[1653] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: opinions on Orthography & Phonetics
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Tue Oct 12 20:13:59 1993
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.east.sun.com>
From: Nick Nicholas <nsn@mullian.ee.mu.oz.au>
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.east.sun.com>
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 10:08:27 +1000 (GMT)
In-Reply-To: <9310121507.AA15946@uva.pcmail.Virginia.EDU> from "Will Martin" at
Oct 12, 93 11:07:10 am
To Will Martin respond I thus:
# Without wishing a major conflict, I have to express that for all the
#things this writer has said with which I agree, there is very little here I
#find agreeable. I, too, have learned the Schoen alphabet and I like it, but I
#have to recognize that Okrand has explicitly avoided endorsing it
The details of which piQaD we use are irrelevant. The simple fact is that the
transilteration we have used in TKD is just that --- *a* transliteration, not
*the* piQaD. Arguing about different transliterations being more or less
Klingonic on the basis of /i/-/I/ is just silly.
# I also see no basis whatsoever for ignoring a glottal stop in the middle
#of a word simply because it was silent when the root word was spoken without
#a prefix. It was silent only because it is difficult to start a syllable with
#a glottal stop. Just try it. I DARE you. I know. *I*'ve certainly tried.
There are those out there who would say "'Iv" *is* a syllable. There are those
who would transcribe "uh-oh" as "?V?ou" (V = back midopen unrounded, ? =
glottal stop), and German "Affe" as "?af@". Hard to notice these things if you
don't look for them or aren't trained to, but they're very much there. German
never struck *me* as unspeakable, though there are those who would say
otherwise %^)
#A glottal stop is a glottal
#stop anywhere except the beginning of a word, where it remains silent because
#Okrand said nothing about glottal STARTS.
Incredible. Absolutely incredible. I mean, you do realise that "stop" refers
to the stopping of airflow in the production of these sounds, rather than
their syllablic position, right? You do know that /k/, /t/, /D/ etc. are
also stops, don't you?
Glottal starts... dearie dearie me. Please, people, if you're going to use
linguistic terminology, make sure you're properly familiar with it first.
***
"Relax." -- "yIleS." [Three seconds pause.] "Stop Relaxing!" -- "yIleSHa'!"
--- the Conversational Klingon tape.
Nick "I am not a Klingon. Much." Nicholas. nsn@mullian.ee.mu.oz.au
nIchyon jIH. nIchyon SoHbe'. nIchyon ghaHbe'. nIchyon tlhIHbe'. nIchyon jIHqu'.
