Subject: RE: [lojban] Subject: g/k (was: RE: Re: More stuff

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 21:51:54 -0000

Nick:
> Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2002 15:03:20 -0000
> From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
> Subject: g/k (was: RE: Re: More stuff
> 
> > English is another, of course. I formerly rendered /g/:/k/ English-
> > style as [k]:[kh], but then I had a terrible time understanding Nick
> > who, following the official line, said [g]:[k]; I heard all his
> > /p, t, k/ as /b, d, g/ 
> 
> And of course, you know why I did so, right? Not official line; but 
> Modern Greek, which has no aspiration 

My understanding was that your being a native speaker Greek *enabled*
you to do it, but that you did it because it is the official line.
You don't have problems with aspirating stops when speaking English.

> Ivan Derzhanski pronounces all umpteen languages he speaks like 
> Bulgarian :-) ; I pronounce da'are like Greek, and my German is painful 
> indeed. The da'apamoi is Klingon, which I actually pronounce New 
> Zealandish --- I overcentralise the lax vowels. (No lax vowels in 
> Greek, y'see...)

Is that because Greek is your primary language, or because it is your
prototype for a foreign language? I tend to pronounce everything but
English as if it were Italian, because it is my model for speaking a
foreign language.

> > So now I try to say [g]:[kh] -- to my ears,
> > the /b, d, g/ come out sounding very French 
> 
> I'm behind on this: how do you mean? Are you talking about voicing the 
> d's in all contexts, or something else? Length?

If I said 'xod' in my English accent, the /d/ would either be 
completely voiceless or else only voiced at the beginning. It sounds
French when I say it because the voicing lasts all the way through;
almost as if, to English ears, I was saying 'xodder/xodda'.

--And.