tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Aug 26 08:04:23 1994
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Re: transliterations
[Guido #1]vo':
> [stuff about why transliterations are justifiable deleted]
> >Except, of course, that list policy EXPRESSLY FORBIDS the use of
> >tranlsiterations! Geez, come ON folks!!!!!
>
> >Am I really f**ked in the head, or is this in the FAQ or something?
>
> Um, (as I peel myself off the wall here), do you suppose that if we
> specifically mark our transliterations with ** or something as well as
> indicate what the original name was, would that fit into list policy?
>
> Had I done it like {*'ewrop* [Europe]}, would that be acceptable?
Well, the next problem is that there currently is not any standard
accepted practice for English-Klingon transliteration. If you wanted
to come up with a conventional transliteration method, you need to
determine what goal you seek to achieve. Are you trying to: (1) convert
English orthography (spelling) into Klingon writing; or (2) are you
trying to approximate English sounds using Klingon phonemes.
If your goal is the former, then this is an excercise in futility. We now
write Klingon in the Latin alphabet, using letters to represent Klingon
phonemenes so that the sounds can be read by English-speaking people.
Since this same alphabet is already used by English speakers to write
English, there is no reason to change the spelling of English words. If
you are trying to convert English into Klingon writing (pIqaD) and then
back into English writing, you can't because we know nothing about the
way Klingon is actually written in Klingon. For all we know, Klingon
writing may not be phonetic, and it may not be written in a method
which corresponds to the way we now write Klingon using the Latin
alphabet. (With sincere apologies to Dr. Schoen for his fine rendition
of pIqaD, but there is no official(tm) Klingon writing.)
On the other hand, if you are trying to reduce the sounds of English, or
any other language, to roughly equivalent Klingon phonemes, you have to
first agree on how the English word is pronounced, and what sounds in
Klingon best approximate that pronunciation. Naturally, it would be
absurd to use a direct letter-by-letter correlation of written English,
since English is not pronounced as it is written. As someone mentioned
in a previous post, there is no one standard way of pronouncing English.
English pronunciation varies widely depending on where you live. If I
wanted to write "car" in Klingon, do I use the Oxford pronunciation of
the Queen's English {qa}, or do I choose a mid-western American
English accent and say {qar}?
Another problem is ambiguity; spoken English has almost twice as many
sounds as Klingon. If I wrote {SIp}, am I using the Klingon word for
"gas" or am trying to say "sip", "zip" or "ship", or maybe even "sheep"
or "seep"? Your example {'ewrop} does not resemble any English pronunciation
I am familiar with and if I heard that word spoken out loud, I wouldn't
recognize it. There is also no particular reason that Klingons would
choose an English pronunciation of Europe, they could conceivable pick
ANY tera'ngan language, from Russian (Yevropa), to Japanese (Yooroppa) or
(Ooshuu).
You also have to stay true to Klingon phonology, which we
really know very little about. Klingon does not seem to allow large
consonant clusters at the beginning or the end of words. There is no
evidence to suggest that Klingon phonology would allow words with complex
consonant clusters like "street" or "world" and any attempt to reduce
these words to simple Klingon phonological patterns would be sheer
speculation.
In short, unless a more comprehensive dictionary, having an exhaustive
list of terms for tera'ngan words, names and geography, comes out, all you
are really doing is inventing new Klingon words, which is something only
Marc Okrand can do. For all we know, Klingons may simply ignore
tera'ngan names and call Europe {tlhugh}.
> Guido#1, Leader of All Guidos
yoDtargh