pdenisowski:

Fenris_kcf: Try speaking the following syllables:

kta
kpa
pka
pta
tka
tpa

Do you really manage to pronounce them with one syllabe or do you put a schwa-like vowel in between?

The Polish word "ptak" (bird) is pronounced as one syllable, so it's certainly possible.]

Can't forget about Polish "kto" (who) either. And I believe "tko" exists in Serbo-Croatian.

acdibble:

pdenisowski:

Fenris_kcf: Try speaking the following syllables:

kta
kpa
pka
pta
tka
tpa

Do you really manage to pronounce them with one syllabe or do you put a schwa-like vowel in between?

The Polish word "ptak" (bird) is pronounced as one syllable, so it's certainly possible.]

Can't forget about Polish "kto" (who) either. And I believe "tko" exists in Serbo-Croatian.

I presume all of the above combinations of stops appear in some language. Polish has words that begin with pt (ptak), kt (kto), kp (kpiarski), and tk (tkać).

There are also plenty of Polish words with "tp" or "pk", such as "wątpienie" or "kropka", but these fall on a syllable boundary (wąt-pienie and krop-ka) so it's debatable whether these are the same thing.

In fact, I would guess that initial or final "pk" is not "allowed" in Polish phonology, since an extra vowel is inserted in cases where they would normally appear together : the genitive plural of "kropka" should be "kropk" but instead a vowel is inserted to make it "kropek".

This seems to support Fenris_kcf's position that there are consonant clusters which are so unpronouncable that one has to insert some kind of schwa/vowel in between them. If Polish speakers can't pronounce some bizarre set of consonants, then nobody can

Amike,
Paul

(My favorite Polish tongue-twister : Straszna powódź w Szczebrzeszynie - Brzmi żartowniś chrząszczyk w trzcinie)

pdenisowski:
There are also plenty of Polish words with "tp" or "pk", such as "wątpienie" or "kropka", but these fall on a syllable boundary (wąt-pienie and krop-ka) so it's debatable whether these are the same thing.

It depends on where you split a word. For example I pronounce them rather like wą-tpienie and kro-pka and it doesn't seem difficulter. But the combination of "pi" is actually pronounced like /p'i/ - p is softened by i.

In fact, I would guess that initial or final "pk" is not "allowed" in Polish phonology, since an extra vowel is inserted in cases where they would normally appear together : the genitive plural of "kropka" should be "kropk" but instead a vowel is inserted to make it "kropek".

This seems to support Fenris_kcf's position that there are consonant clusters which are so unpronouncable that one has to insert some kind of schwa/vowel in between them. If Polish speakers can't pronounce some bizarre set of consonants, then nobody can

Pronouncing of initial or final "pk" isn't impossible, it's just unnatural.

(My favorite Polish tongue-twister : Straszna powódź w Szczebrzeszynie - Brzmi żartowniś chrząszczyk w trzcinie)

Straszna powódź w Szczebrzeszynie - Brzmi żartowniś chrząszczyk w trzcinie

And this is the phonetic transcription using Esperanto letters:

/Straŝna povucj v Ŝĉebĵeŝinjie - Bĵmji ĵartovnjisj ĥŝonŝĉik v tŝcjinjie/

Accent like in Esperanto. It's not perfect but sufficient.

In a word like Vaŝingtono it is possible to pronounce the 'g' or to merge it with the 'n' in an 'ng' sound (I can't type the proper phonetic symbol).

As Erinja says, it is probably not important which you choose.

In a word like 'ringo', I would always pronounce both the 'n' and the 'g', so my 'sezono sen gastoj is like my 'sengasta sezono'.

I was trying to think of a case of two different words distinguished just by the a 'g' after an 'n' and with a following stop consonant, but could only think of artificial examples, eg lang-trudo and lan-trudo.

If there are cases of plausible examples, then the pronunciation of the 'g' would be important in such cases.

In a word like Vaŝingtono it is possible to pronounce the 'g' or to merge it with the 'n' in an 'ng' sound

In "Vaŝingtono" the "g" must be fully articulated. Always. That goes for all "g"s in Esperanto. "There are no silent letters."

The "n" can however be influenced by the "g" and turn into a velar sound. But no merger of "n" and "g" is allowed.

The "n" can however be influenced by the "g" and turn into a velar sound. But no merger of "n" and "g" is allowed.

What's the distinction between the 'n' being influenced by the 'g' and becoming a velar sound and (in plain language) the 'n' merging into the 'g' to make an 'ng' sound?

sudanglo:

The "n" can however be influenced by the "g" and turn into a velar sound. But no merger of "n" and "g" is allowed.

What's the distinction between the 'n' being influenced by the 'g' and becoming a velar sound and (in plain language) the 'n' merging into the 'g' to make an 'ng' sound?

The difference is that there is no silent letter even if some of phonemes can vary.

pdenisowski:In fact, I would guess that initial or final "pk" is not "allowed" in Polish phonology, since an extra vowel is inserted in cases where they would normally appear together : the genitive plural of "kropka" should be "kropk" but instead a vowel is inserted to make it "kropek".

This seems to support Fenris_kcf's position that there are consonant clusters which are so unpronouncable that one has to insert some kind of schwa/vowel in between them. If Polish speakers can't pronounce some bizarre set of consonants, then nobody can

But don't forget that the e-epenthesis occurs also with "easy" clusters like in wojna → wojen (not *wojn, although every esperantist would assert that word-final ojn is easy to pronounce. )

In some African languages there are the phonemes gb and kp. - There is hardly anything you can not pronounce, but the question is, whether an international language should make use of this.

One must concede that from the POV of articulation Esperanto is one of the harder planned languages, which on the other hand has the benefit of easily assimilating internationalisms and new lexemes.

Kirilo81:

pdenisowski:In fact, I would guess that initial or final "pk" is not "allowed" in Polish phonology, since an extra vowel is inserted in cases where they would normally appear together : the genitive plural of "kropka" should be "kropk" but instead a vowel is inserted to make it "kropek".

This seems to support Fenris_kcf's position that there are consonant clusters which are so unpronouncable that one has to insert some kind of schwa/vowel in between them. If Polish speakers can't pronounce some bizarre set of consonants, then nobody can

But don't forget that the e-epenthesis occurs also with "easy" clusters like in wojna → wojen (not *wojn, although every esperantist would assert that word-final ojn is easy to pronounce. )

Good point.

I can think of a few cases where it would be VERY difficult to pronounce a word without the e-epenthesis, e.g. gra (game) becomes gier in the genitive plural instead of just gr Still, I think you're right in that it would seem the issue is more complicated that just "how hard is it to pronounce"?

Getting back to constructed languages and the advisability of using "hard-to-pronounce" sounds, the book "In the Land of Invented Languages" has some interesting quotes from Mark Okrand (the inventor of Klingon) regarding Klingon phonology:

“The goal was for the language to be as unlike human language as possible while at the same time still pronounceable by actors,” I was told by Marc Okrand, the inventor of the Klingon language. “The alien character of Klingon doesn't stem so much from the sounds it uses as from the way that it violates the rules of commonly co-occurring sounds. There's nothing extraordinary about the sounds from a linguistic standpoint. You just wouldn't expect to find them all in the same language.”

In fact, the "folk etymology" of the Klingon word for difficult "Qatlh" is that it starts and stops with the two most difficult sounds in Klingon

Amike,
Paul

Kirilo81:
One must concede that from an articulatorical POW Esperanto is one of the harder planned languages, which on the other hand has the benefit of easily assimilating internationalisms and new lexemes.

Could someone please explain what an articulatorial POW is.
I'm having difficulty believing that someone would want to take an articulated creature (eg millipede) as a Prisoner Of War