tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri May 31 22:03:20 1996

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Re: 'oy''a'



Scott McCool writes:
>also how is a ' in the begining of a word pronounced?  That is not
>covered in TKD.

An initial vowel at the start of an english sentence is usually preceded
by a glottal stop, the sound represented by the Klingon letter {'}.  Try
listening closely to the beginning of the two words "it" and "hit".  When
"it" is spoken in isolation by a native speaker of english, there's almost
always an abrupt release of breath at the start of the vowel -- that's a
glottal stop.  It's very similar to the word "kit" except that "k" is a
velar stop.  [The term "stop" means that the breath is completely cut off
somewhere in the vocal tract; "glottal" refers to the bottom of the throat,
and "velar" refers to the back of the top of the mouth (the soft part).]

-- ghunchu'wI'               batlh Suvchugh vaj batlh SovchoH vaj




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