tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Aug 10 11:44:01 1999
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Re: Vowels
>Mailing-List: contact [email protected]; run by ezmlm
>From: Carleton Copeland <[email protected]>
>Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 19:15:28 +-400
>Encoding: 12 TEXT
>
>TKD makes no distinction between English and Klingon *y*, but I wonder ...
>
>The Russian equivalent of *y* (*i kratkoye*) is pronounced with an audible
>friction. (You can trust me on this; a phonetics teacher once marked me
>down big-time for gliding over it.) If Klingon's *y* were similar, it
>would sound harsher (and so more Klingon) and also sit more firmly in the
>consonant category, at least by quljIb's definition. (Russian *y* is a
>full consonant.)
I don't think anyone ever said Klingon y was a vowel. I can't think of any
reason to think of it as one. A glide or semivowel if you have to, but it
doesn't act vocalically.
~mark