tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Aug 12 21:21:18 1999
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Re: Vowels, and pronunciation advice
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Vowels, and pronunciation advice
- Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 21:46:06 -0400
From: William H. Martin <[email protected]>
>The first time I met Okrand, he was presenting a talk on Klingon
>pronunciation and he said there were difficult-to-pronounce
>consonant clusters. I suggested that {rgh} was difficult because
>the trill is at the tip of the tongue while the {gh} was at the
>back and shifting from one to the other makes my tongue spaz
>out, but he said that {rgh} was EASY, and demonstrated with an
>{r} that is not trilled at all. He then went on to point out
>that {Dt} (in {taDtaH}) or {tD} (in {qatDI'}) are much more
>difficult. Meanwhile, I consider these to be just as easy if the
>consonants are compromised as much as his {r} in {rgh}. I didn't
>argue the point at the time, however. Hey, there were people
>listening and I didn't want to publicly hassle a hero.
I find the combination {-nD-} to be one of the most difficult combinations
in Klingon. I first started worrying about this whenever I tried to
pronounce {SanDar}'s name. She was unhappy that it was a
difficult-to-pronounce-correctly name, but she also wasn't about to change
it.
I don't have too much trouble with {-Dt-} or {-tD-}; I just aspirate the
first consonant fully, and that gives me time to get to the position of the
second.
>It depends on context. Sometimes I get as anal as Picard on
>pronunciation. Then again, I always remember a rude acquaintance
>who distinctly pronounced BOTH "t"s in the word "water".
>
>Think about that for a minute.
Was that acquaintance a woman? I've heard the "both t's in 'water'" story
many times before, and not from you. Did you really know someone who did
this, or is it just a linguistic urban legend?
SuStel
Stardate 99614.2