Re: [lojban-beginners] Questions on the sounds chosen for Lojban

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Friday 21 January 2011 11:42:35 Luke Bergen wrote:
> But there are only 6 vowel letters and there are (off the top of my head) 8
> fundamental vowel sounds that can't be constructed from diphthongs of other
> vowels.  These are lojban a, e, i, o, u, and y plus the english b[a]t and
> b[i]t.

Turkish has eight vowels, but they are not those eight. The eight in Turkish 
are a, e, ı, i, o, ö, u, ü. AFAIK Turkish and some related languages are the 
only ones with this three-bit vowel system: three phonetic features can be 
true or false, all eight possibilities are used, and they are in alphabetical 
order. Finnish and German also have eight vowels, but they have a slightly 
different set: no ı, but ä. (a, o, u), (e, i), (ä, ö, ü/y). "ı" is like 
Russian yery (lips unrounded like i, tongue back like u); "y" in Finnish is 
the same as "ü" in German (lips rounded like u, tongue forward like i).

Pierre
-- 
li ze te'a ci vu'u ci bi'e te'a mu du
li ci su'i ze te'a mu bi'e vu'u ci

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Lojban Beginners" group.
To post to this group, send email to lojban-beginners@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban-beginners+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban-beginners?hl=en.