Re: [lojban-beginners] Pronunciation of "o"

[Pierre Abbat <phma@bezitopo.org>]

On Monday, March 30, 2015 12:03:02 Timothy Lawrence wrote:
> How is the letter "o" pronounced in Lojban? Is it the monophthong "o", as in
> English "on<http://howjsay.com/index.php?word=on&submit=Submit>"? Is it the
> diphthong "ow", as in English
> "own<http://howjsay.com/index.php?word=own&submit=Submit>"? (It's hard to
> describe sounds in writing so I linked to spoken audio samples)

Those to me sound like /ɔn/, which is not a word in my dialect of English, and 
/on/, which is <own>, but in my pronunciation usually realized as [oʊn] or 
[oun]. Both [ɔn] and [on] are Lojban <on> to me, but [oʊn] and [oun] are not 
valid Lojban. I pronounce English <on> as /ɑn/ (not /ɒn/, which is <awn>, the 
long straight projection with backward tiny teeth sticking out of some cereal 
grains).

I prefer to explain Lojban vowels in terms of Spanish ones, since few accents 
in Spanish vary the vowels much. The Lojban /a/,/e/,/i/,/o/,/u/ are the same 
as in Spanish. The /ə/ <y> doesn't exist in Spanish, but does exist in French 
and English.

> Thus I've been presuming "o" in Lojban would be pronounced as in English
> "on" and thus "ou" would be the Lojbanic diphthong to represent "ow" as in
> English "own". Is this correct?

Lojban has the diphthong "ei", but not "ou".

Pierre
-- 
Don't buy a French car in Holland. It may be a citroen.

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