Is there any particular reason the creators of Lojban chose the sound they did for "x"? I don't hear the sound much in many languages, but perhaps that's mainly because most languages I hear are European/Asian. Can anyone answer this question?
It certainly crops up in middle-eastern languages. I think I've heard it in Urdu. Or a language of Pakistan or India. Sorry I don't know more, my teacher from some place near India once described some middle-eastern languages for me with examples (we were talking about Rosetta Stone). I am so ignorant of “arabic” culture. I think I'll storm Wikipedia tonight and bone up. But yes, the 'x' sound is very beautiful imho for soft language.
I wonder about a lot of the decisions that our founders made. It's not what would have occured to me if I thought to make a "logical language", that's for sure. I find it hard to believe that it would really be so hard to come up with enough symbols for a full language within a phonology that was simple for most people and a word-parsing algorithm that could be explained in a few minutes (as opposed to one with tosmabru tests). As this is the Lojban that I've grown up with, though, I feel a lot of affection for the X. I had to learn it at first, years and years ago, and felt a little bit frustrated, but it's seemed very natural to me ever since, and now it sounds pretty. Incidentally, Lojban is perfectly comprehensible to my ears with incorrect Xs or sloppy vowels or etc. Just like any other language it's easiest to understand things which are said correctly, but you can still usually figure out simple things from context. I would recommend in general ignoring the haters and learning Lojban like you would any other language, by bravely speaking in a strong accent and then gradually improving your pronunciation.
I wonder about a lot of the decisions that our founders made. It's not what would have occured to me if I thought to make a "logical language", that's for sure. I find it hard to believe that it would really be so hard to come up with enough symbols for a full language within a phonology that was simple for most people and a word-parsing algorithm that could be explained in a few minutes (as opposed to one with tosmabru tests).
As this is the Lojban that I've grown up with, though, I feel a lot of affection for the X. I had to learn it at first, years and years ago, and felt a little bit frustrated, but it's seemed very natural to me ever since, and now it sounds pretty.
Incidentally, Lojban is perfectly comprehensible to my ears with incorrect Xs or sloppy vowels or etc. Just like any other language it's easiest to understand things which are said correctly, but you can still usually figure out simple things from context. I would recommend in general ignoring the haters and learning Lojban like you would any other language, by bravely speaking in a strong accent and then gradually improving your pronunciation.
>>126Funny, I think the complete opposite - I think {x} is ugly and guttural. When it's at the end of a word it's not so bad, but anywhere else and it makes you sound like an orc :).
>>126
Funny, I think the complete opposite - I think {x} is ugly and guttural. When it's at the end of a word it's not so bad, but anywhere else and it makes you sound like an orc :).
>>132I reckon that might depend on how hard you're doing it.
I don't have the x sound in my tongue, so I think I lay it on a bit thick. Whereas those with in in their language seem to do it much more fluently, with more confidence, more naturally and with a smoother sound. It's a problem to be solved with teamspeak/mumble/skype.
>>134yes, i think it would help people's pronunciation a lot even if they were just listening to more audio. You can believe in the sounds more once you've heard them enough. I think not everybody knows that there's a lot of recordings at http://jbobac.lojban.org/ (I just added a short one today and a song yesterday.) It's great that Lojbanistan has gotten so big that not everyone knows everything that's going on, but we should start to be aware of that and think more about advertising things within the community; don't just assume that everyone's heard of Jbobac and Jbotcan and the Zirpu Ckafybarja (aha! bet you didn't know that one!).. try to mention on every Lojbanic forum the most important things that happen in other places, so people can stay connected to what's happening. Anyway everyone's pronunciation and confidence in the language is going to shoot through the roof soon when we start to talk more on voice. A lot of these questions about how things sound will be much more .yyy. grounded, or something.
>>134
yes, i think it would help people's pronunciation a lot even if they were just listening to more audio. You can believe in the sounds more once you've heard them enough.
I think not everybody knows that there's a lot of recordings at http://jbobac.lojban.org/ (I just added a short one today and a song yesterday.) It's great that Lojbanistan has gotten so big that not everyone knows everything that's going on, but we should start to be aware of that and think more about advertising things within the community; don't just assume that everyone's heard of Jbobac and Jbotcan and the Zirpu Ckafybarja (aha! bet you didn't know that one!).. try to mention on every Lojbanic forum the most important things that happen in other places, so people can stay connected to what's happening.
Anyway everyone's pronunciation and confidence in the language is going to shoot through the roof soon when we start to talk more on voice. A lot of these questions about how things sound will be much more .yyy. grounded, or something.
It's the same as the IPA x.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_fricative
It's the same as the IPA x.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_fricative
This depends on your definition of "European" and "Asian". My native language is Russian, and my first foreign language learned was German. Bot have "x", so I am quite happy with it. ;-)
Russian (and other slavic languages), Chinese, German, Arabic and many other languages have [x] sound.
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