Re: CONLANG Digest

At 03:54 06/05/00 -0400, you wrote:
>> From:    Christophe Grandsire <Christophe.Grandsire@...>
>> Subject: Re: Great Moments in Con/Auxlang Filmmaking
>>
>> I saw an extract of the movie, and I must say the actors really spoke a
>> very good (without accent) Esperanto.
>
>What _is_ the 'canonical accent' of Esperanto?
>
Well, the 'canonical' accent of Esperanto would be something like:
- all vowels pronounced pure (cardinal), with i and u never pronounced as
glides even near other vowels ('cxio' is ['t_Sio], not ['t_Sjo]), vowels
never nasalised near nasal consonnants,
- all consonnants have only one pronounciation, whatever their surrounding
is (hence 'akvo' is ['akvo], not ['agvo]), and this prononciation has to
never collide with the pronounciation of other consonnants (theoretically,
you're allowed to pronounce 'v' like a bilabial fricative, as long as it's
recognizable. But there is a community of speakers already and best is to
follow their conventions :) , just like in any other language),
- the accent is always on the penultimate syllable of words (the accent is
generally a stress-accent, but it can also be pitch-accent, or even
length-accent - the accented letter is pronounced longer -, the only
constraint is that it's recognisable).

                                                Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

"Reality is just another point of view."

homepage : http://rainbow.conlang.org
(ou : http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepages/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html)