Interestingly, the selamat in Malay and tagalog is the same and we don't pronouce it as the Esperanto /e/(air) but is it as /ɛ/...

If his family name is pronouce as selamat as in the EO /e/, this would annoy the man and his clan of family.

As there are many Chinese names are also in that sound as /ɛ/

Esperanto allows /ɛ/. I say "e" as /ɛ/. And they understand it, trust me (in chatonic, the people there find my speech clear). That's why I said that there's no problem. Feel free to use /ɛ/.

patrik:P.S. I just checked Wikipedia, and I found that the Malay "e" is actually /e, ɛ/. The same as in Tagalog, my mother tongue. So, there's actually no problem at all, kara paksu.

Actually the e in Malaysian is reduced to a schwa quite often, as in Indonesian, at least to my understanding (I may be wrong, I studied Bahasa Indonesia in school, not Bahasa Malayu )

What doesn't really help here is that English speakers can pronounce words like "Selamat ~" (Selamat Pagi, sore, siang etc) extremely easily, because we've got the same vowels in our language.

Maybe one goal for teachers of Esperanto can be to instruct people on the way people from other cultures pronounce their native words, so that the "reduced" e is not turned into a /e~ɛ/ sound which is too far forward. But if that happened, then the letter "e" would stand for /e~ɛ~ə/ which is a lot of possible sounds for one letter, and people would probably still default on /e~ɛ/ and forget about /ə/ if they all used the same letter

So, if I'm correct, Paksu, you want to have a way to write the schwa/reduced "e" sound in Esperanto, not to replace or become standard, but for writing names from other languages which use this reduced sound? If so I think that'd be great, it'd have to be with x, w, y and q though, unless there was a large whole-community drive by all Esperantists to have the schwa become normal Esperanto.

An alternative might be to write things like "selamat" as "S'lamat", but some may not be happy with that.. :-/

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Also, I think there is confusion with /ɛ/ and /ə/. The "air" sound in English is /ɛ/. The general European (and Esperanto) 'e' is in between /e/ and /ɛ/, and are often regarded as both being just /e/ for simplicity, and are practically the same thing, except in some Germanic languages and Romance languages. The e in selamat should be /ə/.

See here

It's rather senseless to add a vowel to Esperanto. We already have 5, and if we add more the language will become more difficult. But since we have so few, you are relatively free to pronounce them in many different ways, and we will still understand you.

By the way, this is the first time I have ever seen someone propose adding sounds to Esperanto.

@paksu
I see where this came from.

Well, to save both our time I will present my counterargument briefly.

First, you think that the lack of a sound will obstruct Esperanto's spread in Asia. Well, but all the experience I have, people are "frustrated" not when a foreign language doesn't have a sound of their mother tongue. In contraty, the difficulty is always about the foriegn language with sounds not found in his mother tongue. So, yeah, I am surprized you really want to add a sound to Esperanto instead of taking out the hated "R" (just joking XD).

Second, you know what's so good about ambiguity? It's that people don't need to fear having "accent". Ask how many Chinese can easily grasp the different "a" sounds in English.

Third, if it is the proununciation of name that you concern, you know we can actually leave them out un-esperantized. Like leave them out in their Bahasa form, and people will know to be careful prounounce them in Bahasa phonology.

You can discuss with me in the Chinese board if you feel in Chinese you can present your case better~

Rogir:It's rather senseless to add a vowel to Esperanto. We already have 5, and if we add more the language will become more difficult. But since we have so few, you are relatively free to pronounce them in many different ways, and we will still understand you.

By the way, this is the first time I have ever seen someone propose adding sounds to Esperanto.

Well, if anyone can pronounce the way they like as it is, that would be no standard. Though this /e/ is a minor thing but it meant a great different in sound.

I am not able to speak the language of the aborigins in my country, the 200 tribes that reside in the jungle may have more sounds or less sound.

As mentioned early, good change is a positive sign.

Esperanto did not stay as what it was in the past

However, modern Esperanto usage may in fact depart from that originally described in the Fundamento. The translation given for "I like this one", in the above phrases offers a significant example. According to the Fundamento, Mi ŝatas ĉi tiun would in fact have meant "I esteem this one". The traditional usage would instead have been Ĉi tiu plaĉas al mi (literally, "this one is pleasing to me"), which, although it differs from the English phrasing in "I like this one", more closely reflects the phrasing in several other languages (e.g. French celui-ci me pla�t, Spanish éste me gusta, Russian это мне нравится, German Dieses gef�llt mir).

http://www.fact-index.com/e/es/esperanto.html

Maybe one goal for teachers of Esperanto can be to instruct people on the way people from other cultures pronounce their native words, so that the "reduced" e is not turned into a /e~ɛ/ sound which is too far forward. But if that happened, then the letter "e" would stand for /e~ɛ~ə/ which is a lot of possible sounds for one letter, and people would probably still default on /e~ɛ/ and forget about /ə/ if they all used the same letter

You are right. That is why as a learner of Esperanto, I am all the time encounter the problem of lernu and Esperanto.

An alternative might be to write things like "selamat" as "S'lamat", but some may not be happy with that.. :-/

This has this has to be agreed in the Universal Esperanto Congress as not here for whom we are in the position to certify the sound.

Malay language has nothing much improved as it has together with the Indonesian language has accepted the sound system from foreign language into their languange system, for example, science=sains, computer=komputer,bank=bank, just to mention a few.

This created a lot of problems for the learners of the language in the spelling when they are attending the test in English language.

As mentioned online info, every letter of Esperanto should be heard and if the /e/ is heard wrongly and it may be an error.

i love Esperanto as it has no silent letter as take in English, the e is dropped, the girl in the British proniciation, the r is silent and car too.

paksu:

Rogir:It's rather senseless to add a vowel to Esperanto. We already have 5, and if we add more the language will become more difficult. But since we have so few, you are relatively free to pronounce them in many different ways, and we will still understand you.

So somebody speaks Esperanto with an accent. I've heard a lot worse. If you think pronouncing e is a big deal, listen to your average American pronounce ANY vowel

So, yeah, I am surprized you really want to add a sound to Esperanto instead of taking out the hated "R" (just joking XD).

R is not a major cause for the people of Asean countries. Neither is for the Chinese speakers.

It's that people don't need to fear having "accent".

I don't think the accent plays much attention to me, as i listen to radio verda and CRI and the accent is a great different but i could understand it as each letter is pronouced and i can dictate it while i was listened to it.

There are Spanish speakers in the Brazil latin America zone and it is fine for me. That is why i like Esperanto compared to a language i have used almost 5 decades--English, still struggling in the 'accent'.

Esperanto did not stay as what it was in the past

In style, no; in phonology, yeah.

R is not a major cause for the people of Asean countries. Neither is for the Chinese speakers.

...Well, tell that to a Japanese. And I have to confess even today I can't roll my R correctly.

I don't think the accent plays much attention to me, [...] That is why i like Esperanto compared to a language i have used almost 5 decades--English, still struggling in the 'accent'.

OK so you agree with me that fewer vowels there are, less people have to fear about misproununciation right?
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And here is another question:

Assume that we are really persuaded to add /e, ɛ/, then why won't we just as well go on to add /y/,/ɤ/,/ŋ/ (in Chinese), /ɯ/ (in Japanese) and all other sounds you won't even know human are capable of making?

Any clue what makes /e, ɛ/ so special and important?

paksu:This has this has to be agreed in the Universal Esperanto Congress as not here for whom we are in the position to certify the sound.

There is no assembly at the Universala Kongreso that has that authority. The Universala Esperanto-Asocio does not either, not even the Akademio de Esperanto could propose that, since it goes straight against the Fundamento de Esperanto. So in conclusion, if those sounds would be added, you would be speaking a different language.