tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jan 06 21:05:15 2004

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Re: KLBC your choice of a name

Mark J. Reed ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

On Tue, Jan 06, 2004 at 10:02:45PM -0500, Scott Willis wrote:
> At the beginning of a word, it is a sudden onset of air. You feel this in
> the back of your throat when you begin to say "apple".
> In the middle of a word, it is a slight pause, like "hot toddy".
> At the end of a word, it is an abrupt cutoff, like saying "hit", without
> actually making the "t" sound.
> 
> That's the best way I can think of to describe these.

The Klingon {'} is called a "glottal stop", and it occurs naturally
in most varieties of English; we just don't think of it as a
separate sound.  For instance, the way most Americans say "button", there's no
real "t" in the middle; it's a glottal stop.   (In some varieties
of British English the same is true of "bottle", but that's not generally
the case in the US).  It's also there between the syllables of "uh-oh".  You
can base your pronunciation of mid-word glottal stops on those examples.

If you're a native English speaker, you probably automatically start
words with a glottal stop when they are supposed to start with a vowel,
at least at the beginning of a sentence/breath group.

For English speakers the final glottal stop is the most problematic;
basically you just cut the vowel off sharply instead of letting it 
trail off into silence.  Scott's "hit" example is a good way of thinking
about it - a word that ends with a glottal stop is pronounced as if it
ended with a t, but without actually saying the 't'.  You just stop
right at the point where you would normally say the 't', or start to
say the 't' by cutting off the air, and then don't release the air.

-marqoS

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