tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Dec 12 16:51:29 1996
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Re: names of letters
- From: Susan Farmer <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: names of letters
- Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 19:52:06 -0500 (EST)
>
> Linguists, this one's for you.
>
> In English, we have spellings/namings for all of our letters.
>(For instance, up here in Canada "z" is spelled "zed", whereas our
>Southern neigbours spell it "zee".) In Greek, they named all their
>letters as well (as anyone who works with any sort of variables knows all
>too well).
>
> However (as far as I know), other languages don't spell their
>letters, just because they're merely characters/syllables (like Mandarin).
>Does the Klingon alphabet have spellings (that we know of), or do the
>letters merely exist? My guess is that they do, but we don't know what
>they are.
>
>From my mail files ...
>
From: Marc Ruehlaender <[email protected]>
> > > I had toyed with using the first noun that appears in TKD under each
> > > Klingon letter.
> >
> > The first noun isn't always the best.
>
> Here is an informal sort of military jargon-ish idea:
> a: 'aj (admiral) b: beH (rifle) ch: cha (torpedoes)
> D: DaS (boot) e: 'etlh (sword) gh: ghe''or (netherworld)
> H: HIp (uniform) I: 'Iw (blood) j: juHqo' (homeworld)
> l: la' (commander) m: mang (soldier) n: nIch (ammunition)
> ng: ngaq (support, mil. term) o: 'otlh (photon)
> p: pu' (phaser) q: qeq (drill) Q: QI' (military)
> r: raQ (camp) S: Sa' (general) t: taj (knife)
> tlh: tlhab (freedom) u: 'utlh (officer) v: vaj (warrior)
> w: waw' (base) y: yoD (shield) ': 'u' (universe)
>
my own list uses verbs rather than nouns:
Vowels:
"a" 'av (guards) "e" 'el (enters) "u" 'ut (is essential)
"I" 'Ip (swears) "o" 'ov (competes)
Glides:
"w" wam (hunts) "y" yoH (is brave) "l" lI' (is useful)
Fricatives:
"H" HoH (kills) "gh" ghoch (tracks down)
"S" Sep (breeds) "v" vang (acts)
Trill:
"r" rotlh (is tough)
Nasals:
"ng" ngotlh (is functional) "n" noy (is famous)
"m" muH (executes)
Stops:
"'" 'aw' (stings) "Q" Qob (is dangerous) "q" qaD (challenges)
"D" Dugh (is vigilant) "t" tIch (insults) "tlh" tlhutlh (drinks)
"p" pup (is perfect) "b" buS (concentrates on)
Affricates:
"ch" chargh (conquers) "j" jaq (is bold)
and if you are unhappy with denoting vowels by words
starting with "'", one could match the LAST sound of the
syllable with the character described...
(but I leave the task of finding suitable names to those
with a computerized dictionary)
"Dochlangan" Marc
--
----------------------------------------------------
Marc Ruehlaender [email protected]
Universitaet des Saarlandes, Saarbruecken, Germany
----------------------------------------------------
From: "Christian Matzke" <[email protected]>
On 17 Nov 95 at 0:27, Marc Ruehlaender <[email protected]> wrote:
> my own list uses verbs rather than nouns:
> Vowels:
> "a" 'av (guards) "e" 'el (enters) "u" 'ut (is essential)
> "I" 'Ip (swears) "o" 'ov (competes)
If nothing else, I think these *sound* very nice. 'av, 'Ip, 'el, 'ov,
'ut has a very natural sound to it.
> Glides:
> "w" wam (hunts) "y" yoH (is brave) "l" lI' (is useful)
>
> Fricatives:
> "H" HoH (kills) "gh" ghoch (tracks down)
> "S" Sep (breeds) "v" vang (acts)
>
> Trill:
> "r" rotlh (is tough)
>
> Nasals:
> "ng" ngotlh (is functional) "n" noy (is famous)
> "m" muH (executes)
>
> Stops:
> "'" 'aw' (stings) "Q" Qob (is dangerous) "q" qaD (challenges)
> "D" Dugh (is vigilant) "t" tIch (insults) "tlh" tlhutlh (drinks)
> "p" pup (is perfect) "b" buS (concentrates on)
>
> Affricates:
> "ch" chargh (conquers) "j" jaq (is bold)
>
> and if you are unhappy with denoting vowels by words
> starting with "'", one could match the LAST sound of the
> syllable with the character described...
This is a good alternative, as the vowels could be represented
without any chance of being confused with {'}.
Still, no matter what system is used, how do we distinguish in a sentance
that these words should be translated as letters of the pIqaD instead
of their TKD translations? If I were to say "jaqbogh pIqaD Degh"
(symbol of the pIqaD which is bold) would you be able to tell I meant
the letter {j}? Of course, this then brings in the possibility of
Klingon superstition. The Vikings believed that letters, when
inscribed on objects, worked as charms. If I inscribed an {S}
(Sepbogh pIqaD Degh) on your bed perhaps it would bring you
fertility. Now if I instead inscribed the {H} (HoHbogh pIqaD Degh) it
would have quite a different effect.
Just for fun I took a look at Klingon ornamentation which uses the
pIqaD. All Klingon warriors wear the letters "ch, b, r, and y" (not in
that order) on their gauntlets. These letters translate (using Marc's
system) as:
"concentrate on , conquer, be tough, be brave" Nice coincidence!
}};^)>
>"Dochlangan" Marc
maSqa'
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
"Had I not known that I was dead already,
I would have mourned the loss of my life"
-Ota Dokan, Japanese poet
(written while a knife protruded from his chest)
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
From: Krenath <[email protected]>
>>'a' be' che' De' 'e' ghe' He' 'I' je' le' me' ne' nge'
>> 'o' pe' qa' Qe' re' Se' te' tlhe' 'u' ve' we' ye' ' (?)
>
>Why "qa'" and not "qe'"?
>
>~mark
Well, As I was typing the above, I thought that perhaps, for some speakers,
the difference between badly mispronounced Q and q would possibly warrant
altering the vowel sound so as to make the difference clearer.
I also considered running through the dictionary and checking to be sure
that as few of the letter-names above as possible happened to spell out
existing Klingon words. Since I left my dictionary at work, my own
vocabulary was not up to par.
'a' interrogative, augmentative
be' female, woman
che' rule, reign
De' data, information
'e' that
He' smell, emit odor
je' buy, purchase / feed (someone else)
le' be special, exceptional
ne' yeoman
nge' take away
'o' aft
pe' cut
qa' spirit
Qe' restaurant
Se' radio frequency
tlhe' turn
'u' universe
Of the vowels, only 'I' was not a word. Every combination of vowels (at
least those ending in glottal stops) with H, l, and p formed words. The
following did not appear to be words and would possibly make better choices
for letter-names.
bo'/bu' chI' DI' 'I' jI'/ju' na'/nu' nga'/ngI' qe' Qu' SI' tlhI'
Obviously, the format CV' (consonant-vowel-glottal stop) is not necessarily
the only choice. I assumed that it would be a fairly natural one, however.
Not being a linguist, I may easily be in error.
From: [email protected] (Alan Anderson)
Here's a random proposal for "naming" the sounds of the Klingon alphabet.
Use the sound twice, at the beginning *and* at the end of the name.
For consonants, I'll pick a vowel {e} more or less at random:
beb chech DeD ghegh HeH jej lel mem nen ngeng...
For vowels, I'll put a randomly chosen {'} at the beginning and a randomly
chosen {w} between them:
'awa 'ewe 'IwI 'owo 'uwu
-- ghunchu'wI' batlh Suvchugh vaj batlh SovchoH vaj