Herman writes:

>  >Mat McVeagh wrote:
>>>  we need to learn from the example of Schleyer who created Volapük
>>>without an
>>>  R, replacing all R's with L's, because the Chinese don't have an
>>>R - only to
>>>  find that the Chinese DO have an R :).
>
>Schleyer probably just didn't think of the Chinese [z`] and the German [R\]
>as being the same sound. Isn't the romanization for the Chinese sound
>written "r" in Pinyin something like "j" in Wade-Giles?

When it's syllable-initial, yes. When it's the rare syllable-final,
WG renders it "rh". Syllable-initially, it can sound _like_ the
French "j", which is why I believe "j" was chosen (and it finishes
the retroflex series: zh, ch, sh, r [WG: ch, ch', sh, j]), but
dialect variants can get you closer to [l] or even [j].
Syallable-finally, Chinese "er" (WG: erh) is actually quite close to
American English final "r" as in "are".

>Not to mention the "v", which isn't in Chinese or Arabic, and isn't a
>distinct phoneme in Spanish. Actually, come to think of it, four out of the
>seven sounds in the name "Volapük" are foreign to Arabic!

Not having something is not *necessarily* the same as not being able
to pronounce it. I can't speak to Arabic, but since (Mandarin)
Chinese has an "f", pronouncing a "v" is not difficult, though it
does not occur in that dialect (it does occur in Shanghainese).
Contrast Japanese where both "f" and "v" are bugaboos. Does Arabic
have an "f"?

Kou