buffer sound

[Logical Language Group <cbmvax!uunet!GREBYN.COM!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!lojbab>]

We are constantly looking to improve the way we teach Lojban, and if there are
sizeable groups of people that have trouble with [I]  (something I as an E
American English speaker just can;t identify with - to me "bit" and "beet" c
could never be confused), then we will have to mention these potential problems.

Note that my current teaching strategy does allow for this a bit, but only in
face to face teaching.  As time has progressed, my schwa hyphen has moved f
further back, becoming more like 'put' and 'look'.  This was actually to
distinguish it from my 'a', which is a front vowel that sometimes blurs to @
in unstressed final syllables when I am not careful.  But shifting the Lojban
y hyphen some does make more room for the buffer to be more central yet
distinct from the 'y'.

I should also note that in the limited practice it has seen, the buffer sound,
whatever it has been, has also been distinguished from other vowels by length
- it is MUCH shorter than any vowel represented by a letter in Lojban text.
Whether this will continue to be so distinct at fluent rates of speech isn't
clear, which is why I've avoided any use of length as an officially distinct
vowel feature.

The real problem in identifying a sound for the buffer is that if you are
speaking the language, the listener should be filtering it out as a noise
that is not phonemic.  The closest there is to buffered speech in the DC
community is when someone slurs a double-stop consonant cluster like in
"pikta" or "xadba".  Indeed, in the former, the buffer tends to be devoiced,
making it even harder to hear.  But I have to listen carefully and use my
linguistic knowledge that it is virtually impossible to havce a double stop
without buffering to actually recognize that there IS a sound in there, much
less say what it is.  To me the sound we use is more like the sound in "bit"
than the sound in "but".

Side note to answer Julian - "mz" is forbidden out of likely confusion with
'nz' in medial position - the confusion doesn;t happen in word-final position,
so we can easily tell James and Jane's apart.  But Jamesy and Janesy get a bit
more difficult for listeners, at least around here.

lojbab