tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 27 18:18:16 1994
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Re: Pronunciation (Was: Re: KLBC: jItagh)
According to R.B Franklin:
...
> Personally, the sound I have the most trouble with is "rgh". I seem to
> be unable to make this combination of sounds without making a uvular
> trill (the punching-bag in the back of my throat vibrates like a French "r").
>
> > ...Paul
>
> yoDtargh
Yes. This particular sound is interesting to both of us, given
that it is in our Klingon names...
When I met Okrand... [everybody in the room leans in to listen]
he spoke about how he intentionally made some of the Klingon
sounds difficult to say in combination. I raised my hand and
said, "You mean like r-gh?" I had in mind the difficulty of
gliding smoothly between a "lightly trilled or rolled" r and
the gh, since one requires vibration at the tip of the tongue
and the other at the base of the tongue. My attempts at that
time caused my tongue to do its vibrational equivalent to
people in a football stadium doing "the wave".
It wasn't easy.
But Okrand shook his head, discounting this opinion and said,
"That's easy. It's {rgh}, which he pronounced with ABSOLUTELY
NO TRILL OR ROLL ON HIS R. Well, the way HE said it WAS easy,
though it had nothing to do with the {r} described in TKD.
He thought it was far more difficult to pronounce something
like {ghoDta'} because the tongue placement for the {D} is
remote from that of the immediately following {t}. According to
him, {rgh} is a piece of cake. I've been not rolling my {r}s
ever since. I don't notice any particularly rolled {r} on any
of the audio tapes, either.
charghwI'