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Missing FAQ: Is the "j" in Pijul hard or soft?

by Karellen 3y ago

1oooqooq 3y ago
It's just pronounced "j". as the "g" in gif.
- FrancoisBosun 3y ago
  I logged in just to upvote this! Got a good chuckle out of me :)
philwelch 3y ago
That’s not even an exhaustive set of possibilities.
- Aachen 3y ago
  If you ask the waiter if they've got cauliflower or broccoli, I'm sure s/he'll still reply if all they've got is carrots, without being exhaustive
ZoomZoomZoom 3y ago
Don't know what hard or soft supposed to mean in a hypothetically ambiguous context, but the `j` here is obviously a Voiceless velar fricative (`x` in IPA). Think loch (Scott.), Χάρων (Gr.), joven (Sp.), хлопець (Ukr.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_fricative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_fricative
- Karellen 3y ago
  ~~"obviously"? Why?~~ aha! see edit 2 That pronunciation had temporarily escaped me. I was trying to decide between a voiced postalveolar affricate d͡ʒ (hard) or voiced palatal approximant j (soft). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_postalveolar_affricate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_postalveolar_affricate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_palatal_approximant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_palatal_approximant Edit: "hard" and "soft" seemed like the most logical way to describe what I thought was a dichotomy, particularly as it's also often used to distinguish between the voicings of "c" and "g". Edit 2: Just read the whole FAQ (rather than searching for "pronunciation" or related terms), and noticed the "Where does the name come from?" entry, which mentions the Mexican origin, which is why "x" is "obviously" correct.
  - ZoomZoomZoom 3y ago
    Regarding my usage of the "obvious": it would only be correct to say that it's obvious to me, sorry for that. The reasoning goes like this: The word uses the Latin script in its most basic form so it's most probably some western-European language, Romance or Germanic. The phonetic structure fits Spanish the best, compared to other languages that I have any superficial knowledge on, the -ul being the most telling bit.
owenversteeg 3y ago
I say the whole thing should be pronounced 啤酒 (píjiǔ), which means beer in Chinese, just to add even more confusion into the mix :) Learning the intricacies of tonal languages is probably quicker than fully understanding Git so you still come out ahead by switching.

Missing FAQ: Is the "j" in Pijul hard or soft?

1oooqooq 3y ago

It's just pronounced "j". as the "g" in gif.

FrancoisBosun 3y ago
I logged in just to upvote this! Got a good chuckle out of me :)

philwelch 3y ago

That’s not even an exhaustive set of possibilities.

Aachen 3y ago
If you ask the waiter if they've got cauliflower or broccoli, I'm sure s/he'll still reply if all they've got is carrots, without being exhaustive

ZoomZoomZoom 3y ago

Don't know what hard or soft supposed to mean in a hypothetically ambiguous context, but the `j` here is obviously a Voiceless velar fricative (`x` in IPA). Think loch (Scott.), Χάρων (Gr.), joven (Sp.), хлопець (Ukr.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_fricative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_fricative

Karellen 3y ago
~~"obviously"? Why?~~ aha! see edit 2 That pronunciation had temporarily escaped me. I was trying to decide between a voiced postalveolar affricate d͡ʒ (hard) or voiced palatal approximant j (soft). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_postalveolar_affricate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_postalveolar_affricate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_palatal_approximant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_palatal_approximant Edit: "hard" and "soft" seemed like the most logical way to describe what I thought was a dichotomy, particularly as it's also often used to distinguish between the voicings of "c" and "g". Edit 2: Just read the whole FAQ (rather than searching for "pronunciation" or related terms), and noticed the "Where does the name come from?" entry, which mentions the Mexican origin, which is why "x" is "obviously" correct.
- ZoomZoomZoom 3y ago
  Regarding my usage of the "obvious": it would only be correct to say that it's obvious to me, sorry for that. The reasoning goes like this: The word uses the Latin script in its most basic form so it's most probably some western-European language, Romance or Germanic. The phonetic structure fits Spanish the best, compared to other languages that I have any superficial knowledge on, the -ul being the most telling bit.

owenversteeg 3y ago

I say the whole thing should be pronounced 啤酒 (píjiǔ), which means beer in Chinese, just to add even more confusion into the mix :) Learning the intricacies of tonal languages is probably quicker than fully understanding Git so you still come out ahead by switching.