Subject: RE: Dictionary -- Unicode

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 19:44:27 EDT

tsali:
<<
I pronounce the n the same way in "UAcintyn.", "cinta" and "sanga". Am I
normal?
Depends on what you mean: I (and Lojban) would expect the n to be more dental 
in the first two, more velar in the last. But these shifts are thoroughly 
predictable in Lojban and so count as being the same.

Greg:
<<
once I realise what UAcinton is, I pronounce 'n' as a ?velar nasal,
"sanga"
> I pronounce with velar nasal while "cinta" I pronounce as a dental nasal.
>
> both are realisations of the same Lojbanic phoneme, they should therefore
> not appear in a dictionary. Just the same as the /k/ in cost is
*apparently*
> the same as the one in kit.
>>

But it is crucial to the two pronunciations being in the same phoneme that 
they are predictable from context. If you use a velar nasal in {Uacintyn} it 
can no longer be in the /n/ phoneme, since its particular realization in this 
context is not predictable from the cointext and the fact it is an /n/. In 
fact, the phoneme has to be realized as dental (whatever that means in this 
case) in that context, so the velar must -- there at least -- belong to a 
different phoneme. In short, the eng pronunciation is bad Lojban, though 
natural for English speakers who know the word.

pier:
<<
For names it may be necessary; e.g. the first 'n' in "UAcintyn" should be 
pronounced as in "sanga", which is not normal for 'n' before 't'. Then 
there's 'r', which has several allophones, of which one or the other may be 
appropriate depending on what language the name comes from. Not that it's 
wrong to pronounce "UAcintyn" as "Washinton"; it just sounds funny.>>

No it shouldn't (see above). As for /r/ and sounding funny, I should note 
that hereabouts (e.g., at my wife's family reunions) the normal pronunciation 
is Warshinton.