[162] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: tlh at end of word
dcctdw@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (dcctdw@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Sun Feb 16 19:18:22 1992
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: mark@cc.gatech.edu (Mark J. Reed)
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 92 11:03:35 EST
In-Reply-To: <9201311417.AA12464@village.boston.ma.us>; from "Elias Israel" at
Eli writes:
\"Allan C. Wechsler" <ACW@yukon.scrc.symbolics.com> writes:
\>Not affricate; that is, with no stopped onset? The choice of "tlh" as
\>the orthography suggested an affricate to me, as does the fact that
\>non-Klingons tend to hear this as "kl". If this were a pure fricative,
\>wouldn't Okrand have used "lh" in the orthography? (But more thoughts
\>on the orthography later.)
\
\Can you go through that again slowly, for the benefit of those of us who
\did not take phonology in college? {{:-)
Here's a rough plain-English translation.
A "fricative" is a continuous sound, like /f/ or /v/ or /sh/. A "stop" is a
sound that, well, stops, like /p/ or /b/ or /t/. An "affricate" is a
combination of a stop and a fricative, like /ch/ (which is really /t/ and /sh/
run together).
The question is whether "tlh" is an affricate or a fricative. The way I
pronounce it is as an affricate, with a leading /t/ sound. This matches up
with the description in the book (along with Christopher Lloyd's pronunciation
in Star Trek III - he did a very good job, IMHO. But then, I understand Okrand
coached the actors individually for that movie). I'm sure the presence of the
't' in the transcription is not incidental.
--
Mark J. Reed College of Computing Technical Support
<mark@cc.gatech.edu> Georgia Institute of Technology
