Appendix A. Complete Pronunciation Guide

Table of Contents
International Phonetic Alphabet
Arabic
Chinese (Putonghua/Mandarin)
Hindi & Urdu
Russian
Spanish
mulno ke bacru tadji velciski

The pronunciation guide that appeared in the Overview is intended for speakers of North American English. This more complete pronunciation guide uses the International Phonetic Alphabet, and comparison with the other five source languages of Lojban, in order to be useful outside North America.

Rather than concentrate on precise phonetic targets, Lojban phonemes have a range of allowed pronunciations, although there are preferred variants (given first in the IPA chart below.) The intent is to allow speakers to be understood unambiguously, rather than to devise a specific Lojban 'accent'. (ASCII IPA transliteration uses Evan Kirshenbaum's scheme.)

International Phonetic Alphabet

munje sancyci'e lerfu

a 

[a] ([A]): an open vowel

b 

[b]: a voiced bilabial stop

c 

[S] ([s.]): an unvoiced coronal sibilant

d 

[d]: a voiced dental/alveolar stop

e 

[E] ([e]): a front mid vowel

f 

[f] ([P]): an unvoiced labial fricative

g 

[g]: a voiced velar stop

i 

[i]: a front close vowel

j 

[Z] ([z.]): a voiced coronal sibilant

k 

[k]: an unvoiced velar stop

l 

[l] ([l-]): a voiced lateral approximant (may be syllabic)

m 

[m] ([m-]): a voiced labial nasal (may be syllabic)

n 

[n] ([n-, ŋ, ŋ-]): a voiced dental, alveolar or velar nasal (may be syllabic)

o 

[o] ([O]): a back mid vowel

p 

[p]: an unvoiced bilabial stop

r 

[r<trl>] ([r, *, r", r<trl>-, r-, *-, r"-]): a rhotic sound

s 

[s]; an unvoiced alveolar sibilant

t 

[t]: an unvoiced dental/alveolar stop

u 

[u]: a back close vowel

v 

[v] ([B]): a voiced labial fricative

x 

[x]: an unvoiced velar fricative

y 

[@]; a central mid vowel

z 

[z]: a voiced alveolar sibilant

' 

[h] ([T]): an unvoiced glottal spirant

. 

[?]: a glottal stop or a pause

ai 

[aj] ([Aj])

au 

[aw] ([Aw])

ei 

[Ej] ([ej])

oi 

[oj] ([Oj])

ia 

[ja] ([jA])

ie 

[jE] ([je])

ii 

[ji]

io 

[jo] ([jO])

iu 

[ju]

ua 

[wa] ([wA])

ue 

[wE] ([we])

ui 

[wi]

uo 

[wo] ([wO])

uu 

[wu]