From Ti@fa-kuan.muc.de Mon Sep 02 01:42:01 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: Ti@fa-kuan.muc.de X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_1_0_1); 2 Sep 2002 08:42:00 -0000 Received: (qmail 42675 invoked from network); 2 Sep 2002 08:42:00 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m7.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 2 Sep 2002 08:42:00 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO n4.grp.scd.yahoo.com) (66.218.66.88) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 2 Sep 2002 08:42:00 -0000 Received: from [66.218.67.191] by n4.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 02 Sep 2002 08:42:00 -0000 Date: Mon, 02 Sep 2002 08:41:57 -0000 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: pronunciation guide for lessons Message-ID: In-Reply-To: User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 1921 X-Mailer: Yahoo Groups Message Poster From: "aolung" X-Originating-IP: 212.144.143.170 X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=37407270 X-Yahoo-Profile: aolung --- In lojban@y..., Nick Nicholas wrote: > Scott Weller suggested to me back in May that the pronunciation guide > in the lessons should "give examples of each sound in each of several > different languages (perhaps the six languages of the gismu > generation algorithm)." > > I think this is a cute idea, and am willing to run with it. Could I > ask people to come up with example pronunciation words for the lerfu, > in Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic? You'll be credited > in the intro, of course. I know our user base is already covered for > Chinese (Mandarin, I assume), Spanish, Russian; if worst comes to > worst for Hindi and Arabic, I'll go to Berlitz. > > Where the sound is not present in the language, I don't think > near-enoughs should be included; just move on to the next. For voiced > stops, e.g., I don't think a Chinese equivalent should be proposed; > and I think the Chinese equivalent of p is Pinyin b [p], not Pinyin p > [ph]... I've set up a chart for Putonghua (Mandarin) on Wiki. I basically agree with you on the values of e.g. Pinyin [p] etc., yet these IMHO are subtleties to be neglected for our purposes: only Wade-Giles mainly pays attention to the fact that in Putonghua the consonants [b], [d], [g] are unvoiced (there are hardly voiced sounds anyway!). The main criterion is to distinguish aspirated from unaspirated consonants - which is easily accomplished by the Pinyin (and many other) conventions. As an example: setting up a lojban prounciation guide for the French language, it surely would be odd and pretty losing the point _not_ to examplify lojban [p] giving "Paris" for the only reason that French [p], unlike German or English - or Lojban!, actually is pronounced _without the least_ aspiration! Let it be to sinologists to be aware of the fact mentioned, but do not complicate things unnecessarily :-) mi'e .aulun.