Turniansky, Michael [UNK] schrieb:
Martin:
-----Original Message-----
Now there's a whole bunch of xr words:
xrabo Arabic
xrani injure
xriso Christian
xruba buckwheat
xruki turkey
xrula flower
xruti return
I find {xr} hard to pronounce (even though I've a German
palate, too).
I dunno. I find it rather easy, but then I had a moderate exposure to
Hebrew and Yiddish in my formative years, in addition to my native
English (Spanish wasn't until later, ca. age 12-16). I tend to
pronounce the combination as (I think, I'm no phonologist) a voiceless
uvular fricative (which is probably not a technically legal
pronunciation of the lojbanic x)
Both the ich (a whispered yod) and the ach sound are valid, as far as
I know
transforming to a alveolar trill.
You could always add a buffer sound if you find it too difficult,
of course.
The ich sound (which may be what Martin tries to use) needs awkward
tongue repositioning in the neighborhood of either r variant - but for
my German ear, at least, the distinction of the sounds is much clearer
(different places of articulation, no overlap in the time domain
possible) with the ich sound.
If you use uvular fricatives for both sounds, xr becomes as easy as
saying "months" with the dorsal s variant (a problem at least for
German learners).
klaus
