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Rex: #I really hate, as do some of you, to have c out there not meaning anything. #I think everybody agrees that it would make a lousy vowel. So that leaves #these possibilities: # #C = /T/ as in Eng 'thin.' Disadvantages: It upsets the symmetry, because #there will be no voiced counterpart. Lots (most) can't pronounce it. # #C = A general click. Disadvantages: hard to pronounce. weirdness. Clicks aren't hard to pronounce; we use them in everyday English, for example. They're easier to integrate with adjacent consonants and vowels if they're nasalized, as in Livagian. If they seem weird, or to stand out too much from the rest of the phonology, they could be reserved for particular word classes, such as interjections. #C = sound in German baCH. Disadvantages: Hard to distinguish from the #regular h sound, tho German and Esperanto seem to do okay with both. As in which minimal pairs? I don't know of minimal pairs with [h] [x] contrast from any language, tho John Cowan has suggested to me they might occur in Irish. --And.