tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 06 16:50:34 2002
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Re: Alphabet
On Wed, Feb 06, 2002 at 03:26:03AM -0500, qurgh lungqIj wrote:
> Your like me. Your British, so you say John/Jon with an "o" sound as in
> "October" or "octopus".
Assuming you mean the *first* O in "October" and "octopus", then
so do I, and so do most Americans. But we don't say "October" or
"octopus" the same way you do, either. :)
In many American dialects, mine included, there is no distinction
between the "short o" sound (in Bob, John, cot, dog, etc.) and the
"ah" sound in "father"; the name of the car manufacturer "Saab"
is indistinguishable from the word "sob" in these dialects. If you
distinguish between those sounds in your dialect, then the Klingon
"a" is prounced like the "a", not the "o"; that "o" sound does not
occur in Klingon. The selection of "John" to exemplify Klingon
"a" just betrays an ignorance of English pronuncation variance on
the part of that author.
In many British dialects, as well as some New England American ones,
the "r" in words such as "yard", "car", etc. is actually silent;
it just modifies the sound of the "a" from the short a (as in
cat, another vowel sound that tends to differ noticeably across
the Pond) to the long (in the phonetic sense, having nothing to
do with what is called a "long a" in English) "ah" as in father.
If you pronounce those words that way, then "jarn" is a reasonable
way to write the pronunciation of Klingon "jan". Just make sure
that there is no trace of the rhotic liquid in there;
it should be a pure vowel sound.
-- marqoS <[email protected]>