Re: [lojban] Transliterations survey

[John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>]

Arnt Richard Johansen scripsit:

> To me, all of them are unacceptable. The palatal fricative in "München"
> sounds closer to "c" than to "x".

I agree.

> It is more difficult to decide whether
> we want to retract the close-central vowel ("ü") to Lojban /u/, or advance
> it to /i/. I'd say we go for "u", as it parallels the orthographic
> appearance of the original name. Thus: "muncen.".

The theory is that Lojban vowels are unmarked as to roundedness, so "ue" is
"i" and "oe" is "e" (which many German dialects also do); Japanese "u" is
Lojban "u".

Personally I pronounce Lojban u, o, and y rounded and i, e, and a unrounded,
but a look at the Book will show that (un)roundedness is not mentioned in
any of the phoneme descriptions.

-- 
John Cowan cowan@ccil.org
One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore
--Douglas Hofstadter