tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Aug 12 11:07:17 1999
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Re: Vowels, and pronunciation advice
>Mailing-List: contact [email protected]; run by ezmlm
>Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 11:47:27 CDT
>From: Marc Ruehlaender <[email protected]>
>
>
>No worries, I am not continuing the phonological thing,
>but am turning a little towards pronounciation...
>
>jatlh charghwI':
>[about <y,w,r>]
>> it just seems so artificial to consider them to be consonants
>> for syllable beginnings and semi-vowels for syllable endings.
>>
>for what it's worth, I do pronounce <y,w> differently in the
>two positions. syllable-initially, they sound like in english
>"yet" and "wet" resp., while syllable-finally (incl. <y',w'>)
>they sound like Klingon <I,u> but shorter.
>
>(if you want technical terms, syll.-ini. I pronounce semi-consonants,
>ASCII-IPA [j,w], syll.-fin. I pronounce unsyllabic versions of
>ASCII-IPA vowels [I,U], and I do think there is a difference :)
You're splitting hairs here. You're starting to confuse phones for
phonemes. It isn't possible to pronounce every sound precisely the same
way in all environments; our mouths aren't built for that (in fact, Okrand
has said occasionally that he had fun with that in Klingon, in ignoring the
effects of assimilation (say, between consonant and consonant, like maybe
in "pongqoq", where the ng would be expected to move toward the q), even
though that's expected in all languages. But this isn't a HUMAN language,
maybe these aliens can avoid assimilation like that! So there, linguists,
another joke I'm playing on you). Glides are particularly prone to this,
but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're different phonemes in those
different positions. Just different phones. Let me define the terms in
case someone got left out. The human (Klingon?) mouth is capable of
producing effectively an infinite number of different sounds, since after
all your articulatory surfaces are continuous, so your tongue can hit
*here* or *there* or at any of the infinite points in-between (and if
anyone starts arguing about discreteness of the universe or atoms or
something I will scream). There are no dividing lines in your mouth that
universally declare for all speakers where n stops and ng starts (ask me
or Lawrence about the way the letter t winds up among people with an Indian
accent sometime for a good example). So each language whacks the
sound-space up into sounds which it considers distinct, but not all the
same way. We in English consider the p-sound in "pin" to be the same sound
as in "spin", even though one is aspirated and one isn't. But to a Hindi
speaker, they're very different sounds, different as n and ng. And watch
where your tongue hits your palate when you say "keel" versus "cool";
they're not even close. But we don't consider them different sounds. I
don't think the glides in Klingon are necessarily different on different
ends of the word, any more than they have to be owing to natural
variation.
>as for <r>, I pronounce it as a trill always, even syll.-fin.
>(incl. <rgh>) although Okrand on the tapes more often than not
>pronounces an american semi-consonantal thingy there.
>I _chose_ to follow the description in TKD here rather than
>the examples from the tapes. If you chose otherwise, fine with
>me, and if you want to reflect that in your phonological rules,
>I don't see a problem either (I know, you, charghwI', don't,
>but... you know what I mean)
I've studied dozens of languages, some with really funky phoneme-stocks.
And I'm really good at pronouncing alien, exotic sounds. Except one. I
can't for the life of me get a good lingually-trilled r. It's been
suggested that my highly-arched palate actually prevents me from doing
it, but I'm not sure.
>> So, then you are suggesting that the same romanized character is
>> being used for two distinctly different characters, even though
>> they are pronounced identically. They can only be differentiated
>> because one is used to open a syllable, while the other is used
>> to close a syllable.
>>
>well, I do pronounce them how ever slightly differently.
>and I think the fact that we use the same romanization
>for the two sounds has no impact on their function in
>Klingon grammar (or their writing system)
The orthography is often irrelevant to a language's phonology, and doubly
so when it's transliterated into another alphabet.
More on assimilation and care-taking when speaking Klingon. An interesting
story.
During the mu'qaD veS at the qep'a', we were slinging insults and comebacks
at each other, much to everyone's enjoyment. It wasn't lightning-fast, but
it was fun and clever. Qov was doing her best to keep up a running
translation for some folks who couldn't follow the Klingon. Since I was
ostensibly leading the activity, I was often on the receiving end of
insults, and thus was often called upon to return fire. Once, someone
(pagh? I forget) said to me "mep betleH Dalo'". I retorted something like
"vIlo'DI' jIH, yap mep betleH!" Qov told us she'd had to do some
backtracking. She had mis-heard the insult at first, and it was still
pretty good. What she'd heard was "mep be' neH Dalo'!" A very different
insult indeed, but then my comeback was either nonsensical or shooting
myself in the foot. What have we learned here? That Okrand wasn't kidding
when he said to aspirate (puff air out with) your p's and t's and q's.
Think about it. If you don't aspirate them, it's very hard to tell the
difference between {mIp}, {mIt} and {mI'} (don't release the sound at the
end and see how hard it is to tell). In English, when a t precedes another
consonant, it's often replaced by a glottal stop (especially among us
Americans, who tend to weaken our t's at every opportunity. And of course
the Cockneys). Think about "can go" vs. "can't go." I think I say the
latter with no t, just a glottal stop (and no n either, just a nasalized
vowel for the a). And I bet a lot of you do too. Listen to yourself say
"betleH". Listen hard. I'll bet you're saying "be'leH". Lesson learned:
Say it right. Say "betleH", and *release* that t! Puff it out! You never
do it in English, but so what? (Don't say "betlheH" either!).
Next lesson: the creaky voice in Klingon...
~mark