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[lojban-beginners] Re: pronunciation




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.