Lojban sounds and Wikipedia article about those sounds

[Daeldir]

While translating the Lojban Wave Lesson Zero, about lojban letters pronunciation, in french, I used some Wikipedia linguistic articles to describe the “x” and “r” in lojban.

Wikipedia has sound samples for every lojbanic sound, I think, as we can see on those few examples:

L: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_lateral_approximant
O: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-mid_back_rounded_vowel
R: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_trill
X: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_fricative

I was thinking it would be nice to cover all the lojban sounds in the lesson zero (we actually don't specify the sounds that don't change from english), and to link those Wikipedia articles on each letter.

However, one might argue that these articles are too specific to be put in a learning material, and that, as the lojban letters accept many pronunciations, linking to one sound would be too restrictive.

So, I ask here if you think such a work would be interesting. I can put up a list of the lojban sounds and their Wikipedia articles – there may even be diphtongs, I'm not sure. Also, as I am not a linguist, nor a veteran lojbanist, I can make mistakes. So, if you tell me that it is a good idea, I would make that list, and post it here for review, before modifying the lesson.

This works may be of benefit for translations of the lessons: these articles exist in a french version, for example, but also in many other languages.

mu'o mi'e la .daeldir.

[Jorge Llambías]

On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 12:50 AM, Daeldir <dae...@gmail.com> wrote:

While translating the Lojban Wave Lesson Zero, about lojban letters pronunciation, in french, I used some Wikipedia linguistic articles to describe the “x” and “r” in lojban.

Wikipedia has sound samples for every lojbanic sound, I think, as we can see on those few examples:

L: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_lateral_approximant
O: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-mid_back_rounded_vowel
R: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_trill
X: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_fricative

I was thinking it would be nice to cover all the lojban sounds in the lesson zero (we actually don't specify the sounds that don't change from english), and to link those Wikipedia articles on each letter.

However, one might argue that these articles are too specific to be put in a learning material, and that, as the lojban letters accept many pronunciations, linking to one sound would be too restrictive.

So, I ask here if you think such a work would be interesting. I can put up a list of the lojban sounds and their Wikipedia articles – there may even be diphtongs, I'm not sure. Also, as I am not a linguist, nor a veteran lojbanist, I can make mistakes. So, if you tell me that it is a good idea, I would make that list, and post it here for review, before modifying the lesson.

You may find this useful http://jbo.wikipedia.org/wiki/lojban. which has links to all of them.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

 

[Daeldir]

Thanks for this link.

I'm now working on that (after a while without working on lojban). However, is the “o” sound correct here? It points to a close-mid back unrounded vowel (no english example on the Wikipedia page), but I'm almost certain that it should be a rounded one (like in “y_aw_n”, if I believe Wikipedia). I've used that latter sound in the Wave lesson, but it's a two letters change if I'm wrong ;-)

Also, about the “r” (I have a long story with the “r” ;-)), it points to an alveolar tap. I thought it was an alveolar trill! My mistake (if it is one) comes from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban#Phonology_and_orthography], I guess, where an alveolar trill is given for the “r”. And it had something to do with the spanish “r”, too, but I don't remember where I did read that, and anyway, on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R], we can see that both sound are used in spanish (so, it was not precise, but not false to do that kind of comparison). Well, I would like to know what is the “best” sound (as the two are correct, thank to lojban laxism about sounds differentiation). First, to point it as an example, second, to correct any “prefered way” that I could have put in the french translation (as the french “r” is really different from both sounds, I spent some time on it).

Now, I'm back to translations.

[Jorge Llambías]

On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 5:11 PM, Daeldir <dae...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, 22 May 2013 09:15:58 -0300
Jorge Llambías <jjlla...@gmail.com> wrote: 

> >
> You may find this useful http://jbo.wikipedia.org/wiki/lojban. which has
> links to all of them.

Thanks for this link.

I'm now working on that (after a while without working on lojban). However, is the “o” sound correct here? It points to a close-mid back unrounded vowel (no english example on the Wikipedia page), but I'm almost certain that it should be a rounded one (like in “y_aw_n”, if I believe Wikipedia). I've used that latter sound in the Wave lesson, but it's a two letters change if I'm wrong ;-)

I changed it to Mid back rounded vowel in the article, which I'm pretty sure is what I had originally, someone must have changed it to Close-mid back unrounded. I also changed "e" to Mid front unrounded. Both rounded and unrounded are allowed, as there is no specification of roundedness for vowels, but if you must go one way I'd go with rounded o and unrounded e. It also doesn't need to be Close-mid. The specification for "o" is "a back mid vowel" and for "e" it's "a front mid vowel".

Also, about the “r” (I have a long story with the “r” ;-)), it points to an alveolar tap. I thought it was an alveolar trill! My mistake (if it is one) comes from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban#Phonology_and_orthography], I guess, where an alveolar trill is given for the “r”. And it had something to do with the spanish “r”, too, but I don't remember where I did read that, and anyway, on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R], we can see that both sound are used in spanish (so, it was not precise, but not false to do that kind of comparison). Well, I would like to know what is the “best” sound (as the two are correct, thank to lojban laxism about sounds differentiation). First, to point it as an example, second, to correct any “prefered way” that I could have put in the french translation (as the french “r” is really different from both sounds, I spent some time on it).

Many are allowed, but the alveolar tap is probably the most common across languages, and so I think it's the one that should be preferred.

[Pierre Abbat]

On Friday, May 31, 2013 22:11:33 Daeldir wrote:
> Also, about the “r” (I have a long story with the “r” ;-)), it points to an
> alveolar tap. I thought it was an alveolar trill! My mistake (if it is one)
> comes from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban#Phonology_and_orthography],
> I guess, where an alveolar trill is given for the “r”. And it had something
> to do with the spanish “r”, too, but I don't remember where I did read
> that, and anyway, on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R], we can see that both
> sound are used in spanish (so, it was not precise, but not false to do that
> kind of comparison). Well, I would like to know what is the “best” sound
> (as the two are correct, thank to lojban laxism about sounds
> differentiation). First, to point it as an example, second, to correct any
> “prefered way” that I could have put in the french translation (as the
> french “r” is really different from both sounds, I spent some time on it).

Both the tap and the trill are valid "r" sounds, and are allophones in Lojban
(unlike Spanish, where they are two different phonemes between vowels). My
pronunciation rule is something like this: a trill at the beginning or end of
a word, a tap between vowels, a trill before a consonant, a tap after a
consonant, and as in English "mercy" between two consonants.

Pierre
--
li fi'u vu'u fi'u fi'u du li pa

[la arxokuna]

What? Is English alveolar/retroflex approximant not allowed? 

[Daeldir]

From my understanding, a lot of “r” sounds are allowed, and so, I think, English alveolar/retroflex approximant should be, as long as we don't misunderstand that sound for an other letter.

My question was about the “recommended” pronunciation (like, the french “r” sound is very strange for many people, but stay correct in lojban, I just wanted people that learn lojban to speak with a lojban accent, and not a french accent, if they wish to do so).

On an other note, how do you pronunce words like “darxi” or “xruti”? When I try with a tap, “xruti” become “xcuti” and “darxi” becomes “dalxi”. My trill being a uvular one, I manage to pronunce those two words by “waving” my tongue but… Well, I have a hard time learning the “r” (at least, they explained to me an approximated relation beetween the french “r” and the lojban “x” on the french mailing list).

I didn't like the “r” in italian, I don't really like it in french, I like that we can almost always omit it in english… :-° Well, I'm becoming a bit personnal about that “r”… Don't I ?


Digression:

(well, I already digressed, but the following really has nothing to do about beginning lojban and is only me sharing thoughts about lojban sounds – and not about my hatery of the “r”)

I find lojban “poor” in sounds, as there is not many of them. But lojban may become rich in “cultural accents”, since what is a significant difference in other languages is only a pronunciation singularity in lojban (I don't have an exemple in english, but in french, the only way to distinguish “les frais” (the costs) and “lait frais” (fresh milk) is in the accent – and people that do not “hear” those accents tend to do terrible mistakes (some french don't hear, or at least speak those accents). Although in “un brin bien brun”, some put a difference in each “un”, but every french understantd it and some don't hear *at all* the difference. That would be like in lojban, only “cosmetic” accent. Another example is with the spanish “r”: “pera” and “perra” are very different in spanish, but would be the same in lojban).

From that point of view, I think that lojban may “limit” the thoughts. Not in “thinking about the world”, but in “percepting the world”. I can't hear all the different vowels of mandarin. For me, they're all the same (well, not all, but one of “my” vowels correspond to a lot of “their” vowels). A native lojban speaker may not be able to distinguish “goal” and “gull”, “pera” and “perra” or “les frais” and “lait frais”… (that's pure supposition based on my knowledge of language acquisition in the first years of life – and I don't know if cultural accents will overcome or exacerbate that effect of the language)

I think it's a sad thing. But it's a good strategy : I can learn lojban, while I'm stuck in the first lesson of mandarin I ever attempted :-D

I wonder what would be the real impact on sounds understanding. As, for now, the only native lojban speakers have two native languages, I don't think we will be able to see if the lojban sounds paucity will impact them. Only in lojbanistan could we observe such impact :-)

[Pierre Abbat]

On Saturday, June 01, 2013 23:08:53 Daeldir wrote:
> My question was about the “recommended” pronunciation (like, the french “r”
> sound is very strange for many people, but stay correct in lojban, I just
> wanted people that learn lojban to speak with a lojban accent, and not a
> french accent, if they wish to do so).

I don't think a distinct Lojban accent has evolved yet. We could go by K&F's
pronunciation, once they're old enough, but I hesitate to make their
pronunciation of "x" normative because their father is missing the uvula.
Maybe we should wait until a child learns Lojban from two adults with different
accents.

> On an other note, how do you pronunce words like “darxi” or “xruti”? When I
> try with a tap, “xruti” become “xcuti” and “darxi” becomes “dalxi”. My
> trill being a uvular one, I manage to pronunce those two words by “waving”
> my tongue but… Well, I have a hard time learning the “r” (at least, they
> explained to me an approximated relation beetween the french “r” and the
> lojban “x” on the french mailing list).

I didn't explain that, thinking it was a bit too complicated, but here it is:
"x" is a voiceless velar or uvular fricative (I'm not sure if I am pronouncing
a uvular fricative or trill). "r" is a voiced trill when next to "x"; "x" is
uvular when next to "r". "rx" is an alveolar trill followed by a uvular trill;
"xr" is a simultaneous uvulo-alveolar trill which is first voiceless, then
voiced. If "r" occurs between two "x", as in "rirxrxrone" and "rirxrxrazdani",
instead of using the English "r" as I usually do between consonants, I
pronounce a double trill and turn the voice on and off. If the sequence ends
with "x", as in the hypothetical word "maxrxa", I end with a uvular, dropping
the alveolar trill.

> I find lojban “poor” in sounds, as there is not many of them. But lojban may
> become rich in “cultural accents”, since what is a significant difference
> in other languages is only a pronunciation singularity in lojban (I don't
> have an exemple in english, but in french, the only way to distinguish “les
> frais” (the costs) and “lait frais” (fresh milk) is in the accent – and
> people that do not “hear” those accents tend to do terrible mistakes (some
> french don't hear, or at least speak those accents). Although in “un brin
> bien brun”, some put a difference in each “un”, but every french
> understantd it and some don't hear *at all* the difference. That would be
> like in lojban, only “cosmetic” accent. Another example is with the spanish
> “r”: “pera” and “perra” are very different in spanish, but would be the
> same in lojban).

I pronounce "un" and "in" differently, but once my father said "défunte" in a
way that I heard "défeinte".

Here are some more minimal pairs/triplets/etc. which may be hard for speakers
of other languages to hear:
en: sin/sing/thin/thing, ship/sheep, look/Luke
fr: cire/sur/sœur/sueur/sieur, pécher/pêcher/péchait/pêchait
es: uñón/union, ahorra/ahora

[MystyrNile a]

You can use a uvular for the x? Didn't know that. Germans would be pleased, since i think they pronounce their x sound(actually spelt ch in German) in the uvular position before t.

Are voiceless palatal fricatives considered acceptable alternatives to the default x sound? Because some people (like German speakers) find it easier to pronounce that way after /i/.