tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jul 18 07:59:55 2004

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Re: canon pIqaD

David Trimboli ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

>From: "QeS lagh" <[email protected]>
>Recently I read an interesting study that claimed that English's system is
>almost logographic in practice, since spelling is so complex. It claimed
>that one can't accurately learn the symbols that make up a word; you really
>have to learn the entire word as a unit. English's spelling system is very
>difficult (there are 1,440 ways to write the 40-some phonemes of English); 
>I
>have heard it said that only pre-reform Irish Gaelic is more difficult to
>spell.

This has a point, but it's mostly hyperbole.  English spelling gives a very 
good approximation of what is pronounced, and changing something's spelling 
may give someone a reason to pronounce a word differently.  There ARE 
systems; they're just sometimes arbitrary.

Anyway, there's no reason why a language's writing system has to be ALL 
logographic or ALL alphabetic or ALL syllagraphic or ALL anything else.  
Including Klingon.

> >We have less information about the Klingon pIqaD than that, so I see no 
>way
> >to ascertain any further truths about the system.
>
>ghaytan QIch 'oS 'ej ghaytanHa' mu'mey naQ 'oSmeH Deghmey lo'. ghaytan wej
>lI'qu' latlh ngermey.
>Just that it's probably phonetic. I agree, anything more is speculation.

No, not that it's phonetic, just that it represents different words 
pronounced the same in some dialects differently.  This could be as simple 
as putting a diacritic on a symbol to represent non-standard spelling or as 
complex as a completely arbitrary respelling of the word.  Krotmag {cham} 
"technology" and Krotmag {cham} "pie" are probably written differently.  We 
don't know how.

Consider this: wouldn't it be impossibly unlikely that the language as a 
whole favors the current {ta' Hol} written language, which (if we assume 
it's a one-for-one phonemic alphabet) has no irregularities or duplications, 
and that every other dialect makes the alphabet irregular (like Krotmag 
using two different symbols to represent Krotmag {m})?  {ta' Hol} is, 
really, just one dialect among many; why would its writing system 
application be regular while the rest are irregular?

SuStel
Stardate 4546.5

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