tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu May 04 06:45:16 1995
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KLBC: Dachow'
_Dachow'_ cannot be a real Klingon word, at least in the current
Imperial dialect as described in TKD. See page 17:
No words in Klingon have _ow_ or _uw_. If they did, they
would be indistinguishable from words ending in _o_ and _u_,
respectively.
Even though _Dachow'_ ends in _ow'_ rather than _ow_, the rule
should hold. Evidently in this paragraph Okrand was not thinking
about the syllables (not just words) that end in _w'_.
Phonetically, the English words by which he defines the sounds of
_o_ and _u_ have a "w" sound at the end of the vowel.
(This following "w"-sound is called an offglide; English is
notorious for the offglides of its so-called "long" vowels. The
"short" vowels in the English example words for _e_ and _I_ don't
have offglides, which is why _ey_ and _Iy_ are distinct from them
and therefore are used in Klingon.)
- tlhIngan veQbeq la'Hom marqem
Heghbej ghIHmoHwI'pu'!
Mark A. Mandel
Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200
320 Nevada St. : Newton, Mass. 02160, USA : [email protected]