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[C.D.Wright@solipsys.co.uk]

cdw> To me,  "top"  and  "father"  have nothing in
cdw> common, and, in particular, to me, the  "a"  in 
cdw> "father"  sounds just like the  "a"  in  "sofa".

jc> Those examples presume American English, unfortunately.
jc> The best Lojban "a" is Spanish "a" or Australian "ar".
jc> If you speak RP or a closely related dialect, then your          

jc> "ar" is a suitable variant.                                      


jc> American English or Scottish or Irish "ar" would be          
jc> terrible!  In those dialects, the "a" of "father" is         
jc> the right thing.  In American English only  (outside      
jc> New England), but not Canadian English, the vowel of      
jc> "top" is the vowel of "father", but shorter.                     



OK, so now I'm completely, totally and utterly lost. I'm an 
Australian who is living in the UK, has lived in Lousiana, 
California and New Jersey,  and I can mimic many,  perhaps 
most pronunciations. I've been listening to the television, 
both American and British programmes, and I still can't 
hear how you can say that there's any similarity between 
the vowels in "top" and "father."  My experience with 
French suggests that I have a good ear for sounds, and I 
can't at all hear what you are suggesting is there. 

So, there's clearly something here that you can hear and 
that I don't. The bottom line is that I still don't know 
how to pronounce the lojban  "a".  I'm not trying to be 
difficult, it just seems to come naturally! 


Suggestions, anyone?


The next question is this.

        "le solri gusni"   ->   "sunlight"

Is there anything wrong with the lujvo  "solgus" ??  My 
lujvo splitter rejects it, but accepts  "solgu'i".  I'm 
wondering if there is a problem with my splitter, or with 
my understanding of what's permitted in lujvo's. 


Thanks for all your help.  My lojban improves slowly.  Now 
if only I could think of something both within my abilities 
and worth saying! 



cdw
===
" If you never go off at a tangent
  you will forever run in circles. "