The fact that this experimental cmavo even exists suggest that the author
most likely misunderstood Lojban’s phonology. rei does not
neccessarily sound like re. Lojban allows two sounds for “e”: (IPA
notation follows) [e] and [ɛ]. So re can be pronounced as [rɛ] or as
[re] (let’s ignore the rhotic (‘r’) sounds now). rei, on the other
hand, must be pronounced [rɛj] (but the Reference Grammar suggests that
[rej] may also be O.K.). If you speak [rɛj] and then [rɛ] out loudly,
you can easily distingush them, so I suggest saying [rɛ] for re and
[rɛj] for rei. This is perfectly legal according to the reference
grammar and does not require to change _anything_ of the language. I urge
you to read the Reference Grammar, chapter 3: sections 2 and 4. See also
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-mid_front_unrounded_vowel>,
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-mid_front_unrounded_vowel> and
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatal_approximant> for the pronouncation
of [e], [ɛ], and [j] respectively.

Comment #2: IPA notation broken

Wuzzy (Fri Jul 12 14:15:10 2013)

Sigh. The parser broke the IPA notation of my previous post. Please imagine there were brackets (“[” and “]”) around the “spoken” letters. These are NOT links!

Comment #3: Re: Not needed

gleki (Fri Jul 12 17:33:03 2013)

Wuzzy wrote: > The fact that this experimental cmavo even exists suggest that the author > most likely misunderstood Lojban’s phonology. rei does not > neccessarily sound like re. Lojban allows two sounds for “e”: (IPA > notation follows) [e] and [ɛ]. So re can be pronounced as [rɛ] or as > [re] (let’s ignore the rhotic (‘r’) sounds now). rei, on the other > hand, must be pronounced [rɛj] (but the Reference Grammar suggests that > [rej] may also be O.K.). If you speak [rɛj] and then [rɛ] out loudly, > you can easily distingush them, so I suggest saying [rɛ] for re and > [rɛj] for rei. This is perfectly legal according to the reference > grammar and does not require to change _anything_ of the language. I urge > you to read the Reference Grammar, chapter 3: sections 2 and 4. See also > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-mid_front_unrounded_vowel>, > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-mid_front_unrounded_vowel> and > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatal_approximant> for the pronouncation > of [e], [ɛ], and [j] respectively. This is legal but if one says [li pareno li parejno] or [li parɛno li parɛjno] then the problem still exists. Numbers (as CLL states) were chosen so that they differ much in pronunciation. Look at this: no pa re ci vo mu xa ze bi so No two cmavo alike. rei breaks this and therefore must die.

Comment #4: Not not needed. Wuzzy (Sat Jul 13 09:43:48 2013) gleki wrote: > This is legal but if one says [li pareno li parejno] > or [li parɛno li parɛjno] then the problem still exists. Whoops! I did not think about this. *sigh* [li pareno li parejno] is indeed hard distinguishable (But I find [li parɛno li parɛjno] much easier to distinguish btw.) and it would not against the grammar to say so. Whoops! So it seems that rei was indeed a bad choice. Now I agree that it needs to change. I just turned my thumb around.