tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Aug 11 21:38:09 1999
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Re: Vowels
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>From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
>Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 00:25:36 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
>Priority: NORMAL
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>On Tue, 10 Aug 1999 22:48:24 EDT [email protected] wrote:
>
>> ghIth HomDoq
>> > I think the whole discussion is somewhat complicated by the fact
>> > that we don't really know what Klingon linguists consider to
>> > be phonemes, and that we have to base all this phonological
>> > stuff on the artificial non-Klingon writing systems graphemes.
>> >
>> And I maintain that the structure of tlhIngan Hol lends itself more toward a
>> logo-syllabic writing system like that of Chinese or Akkadian. I'm still
>> working on developing just such a pIqaD for the Warrior's Tongue. Any and
>> all suggestions welcomed.
>>
>>
>> quljIb
>
>The problem with a Klingon syllabary is that there are too many
>potential syllables. Unlike Cherokee with its 88 syllables,
>there are over a thousand Klingon syllables:
>
>Each of 21 consonants followed by each of five vowels in all
>combinations, plus each of 21 consonants followed by each of
>five vowels followed by each of 21 consonants in all possible
>combinations, plus each of 21 consonants followed by each of
>five vowels followed by {rgh}, plus each of 21 consonants
>followed by each of three vowels followed by {w'}, plus each of
>21 consonants followed by each of five vowels followed by {y'}.
>
>If what you are describing is a syllabary, that is a LOT of
>characters.
>
>If what you are describing is merely some non-linear form of
>wrapping a vowel around a consonant, etc. so that you really do
>have separate characters for each letter of the alphabet, but
>they happen to be contained in the same space, that is not so
>wonderfully interesting. In essence, it is still a 26 character
>alphabet.
It's still pretty cool; check out Hangul (Korean writing) one of these
days. It does something very similar to that, and is (at least in
simplified theory) astounding nifty.
But it doesn't have to be a syllabary. It could be more along the lines of
"logograms", say a glyph for each word (probably two for things like the
two meanings of Hurgh) plus one for each of the suffixes... Most Klingon
morphemes are monosyllabic, so that actually would be pretty close to a
syllabary. Too many glyphs? Over a thousand? Let me tell you about a
place called China, where you need several thousand glyphs just to write
simple articles with a limited vocabulary. And several tens of thousands
for literary texts. It could happen.
~mark