Pronunciation guide in German

' aha, Haar

a Gala
e besser
i Kiwi
o so
u du
y bezahlen, Minute

ai Mai
au Auto
ei hey
oi träumen

ia ja
ie jämmerlich, jetzt, Jänner (Austrian)
ii jiddisch
io Joghurt
iu Juwel

ua Qualität, Qual
ue Quelle
ui Quitte, quieken
uo Quote
uu -

Beware; some (many?) people pronounce qu- as [kf] or [kv] rather than [k_w] or [kw]. --pne

• This is dialectal and at least not standard German! Shall we drop these sounds for this reason???
  • Reference, please. Duden claims that [kv] is normative for {qu} (at least, that's the way I read the page).

b Baum
c Schere
d Dach
f Fenster
g Gitter
j Genie, Journal, Massage
k Keller
l Lampe
m Mann
n Nase
p Plan
r Rache
s Messer
t Tee
v Wasser
x acht
z Rose, Sonne

--

Is German [r] acceptable for Lojban ? To me, German [r] is a voiced version of Lojban {x} (a voiced velar fricative).

• I always thought of german [r] as being a trilled velar rhotic (or whatever the phonetic parlance is) ; the french [r] is what I would call a voiced velar fricative. I think it is acceptable although many germans can probably trill their r's (the swissgermans and some austrians do anyhow). The problem comes in such combinations as {xrani}, where people who are used to hearing a trilled [r] or an English/American [r] will have trouble deciding what sound is which.
  • I've heard the French [r] described as a voiced uvular fricative, but that's nearly the same thing (only one point of articulation further back).
  • Having looked at the Duden page for information about {qu}, I see that [r], [R\] and [R] (X-SAMPA: alveolar trill, uvular trill, voiced uvular fricative) are all listed as realisations of /r/. So the voiced velar fricative isn't listed, but my /r/ sounds more velar to me than uvular. Whatever.Nick's Lojban IPA document lists various trills and approximants as OK for Lojban
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    , but no fricatives — but since [r] and [R\] are realisations of /r/ in German according to Duden, I guess using German
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    as an example is OK, even if that's not my native (North German) realisation.
• I herewith solemnly raise protest against dropping the entry /r/ in German! If not speaking French, Yiddish or Hebrew, i always have been trilling my r's. This is common in many parts of southern Germany, middle and northern Germany - so-called "waterkant" area, Austria and German speaking Switzerland. Remember that great German speaking actors (theatre/theater of course: Gustaf Gründgens, Therese Giehse etc. etc.) trilled the r-liquid. BTW, also bear in mind that there are pretty different r-liquids in the German language, according to 'where' in a word it is articulated (which, BTW, is similar with /ch/: 'ich', 'echt', 'acht', 'Rache').

Only now that I realized that this discussion is totally unnecessary, given that Lojban actually allows any kind of 'r' (American, German, Italian and what have you). I dared to make an 'r' entry above ('Rache') - and without hints on different German pronunciations. --.aulun.