tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Aug 06 13:26:10 1999

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing



[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: Vowels



jatlh ~mark:
> > Klingon vowels are well defined as well (as opposed to English, which has
> > lots and sometimes more than people realize).  there's a, e, I, o, u.  You
> > could argue that diphthongs in Klingon comprise sorta vowels 
> 

jatlh charghwI':
> I don't believe that Klingon has any diphthongs. I've never seen 
> one. Since {y} and {'} are consonants, the only affix that 
> offers any potential for a diphthong is {-oy}, and that is 
> preceeded by {'} if it follows an open syllable. So, where do 
> you get this idea of a diphthong in Klingon?
> 
I'm sure, ~mark can defend himself quite well, but in the end
it's a matter of terminology. Whether you call sequences like
{ay}, {aw} etc. diphtongs (you'd only do that if there is no
syllable boundary between {a} and {y}/{w}, of course) or you
call them vowel+consonant only matters for how you write the
phonological(?) rules and...

> > while that bothers
> > some folks the fact is that if you define the accompanying rules right you
    ^^^^^^^^^^ (like, e.g., charghwI' :-)

> > wind up with the same result, so what's the difference.  It's likely
                                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^!!!

> > simpler not to, though, since diphthongs are not commonly used as
> > syllable-nuclei except with specific cases (final consonant ', etc (and
> > others, I know, this isn't exhaustive))
> 
> It sounds like you are counting {y} as a vowel. I don't.
>  
what it _should_ sound like, though, is that non-syllable-initial
{y} and {w} can (but don't need to) be seen as forming a diphtong
with the preceding vowel.

                                           Marc Ruehlaender
                                           aka HomDoq
                                           [email protected]



Back to archive top level