tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Mar 29 08:11:12 1997

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RE: KLBC: How to describe klingon fonemes in I.P.A.?

jatlh 'eQ:

> What are the fonemes used in {tlhIngan Hol}, as described by linguists?

Perhaps someone else could answer this one for me?  ~mark?  I've got an IPA 
chart floating around here somewhere, but I never really became very familiar 
with it.

> I have seen references to the klingon {D} as a retroflex one, but never
> have I seen any description of the {tlh} or {Q} that made any sense to
> me when I looked at an I.P.A. chart. (You can find a "Proposal for an
> ASCII Version of the I.P.A." at
> http://weber.u.washington.edu/~yuenren/ASCII_IPA.html -- it's a great
> help! But a bit big to include here.)
> 
> I was specifically wondering about {ch}, {j} (Shouldn't those become
> *two* characters in the I.P.A.?), {D} and {S} (though I think that would
> be [dr)] and [sr)] respectively, in the "Proposal for an ASCII Version
> of the IPA"), {Q} (is it [X]?) and worst of all {tlh} (I read somewhere
> in the mailing list archives that this is written with the greek letter
> lambda by some linguist, *but there is no such letter in the the IPA* --
> the closest one gets is [y&] which is written like a lowercase 'y',
> rotated 180 degrees -- i.e. a lambda turned the wrong way).
> 
> I also wonder which of the klingon letters that are aspirated (marked
> with [xh^] in the 7bit ASCII IPA) is it just {p} (according to TKD p.14:
> "always articulated with a strong puff or pop, never laxy.") or is {q}
> (TKD p.14: "The sound is usually accompanied by a slight puff of air.")
> and {t} (TKD p.14: "it is accompanied by a puff of air") also aspirated?
> 
> These are my questions for now. Anyone, feel free to answer.
> 
> 'eQ
> 


-- 
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97242.1

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