Re: x pronunciation from a french guy

["Ben Webster" <bwebste@simons-rock.edu>]

On Sun, 31 Oct 1999 19:11:01 EST,
BestATN@aol.com wrote...
>From: BestATN@aol.com
>
>In a message dated 10/31/1999 10:57:23 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
>lojbab@lojban.org writes:
>
>> I believe the Arabic sound Romanized as q is a Lojban x.  The 
>>  voiced equivalent of x in Arabic is often Romanized as "gh", hence the 
>>  spelling of the name of the leader of Libya is sometimes Romanized as 
>>  Qadaffi or Ghadaffi.
>
>The Arabic letter qaaf , the 21st letter of the Arabic alphabet, has a 
>variable pronunciation depending on dialect, but it is usually 
>transliterated 
>as 'q'.  

The Modern Standard pronunciation of 'qaaf' is an uvular or back velar 
voiceless stop.  Basically a 'k', with your tongue shoved even further back. 
 It sounds a lot like a 'k' to an English speaker.
My Arabic teacher told me that it is sometimes pronounced more like an "h" 
in the middle East.  (yippee! yet another "h"-like sound in Arabic). I think 
what's causing the confusion, but that is not to be confused with "ghain", 
which sounds like a french "r", and sadly does not exist Lojban.

>Most good English dictionaries have a table of alphabets under 
>'alphabet' that shows Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Greek, and sometimes 
>Sanskrit/Devanagari. Anyway, the Arabic letter to use as a model for Lojban 
>'x' would be khaa, the 7th letter, and it's transliteration is 'kh', 
>distinct 
>from 'q', 'k', 'h', '(dotted) h', "`", and 'gh'. 

Any ideas about what to do with wierd Arabic sounds ("`ain", "ghain", 
"qaaf") when Lojbanizing?  The best I can come up with is to use . for `ain, 
r (or x) for ghain and k for qaaf.  Also, what about emphatic letters?  If 
you just collapse them into the normal stops an fricatives, dal, dhal, 
d.aad, and d.ha would all just become d.