From Ti@fa-kuan.muc.de Sat Mar 17 14:28:32 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: Ti@fa-kuan.muc.de X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_0_4); 17 Mar 2001 22:28:32 -0000 Received: (qmail 58347 invoked from network); 17 Mar 2001 22:28:31 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l7.egroups.com with QMQP; 17 Mar 2001 22:28:31 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO cj.egroups.com) (10.1.2.82) by mta1 with SMTP; 17 Mar 2001 22:28:31 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: Ti@fa-kuan.muc.de Received: from [10.1.10.133] by cj.egroups.com with NNFMP; 17 Mar 2001 22:28:31 -0000 Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 22:28:30 -0000 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: Some questions Message-ID: <990oee+g978@eGroups.com> In-Reply-To: <3AB30BC5.F98C820C@math.bas.bg> User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Length: 2325 X-Mailer: eGroups Message Poster X-Originating-IP: 193.149.49.79 From: "A.W.T." --- In lojban@y..., Ivan A Derzhanski wrote: > "T. Peter Park" wrote: > > While I'm not an Israeli, I do gather from what I know "about" > > modern Israeli Hebrew that it's a 5-vowel language--as are > > Italian, Spanish, Modern Greek, Czech, Japanese, Tagalog, Swahili, > > (Caucasian) Georgian, Hawaiian, Samoan, Maori, and Fijian-- >=20 > Italian is technically 7-vowel, but it still has nothing schwa-like. >=20 > > However, Lojban y, or something very similar to it, is a normal > > phoneme of 4 of the 6 base natlangs of Lojban--English, Russian, > > Chinese, and Hindi-- As for myself, the "schwa" is pretty convenient to pronounce. I think I - u= =3D=0D nconsciently - always do it the Romanian way. (Although=20 since my childhood ever having been a great lover of the Italian language f= =3D=0D or its beautiful and convenient pronunciation, I've been=20 preferring e.g. the Napolitanian dialect/language - and the Romanian for be= =3D=0D ing still more convenient with their "schwa" vowel! It's=20 much more "easy" - it's real cool!! not being forced to open your mouth wid= =3D=0D ely like in Spanish or Hungarian. Portugese is an other=20 point ;-)) In Romanian, the "schwa" is never stressed and not comparable to "hard" Rus= =3D=0D sian "y" (ryba, krasivyj etc.): e.g: "fat=E3" (girl), but=20 "fata" (the girl). On the other hand, there are similar stressed vowels in = =3D=0D Romanian (much more comparable to Russian "y")=20 written "=EE" or "=E2" (according convention) like "=EEngerul" (the angel) = or "c=E2=3D=0D ine" (dog), "m=E2n=E3" (hand), "sp=E3im=E2nt=E3" (fright) etc.=20 (the last examples have different vowel in one word!) So, please do not cal= =3D=0D l all those "darkened" a-sounds/e-sounds a "schwa"! It's=20 just the sound mentioned above and British-English or German endings "-er" = =3D=0D and Albanian "=EB" (shqipt=EBr, popullor=EB, Vlor=EB etc.) As for the Russian o-sound in "govoritj", I do not think that it's pronounc= =3D=0D ed as a "schwa" rather than an "a" (maybe like in=20 British-English "but"): "gavaritj" - but if stressed, it's "o", like in "ro= =3D=0D t" (mouth). The "=FC" (u-umlaut) in German language *does not have anything in common* = wi=3D=0D th a "schwa"!!!!!! O Lord! (Maybe, when tried to be=20 pronounced by a speaker of a 5-vowel language or an Englishman or American!= =3D=0D ) =20 co'omi'e .aulun. po'u le misno nelci be le zoi gy. schwa gy.=20