[2613] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: One more reason why petaQ ghaH *maq 'oQaD*'e'
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Tue Jan 18 13:19:39 1994
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
From: Will Martin <whm2m@uva.pcmail.virginia.edu>
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 94 13:03:17 EST
On Jan 18, 6:17am, Richard Kennaway wrote:
> Subject: Re: One more reason why petaQ ghaH *maq 'oQaD*'e'
>
> Why do you transliterate Marc Okrand as *maq 'oQaD*? Do rules of
> tlhIngan-Hol phonology rule out *marq 'oQranD*, or do you actually not
> pronounce the r's and the n? And why the distinction between q and Q?
First, that's ONE person's transliteration. I would use {margh 'oQan},
or run the two names together to be {marqoQan}. I'm sure there are many
others.
> TKD doesn't give much (any?) information about allowable sound-sequences.
> Has any been gleaned from a linguistic study of the corpus?
I think most of the presumptions about allowable sound-sequences go back
to an extensive article in the first issue of HolQeD (which I think only a
dozen or so of us got, unless a lot of people have ordered back issues). The
basic rule is that almost all Klingon syllables consist of CVC (Consonant
Vowel Consonant), given that a glottal stop and a {y} are both considered to
be consonants. Pronomial prefixes are the only regular exception, all of
which end in open vowels. The noun suffix {-oy} is another exception, given
that it is not {-'oy}. A very few words end in CV syllables.
Consonant combinations of all sorts spring up between syllables, but the
only incident in TKD of two consonants appearing in one syllable appear in my
Klingon name: charghwI'. The {rgh} appears in quite a number of words as a
dipthong to close a syllable.
I would use {margh} instead of {maq} because the "r" sound is too
important to the way *I* hear "Marc" to drop it. I would use {oQan} instead
of {oQaD} for "Okrand" because to my ear, the "n" in "Okrand" is more
significant than the "d", while {D} is a very strong consonant, losing the
"n" sound altogether and coming across much stronger than the "d" in the
English "Okrand".
As for why use {Q} instead of {q} in {oQaD} or {oQan}, see TKD 5.6, page
58. The {Q} sound is often transliterated as "kr", as in Valkris = {valQIS}.
Whatever the case, "Marc Okrand" would be difficult to say in Klingon,
just as {matlh} is difficult to say in English, and so we get "Maltz", which
is no closer to {matlh} than {margh} is to "Marc".
-- charghwI'
