Subject: Re: [lojban] Some questions

From: Pierre Abbat <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 20:40:14 -0500

On Thu, 15 Mar 2001, Avital Oliver wrote:
li'o
>b) After starting to teach Lojban to some friends, they all shouted out
>that "This goddamn 'y' letter is all fucked-up. It sounds too close to
>either a or e". I live in Israel, and Israeli speak in a european accent
>(which I understood is the 'best' way to pronounce Lojban). 'a' is NOT
>pronounced as in 'ball', but in a 'higher' way. It makes 'a' sound very
>close to 'y'. 'y' is also a non-standard sound in modern Hebrew. From my
>small experience in language construction, I always got stuck in the
>5-vowel barrier. It's very tempting to get to more, but you always end up
>with some people not being able to diffrentiate. Anyone have any
>explanations?

When you say "tiqtlu", do you stick a sheva' between "q" and "t" or between "t"
and "l"? Try using that for "y". The "a" in "ball", as I pronounce it, is not
the Lojban "a", but somewhere between "a" and "o".

My Hebrew pronunciation is probably not the same as yours, but here's my
attempt:
a as in "mah" (which happens to sound like its Lojban translation, though
Lojban "ma" can also mean "mi")
e: if you're pronouncing it as in "tzedeq" and confusing that with "y", try
the one after "r" in "bëreshit", but not as in "beyt" since that's "ei"
i as in "ani"
o as in "lo'" meaning "no". I don't distinguish that vowel from the one in "lo"
meaning "to him"; instead I pronounce the 'aleph in the former. The vowel sound
"ou" as in English "boat" does not occur in Lojban.
u as in "umayim".

I told a brojbe "tlat `alim, tlat 'alim" and had to explain it because she did
not hear my distinction between 'aleph and `ayin. I also distinguish chet from
khaf and tet from tav. But I usually pronounce consonantal vav and bhet the
same (they were distinguished in Septuagint times, but fell together by New
Testament times) and don't know how to distinguish samekh from sin.

phma