tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Oct 11 05:58:10 1993

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Re: "I" vs. "i" (was Re: Objects)

More on "I" vs "i":

     Early on, I deduced that Okrand chose to make the L lowercase and the i
uppercase specifically because it was confusing. There is no other reason.
The "S" and "D" are uppercase because they sound different from the English
version of those letters, but "I" is uppercase only because it looks like a
lowercase l. I didn't like it, but I accepted it.

     As it has been pointed out to me, once you are accustomed to Klingon,
you'll notice that even when using a font that makes no difference whatsoever
between the two letters, there are no ambiguities. The placement of vowels
and consonants is consistent enough that I challenge you to come up with an
example where two different words look alike through the exchange of an "eye"
for an "el" or vise versa.

     So after a year or two of grimmacing whenever someone chooses to use a
sans serif font for Romanized Klingon, I finally got through my submission to
this odd (and perhaps cruel) convention of Okrand's. I only use uppercase
"eye"s and I can easily read Klingon with the case chosen by Okrand.

     Then I find it awkward reading what I have to call pseudo-Klingon which
is almost like Klingon, except that it uses a character Klingon does not use.
The lowercase "eye" is simply not in the character set. TKD spells the
letters out and "i" simply isn't there (except in one typo). What we have
here is a dialectic choice to Anglicize one of the Romanized Klingon
characters. We can accept it, but it's just a wee bit off standard.

--   charghwI'

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