[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

[lojban] Re: Lojban pronuncation



Ah yes, the syllabic consonants. I have two solutions to them; one that will (hopefully) allow you to speak Lojban as she is defined, and another that is non-standard as of now but shouldn't cause many problems:

1. (official solution) Note that only sonorants (r, m, n, l) may be syllabic. Why? Because sonorants are special in that you can hold a note with them. Try it. Other Lojban consonants are called obstruents and can't have a note held. Try {b} for example.

Thus, practice holding notes with r/m/n/l, then practice sandwiching them between two consonants as if they are a vowel, "cidj-rrrr-spageti", and hopefully you'll master them.

2. (non-standard solution) Just mentally add a {y} before the syllabic consonant, and pronounce it as {cidjyrspageti}. For all practical purposes, this cannot be confused by anything else currently accepted in Lojban morphology. 

There are theoretical fu'ivla/zi'evla that would be confusable, e.g. {xazd,m,ru} would become {xazdymru}, which is a lujvo (xazdo zei mruli), but none are actually defined or used. There is a proposal in the works to ban zi'evla like {xazdmru} altogether, and allow {cidjyrspageti} to be an allowed alternate spelling of {cidjrspageti}

----
Additionally, there are often defined alternatives to zi'evla with syllabic sonorants. {cidjrspageti}, for instance, is often just {spageti}.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.