "tractor"?

I pronounce "sucked" as "sukt" with a very soft "d" and "tracktor" as  
"TRAK der".

>
> (While the second could be either trac-tor or tra-ctor -- the first is
> probably more consistent with English phonotactics --, sucked must  
> have {kt}
> in one and the same syllable. At least in my speech. And even with  
> trac-tor,
> it's not that hard to go from that to tra-ctor, at least for me.)

If you want to think of the kt in tractor as a single sound, I  
suppose you would say it's allowd. What I was thinking of (and didn't  
quite say clearly) was that there has to be a syllable break between  
them. If you listen, the d or t sound at the end of a past tense verb  
in English is almost inaudable when the sound before it is a plosive.  
(A sound like k g t d p b that stops the airflow.) Maybe the best way  
to say it is that they can't *start* a syllable. Generally, English  
speakers don't like two plosives in a row.

>
> I can imagine that {jm} as in {jmina} might also be difficult --  
> but {ml} as
> in {mlatu} and {mr} as in {mrilu} are probably the most un-English  
> clusters
> IMO, at least in syllable-initial position.

Agreed. I hadn't though of {jm}, since I don't really know any words  
with that pair in Lojban.

>
> mu'o mi'e .filip.
^ is the stop before your name needed, when it doesn't start with a  
vowel?
>
mu'o mi'e .aleks.