how to pronounce the apostrophe

[cbmvax!uunet!pucc.princeton.edu!lojbab]

How is the apostrophe pronounced, if not like an 'h'?

Well, for an English speaker, you can generally get away with an 'h' as long
as you don't growl it.

Lojban has both the apostrophe and the comma in use for syllable division.
Their primary finction is just that, to show that syllables are to be
divided at the marked point.  Thus "e,i" and "e'i"
are two syllables, whereas "ei" is a single syllable diphthong like the "ay"
in "play".

Now try to say "e,i" as two syllables and listen to what you produce, and feel
the movement of your tongue (upward) and your mouth (probably closing a little).
The sound that comes out will sound like "eeeeeyiiiii, with a noticeable
"y" sound at the change between vowels.

The purpose of the apostrophe is to tell the speaker NOT to pronounce the "y".
Why not?  Because "eeeeyiiii" is also Lojbanized as "e,ii" or /eh,yi/.
To pronounce "e,i" the same way would weaken Lojban's audiovisual isomorphism.

Therefore, whenever a syllable break is required between two vowels in normal
Lojban words, we move that comma up to an apostrophe to remind the speaker
mnot to simply glide from vowel to vowel, but to "devoice
between the two vowels.

The easiest way to devoice is to make an "h" sound, which is why we teach
it that way.  "ehi" will never be confused with "eyi".

But in 'properly' making the apostrophe devoicing, you shouldn;t puff your
cheeks or grate your throat or anything else you might normally do in making
a 'real h' by intent.  Rather, you simply move your mouth to the new vowel
position, continuing to exhale at the same rate, but not speaking the "y"
glide (or the "w" that occurs in other places).  The sound that results
will sound like an "h" but will be very short and very smooth.  (It isn't
REALLY a 'rough breathing', that is just what it is called by the Greeks).

It is most important to keep exhaling while chganging vowels, even if this
means that you force the sound a little and it more strongly resembles an
English "h".  If you stop exhaling, you have obstructed your vocal tract -
this is called a "glottal stop", and is consider the equivalent of a pause
in Lojban.  (To feel a glottal stop, say any English word starting with a
vowel by itself.  You will feel your throat catch and release as you start the
vowel.)  We represent a glottal stop in Lojban with a period (which actually
represents a pause of any length).  A pause means that you have two words.
So "e.i" is heard by a Lojban listener as "e  i", which incidentally is a
logical AND between sumti followed by the start of a new sentence.

So the choices for the"ei" together in Lojban are "e,i" (found only in names)
"ei" a single syllable diphthong, "e'i", a devoiced pair of syllables that
clearly runs together as a single word, and "e.i" two unconnected syllables
that are clearly separate words.

The basic 'rule' for Lojban pronunciation is that you must be able to clearly
differentiate between these four options in speech, and that if you DO make
an "h" sound for the apostrophe, that it not be so rough that it is heard as
the "x" sound.

Now you have the complex answer.  You will probably find it easier to do
than to read about, because it is so difficult to descriobe to people
what there mouth is actually doing when they speak.

Hope this helps, and perhaps also explains more clearly why we use an
apostrophe instead of an "h" to represent the sound.

If not, keep saying 'h' and I doubt if I'll complain.

----
lojbab = Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
         2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA
         703-385-0273
         lojbab@grebyn.com

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