tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jan 25 16:38:20 2006

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Re: Klingon phonotactics (was Re: Klingon at the Thanksgiving table - A month la

QeS 'utlh ([email protected])



ghItlhpu' Russ, ja':
>Note that with {w'} and {y'}, if I remember correctly, the "w" and "y"
>are actually part of the vowel (diphthong), not an actual consonant.

I thought that TKD said that they were definitely clusters of consonants 
(although I may be misremembering, as I don't have TKD with me). Personally, 
I tend to agree, since to postulate the diphthongs in syllables ending in 
{'} would lead to postulating diphthongs in syllables like {jaw} "lord", 
which I think is wrong (would it be {jawoy} "beloved Lord" or ??{jaw'oy}?). 
Anyway, it's simpler to say that a syllable may end in these biconsonantal 
codas than to say that a syllable may contain a diphthong only if it ends in 
a glottal stop.

I suspect syllable-final {w'} and {y'} may be simplified or debuccalised 
forms of older consonants - maybe ejectives, I don't know. (The Abdzakh 
dialect of Adyghe has a palatalised glottal stop - the same phoneme written 
/y'/ in Hausa - that derives from an ejective form of the affricate written 
{ch} in Klingon.)

QeS 'utlh
tlhIngan Hol yejHaD pabpo' / Grammarian of the Klingon Language Institute


not nItoj Hemey ngo' juppu' ngo' je
(Old roads and old friends will never deceive you)
     - Ubykh Hol vIttlhegh

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