So there could be a Xi'an that speaks fluent English?
Cherie HeibergWriter and Archivist
Yes. There is one, actually. Professor Tai.
Britton WatkinsXenolinguist, language consultant
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, Professor Tai from the language overview document is extremely fluent in English. I mean, he might have a slight accent. I haven't heard him talk yet. We haven't recorded his voice. So he might have a slight accent. They do have a very, very hard time voicing a TH. So it's hard for them to say "there". They're more likely to pronounce "there" as [a different sound]. It's very hard for them to make that sound. They don't say "the cat", they say [something else]. They have to find another sound because, for some reason which is not yet completely clear to me either, they have a really hard time pronouncing voiced TH, a "the".
starfarer.space · Happy Hour Interview: The Xi'an Language and YOU