tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Dec 07 18:45:04 1996
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Syllable Structure
- From: McReynolds <[email protected]>
- Subject: Syllable Structure
- Date: Wed, 08 Jan 1997 20:30:48 -0800
There was a debate about names a while ago, and I was thinking about word
structure. Everybody knows that non-transliterated Klingon syllables are
supposed to be in the form C-V-C, although there was recently a debate
about the nature of the last C. My question is, why are there at least
21 examples from TKD that don't observe this rule? Some of these are
probably borrowed words from other languages or other dialects, but
surely not all of them! Here's my list from a *quick* scan that probably
missed some: chuQun, DuSaQ, gho'Do, HaSta, Ha'DIbaH, He, jabbI'ID, je,
jo, lolSeHcha, lulIgh, moHaq, mojaq, naDev, pIqaD, po, QonoS, SanId, ta,
ya, 'a. What is the correct syllable structure? With that many
exceptions, is it possible that the C-V-C rule is actually more of a
guideline (heh. I just realized that was a joke from Ghostbusters...)?
Note that things like {DenIb} were left out, because DenIb is obviously a
transliteration of Deneb. Any ideas? Perhaps, for example, {chuQun} was
once {chu'Qun}, and through usage the glottal stop disappeared?
-mIqIraH