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phonetic irregularity



I am new to Lojban and I have just received the introductory text, but I
would like to comment on the phonetics. I believe I am allowing for the
differences between British and American English pronunciation.

'o' seems to be irregular in pronunciation: it changes when followed by 'i'.
So while 'do' is pronounced as the English word 'doe', 'kloi' (a hypothetical
Lojban word) is pronounced as the English word 'cloy', rather than as the
name 'Chloe'. Is this a mistake in the introductory text, or in my
understanding of it?

Furthermore, 'o' as in English 'doe' is not a pure vowel, but a diphthong,
equivalent, or nearly equivalent, to Lojban 'yu'. From a phonetic point of
view, 'o' is superfluous and could be seen as an abbreviation of 'yu', except
when (if) modified by 'i' as above. From a lexical point of view, the
diphthong 'o' sound is ambiguous: it might be written 'o' or 'yu'.

If 'o' were to be pronounced always as in 'dot' in British received
pronunciation, the irregularity and ambiguity (if I am right in suggesting
that they exist) would be avoided. This sound, it seems, is not already
provided for in Lojban.

Wil