Re: lojban 'a'

[Rob Zook <rzook@INFORMIX.COM>]

At 03:17 PM 1/6/98 -0500, John Cowan wrote:
>Rick Nylander wrote:
>
>> I'm not sure how to pronounce the lojban "a," which the book describes as
>> something like the "a" in New England "park."
>>
>> I'm from the western U.S. (me no speakee New English).  Is it something
like
>> halfway between the a's in "fat" and "father"?
>
>The "a" of "father" does fine, as long as you don't let it merge
>with Lojban "y", which is the "a" of "sofa".  You have to keep them
>distinct even when "a" is not stressed.  If you can learn to
>pronounce "a" further forward in the mouth (but not so far as
>"fat"), then it is less likely to be confused with Lojban "y").

While we're on the subject, does anyone have a chart showing the
distingushing characteristics of the lojban phonemes? Especially the
vowels.

I'm also curious about a chart of minimally contrastive pairs, and
what, if any, allophones exist.

For example in my dialect of English, that /a/ in father seems like an
unrounded open front vowel. While to me the New England park seems more
like unrounded open-mid center vowel. I could be wrong, though.

Or, more simply what correlation exists between the lojban orthigraphy
and the IPA alphabet?


Rob Z.
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