tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Mar 30 08:53:10 1997
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Re: KLBC: How to describe klingon fonemes in I.P.A.?
- From: "Mark E. Shoulson" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: KLBC: How to describe klingon fonemes in I.P.A.?
- Date: Sun, 30 Mar 1997 11:53:09 -0500 (EST)
- In-reply-to: <[email protected]> (message from Sten Thaning onFri, 28 Mar 1997 16:16:25 -0800 (PST))
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>Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 16:16:25 -0800 (PST)
>From: Sten Thaning <[email protected]>
>
>What are the fonemes used in {tlhIngan Hol}, as described by linguists?
>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've been reading a book on IPA symbols, maybe I'm getting closer to being
able to answer this...
{tlh} would be t with a superscript l followed by belted-l. That is, a
laterally released latteral affricate (voiceless).
>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
I haven't looked at the ASCII IPA, but {ch} would be t-esh (ligature or
whatever), and {j} would be d-yogh. {D} and {S} are d and s with a right
tail.
>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).
Yes, some linguists use a lambda for {tlh} (or is it a crossed lambda?
Whatever. It's t-superscript-l followed by belted-l (that's /tl^l-/ in the
transcription you're using, I think).
Q is harder. It's either a chi ([X] in your transcription) or possibly a
[qX]. Not sure how much difference there winds up being.
>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?
It sounds to me like Okrand means that p, t, and q are all meant to be
aspirated, but Okrand isn't completely consistent about aspirating them.
~mark
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