Re: Two questions about Esperanto

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2004 1:45 AM
Subject: Re: Two questions about Esperanto


> On Mon, Jul 05, 2004 at 08:27:53PM +0200, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> > Since, apparently, no-one is ditching h^ completely, what's the point in
> > dropping in some words?
>
>
> Ease of pronunciation of at least those words, plus enhanced
> recognizability  of those words by speakers of languages such as English
> (others?  Italian maybe?) where /x/ -> /k/ in their cognates.
>
> And I understand there are some Esperanto-speakers who do ditch ĥ
completely,
> replacing it with either k or h depending on which one is unambiguous.
> Though I don't know if there are any triples distinguished solely by
> /h/ vs. /x/ vs. /k/, or what such speakers would do when confronted by
> one.
>
> -Markos
>
There's at least one such triple:
   hxoro = choir, chorus
   koro = heart
   horo = hour

Perhaps the speakers you mention would replace hxoro by koruso.

The main problem with hx (h with circumflex, the 11th letter of the
Esperanto alphabet, unvoiced velar fricative), as explained in
http://esperantorama.free.fr/lingvo/gramatiko/elqbaz.html, last section,
"Alternativoj de Ĥ-vortoj", is that that letter is difficult to some
speakers AND that it's the less frequent letter of Esperanto, therefore
those who can't pronounce it easily have not many occasions to exercise.

Replacement of hx by k (the other unvoiced velar consonant) was officially
accepted by the Akademio in words such as arhxeologio, where hx is preceded
by r. Some speakers replace hx by k in most of the words where it appears
and use alternative words when such a replacement could lead to ambiguity.
I was not aware that Cxinio was named Hxinio before.

For those who can read Esperanto, there's an interesting article by Bernard
Golden at http://www.esperanto.hu/egyeb/litero-h.htm.

In an article by Josef Kavka (http://mujweb.cz/Kultura/malovec/FONEMOH.htm),
I read that the replacement of hx by k tend to be generalized except in 2
occasions: the transliteration of person and place names and the scientific
terminology, where the use of hx allow to avoid ambiguity in words of Greek
origin.

In the same text, the last paragraph of section 4 says: "We see that the
differences between languages are very important and that, on the other
hand, author's subjectivity plays a relatively less considerable role. This
fact should convince each esperantist that radicalism, intending to
eliminate the phonem hx from everyday Esperanto, would be fruitless. The
widely international composition of the language users would simply not
allow the phonetic impoverishment."

Jean-François Colson

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