tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Dec 04 12:36:18 1996
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Re: Glottal stop ['] question(s)
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>Date: Tue, 3 Dec 1996 09:58:33 -0800
>From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
>
>In some other languages, like Hawaiian, initial vowels can be
>started more softly than they are in English. The word "Hawaii"
>in Hawaiian does not, for example, begin with an "H" sound at
>all, but it sounds too soft to spell "Awaii", so we add the "H",
>since English has no such soft onset.
Your idea is right but I have to nitpick the example. "Hawai'i" in
Hawai'ian really *does* start with an "H" sound, which exists in Hawa'ian
as a distinct sound as it does in English. However, you are correct that
there are words in the Hawai'ian language which do not begin with glottal
stops (and not with H's either). For example, the word "Aloha" starts
with an A, not an H, not a glottal stop. If you pronounced it "'Aloha"
with a stop (as most English-speakers do in most environments) it would
sound wrong, because it would be starting with the wrong sound. The
glottal stop is a full consonant in Hawai'ian, and there are words which
can only be distinguished by its presence or absence at the beginning.
>In other words, in English, the word "attitude" would be spelled
>in Klingon {'atItuD} because we ALWAYS start our open vowels
>with a glottal stop, just like Klingons do, except Klingons have
>a letter of the alphabet for it and English speakers don't.
As has been pointed out, "ALWAYS" may be too strong a term, but your point
is still valid. If you listen closely in conversation, you'll find that
the phrase "in English" for example, often is pronounced "InInglIS" with no
stop at the beginning of the word "English" (and sometimes the stop is
there, depending on the speaker and the emphasis being placed). We don't
like having vowels at the beginnings of utterances or after pauses with
nothing in front of them, but in mid-speech we will often borrow the
closing consonant of the previous word to prevent it, rather than
interpolating a glottal stop.
In any case, we *do* use the stop, as you point out.
~mark
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