tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Apr 18 15:48:25 1996
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Re: chIagu
- From: [email protected] (Alan Anderson)
- Subject: Re: chIagu
- Date: Thu, 18 Apr 1996 17:50:54 -0500
~mark wrote:
> Whichever you choose, don't choose "*chIaghu". The vowel-hiatus in midword
> (between I and a) is unattested in Klingon, and indeed is almost certainly
> forbidden (Okrand says that an epenthetic ' is "suspected" of being
> inserted to prevent it in the case of -oy added to nouns ending in vowels).
macheq writes:
>Sanskrit doesn't accept hiatus...
>Contrary to what you have written to Thiago it's just the contrary with
>Klingon. It accepts hiatus and always marks it with a special letter,
>namely {'}.
{'} is no more special than {p} or {D} or {q}. They're all stops.
>You should have rather said: "Klingon doesn't accept smooth passage
>from one vowel to another and always demands a hiatus, i.e. a glottal stop."
"hiatus" does not equal "glottal stop".
>Let me quote from a dictionary: "Hiatus: a slight pause between two vowels
>that come together in successive syllables or words, such as
>between the e's in preeminent (<Latin: hiatus, gap)".
>Maybe you understand something else by this, but that's what I
>have learned about it - hiatus is a glottal stop.
"hiatus" means "pause". It does not mean "stop". There's a difference.
A "stop" is a consonant that completely interrupts the flow of air, like
"p" or "t" or "k". "p" is a labial (lips) stop. "t" is a dental (teeth)
stop. "k" is a velar (soft palate) stop. Klingon {q} is a uvular stop
(I think I got that right). Klingon {'} is a glottal stop. All these
examples are unvoiced; there are also voiced stops like "b" and "d" and
"g". Klingon is weird because it doesn't pair up all of the voiced and
unvoiced consonants -- {p} and {b} go together, but {t} and {D} are made
with the tongue in different places, and there is no voiced counterpart
for {q} and {'} either. But a "pause" is just that, a pause. Between
the "ee" and "ah" sounds at the beginning of the name "Iago", there is
usually a slight pause as one's mouth rearranges itself for the new vowel.
We don't have any examples of Klingon permitting this.
-- ghunchu'wI' batlh Suvchugh vaj batlh SovchoH vaj