tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Apr 19 08:10:45 1996
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Re: chIagu
- From: "Mark E. Shoulson" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: chIagu
- Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 11:10:29 -0400 (EDT)
- In-reply-to: <[email protected]> (message fromConsulat General de Pologne on Thu, 18 Apr 1996 15:11:27 -0700)
>Date: Thu, 18 Apr 1996 15:11:27 -0700
>From: Consulat General de Pologne <#[email protected]>
>"Mark E. Shoulson" <[email protected]> wrote:
>> >On Sun, 14 Apr 1996 [email protected] wrote:
>> >> I was pondering the possibilities for a klingon name
>> >> My name is Thiago.
>> >> Anyway here are a few ideas:
>> >> chIaghu
>> >> chI'aghu'
>> >> chI'aghu
>>
>> >My suggestion is (as in the subject line) chIyaghu. I have made a couple
>> >of assumptions in recommending this. First is that the "i" in your name
>> >is pronounced as would be the English "ee".
>>
>> 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).
>>
>> ~mark
>Sanskrit doesn't accept hiatus and avoids it either through elision of one
>of the vowels, or combining two similar vowels into one long vowel, or
>through combinning them into a diphtong, or into a cluster [semi-vowel +
>vowel], or ... (enough).
>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 {'}.
>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."
>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.
>Qapla'
You made a few errors here.
First of all, Sanskrit DOES accept vowel-hiatus, though only between
words. It's rare to be sure, but it happens (the exammple I remember from
my Sanskrit class: svarge + indra -> svarga indra; the "i" component of "e"
drops out. There are other instances as well). (Klingon has no interword
vowel-hiatus because all its words start with consonants, and very few end
with vowels).
The other is more a misunderstanding. The term "vowel hiatus" as I used it
(and indeed as my Sanskrit text uses it) is meant to mean "the abutment of
two vowels next to each other with no intervening consonant or semivowel."
The Klingon ' is a consonant, and thus "chI'a" would not be an instance of
hiatus but rather simply two vowels separated by a consonant.
~mark