From tommylee@xxxxxxxx.xxxx Sun Oct 31 09:07:05 1999
X-Digest-Num: 272
Message-ID: <44114.272.1505.959273825@eGroups.com>
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1999 12:07:05 -0500
From: "TommyLee Whitlock" <tommylee@xxxxxxxx.xxxx
Subject: Re: x pronouciation from a french guy

Paul,
C'est super bien de voir un francophone sur la liste! Vous etês d'ou ? Je me suis specialisé a l'université en la langue française. But I'm going to respond in English because I have forgotten much of my French. 

"x" is also the symbol used in the Internation Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) for a voiceless velar fricative. The 2 versions of "c" that you refer to below are really allophones of "k". There may be a slight difference between them, but most speakers, as far as I know, really consider them the same sound. The "x" in lojban is sometimes seen romanized as "kh", sometimes "ch" (as in the German pronuciation of Bach) as Bob pointed out. It is the modern Greek pronunciation of 'chi'. The "Phonetic Symbol Guide" describes it as sounding a lot like the devoiced French 'r' as in some pronunciations of "lettre". 
J'éspère que cette explication vous donne une mieux idée du son ! 

Bob, 
the 'q' in Qadaffi represents a uvular "k" sound made deep in the back of the throat. Gh is a dialetical difference, a voiced fricative in the same place. Not the same sound at all. 
co'o mi'e tomis

> From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@lojban.org>
> 
> At 03:58 AM 10/20/99 -0400, Paul Dufresne wrote:
> >I am beginning to learn Lojban, mainly by studying gismus.
> >But I never feel well when I see an 'x' because I am not sure
> >at all how to pronounce it. I tend to think it is pronounced
> >a bit like the 'k'.
> >Let's take french words in example. For me the 'c' of
> >"canot" would be lojbanize as "kano", and the 'c' of
> >"cougar", would be lojbanize as "xugar".
> 
> My wife says that to her knowledge, French does not use the x sound, and no 
> French word would Lojbanize as x. She wasn't aware that "canot" and 
> "cougar" would have different initial sounds, though. Just as English 
> speakers (who also do not have an x sound) you have to go to another 
> language to get the x sound. German "ch" as in "Bach" (hopefully you hear 
> that as something other than Lojban "bak") is the model I use most 
> often. France having a lot of Arabic speakers can turn to Arabic as a 
> model - 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 other models we use are the Russian sound 
> Romanized as "kh", and the Greek "chi" (which is the reason why we use x > for the sound).
> 
> Hope these examples help.
> 
> lojbab