Subject: Re: Some questions

From: "A.W.T." <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 22:28:30 -0000

--- In lojban@y..., Ivan A Derzhanski <iad@M...> 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--
> 
> Italian is technically 7-vowel, but it still has nothing schwa-like.
> 
> > 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=
nconsciently - always do it the Romanian way. (Although 
since my childhood ever having been a great lover of the Italian language f=
or its beautiful and convenient pronunciation, I've been 
preferring e.g. the Napolitanian dialect/language - and the Romanian for be=
ing still more convenient with their "schwa" vowel! It's 
much more "easy" - it's real cool!! not being forced to open your mouth wid=
ely like in Spanish or Hungarian. Portugese is an other 
point ;-))
In Romanian, the "schwa" is never stressed and not comparable to "hard" Rus=
sian "y" (ryba, krasivyj etc.): e.g: "fatã" (girl), but 
"fata" (the girl). On the other hand, there are similar stressed vowels in =
Romanian (much more comparable to Russian "y") 
written "î" or "â" (according convention) like "îngerul" (the angel) or "câ=
ine" (dog), "mânã" (hand), "spãimântã" (fright) etc. 
(the last examples have different vowel in one word!) So, please do not cal=
l all those "darkened" a-sounds/e-sounds a "schwa"! It's 
just the sound mentioned above and British-English or German endings "-er" =
and Albanian "ë" (shqiptër, popullorë, Vlorë etc.)

As for the Russian o-sound in "govoritj", I do not think that it's pronounc=
ed as a "schwa" rather than an "a" (maybe like in 
British-English "but"): "gavaritj" - but if stressed, it's "o", like in "ro=
t" (mouth).

The "ü" (u-umlaut) in German language *does not have anything in common* wi=
th a "schwa"!!!!!! O Lord! (Maybe, when tried to be 
pronounced by a speaker of a 5-vowel language or an Englishman or American!=
)

co'omi'e .aulun. po'u le misno nelci be le zoi gy. schwa gy.