tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Nov 14 08:19:55 1995
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Re: Q
On 14 Nov 95 at 7:33, Jeremy Cowan <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Nov 1995, Christian Matzke wrote:
> > I had toyed with using the first noun that appears in TKD under each
> > Klingon letter.
>
> The first noun isn't always the best. I'd go with more common nouns such
> as be' and chor. Or maybe, to keep confusion down, words that are
> unlikely to be used in conversation. However, Tengwar is the only
> alphabet that I've ever noticed to name the letters after specific objects.
I'm not familiar with Tengwar, however I have been studying futhark,
the written language used by the Vikings (and others). Each of their
letters represented a concept, though they seemed to be more like
"strength" and "honor" as opposed to "woman" and "belly".
> > That is until I remembered that no Klingon words start with vowels
>
> Remeber one thing: the letters would still be written as solitary
> letters. You are just looking for a way to represent the letters in
> spoken language. If it were up to me (which it's not even close), I
> would use the following:
>
> bI chI DI ghI HI jI lI mI nI ngI pI qI QI rI SI tI tlhI vI
> wI yI 'Iy' 'a 'e 'I 'o 'u
>
> I used "I" with all the consonants because, if I remember correctly from
> the scrabble frequencies, it is the most often used vowel.
It is also the vowel Okrand uses most often break up consonant
clusters when turning non-Hol words into tlhIngan Hol. K'vort
becomes qIvo'rIt, Worf becomes wo'rIv, etc.
Here is an informal sort of military jargon-ish idea:
a: 'aj (admiral) b: beH (rifle) ch: cha (torpedoes)
D: DaS (boot) e: 'etlh (sword) gh: ghe''or (netherworld)
H: HIp (uniform) I: 'Iw (blood) j: juHqo' (homeworld)
l: la' (commander) m: mang (soldier) n: nIch (ammunition)
ng: ngaq (support, mil. term) o: 'otlh (photon)
p: pu' (phaser) q: qeq (drill) Q: QI' (military)
r: raQ (camp) S: Sa' (general) t: taj (knife)
tlh: tlhab (freedom) u: 'utlh (officer) v: vaj (warrior)
w: waw' (base) y: yoD (shield) ': 'u' (universe)
All but two of the words are monosylabic, making them easy to bark
out in combat situations. The imagery conjured up by each word heats
the blood of the warrior. This is just an idea, I'd love to hear
anyone's comments.
> janSIy
maSqa'
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"Had I not known that I was dead already,
I would have mourned the loss of my life"
-Ota Dokan, Japanese poet
(written while a knife protruded from his chest)
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