tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 11 07:03:27 1993

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Power Klingon



>From: [email protected] (Jacques Guy)
>Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1993 15:33:06 +1100 (EST)

>But I would bet almost my bottom dollar that the word is DoSQo'
>(without an r), because:

>1. Klingon D is a voiced prenasalized cacuminal (a.k.a. retroflex) stop
>2. Such sounds are often misheard as a "ndr" like cluster by English, and,
>   let's say it, speakers of non-Klingon-like languages, especially in
>   fast speech, where voiced stop can easily become a flap. It is the
>   phenomenon by which a certain English pronunciation of "sorry" sounds
>   like "soddy" to American ears.


I went through similar logic when I thought it was {roS}, since Okrand uses
a flapped "r" which can sound very like a D (your sorry/soddy example).
But the fact is that if you listen to the thing, it just plain doesn't fit.
You can very clearly hear the sounds.  {DoS} sounds less plausible to me
than {roS}, based on listening to it.

~mark



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