tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Aug 12 09:48:23 1999
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: Vowels
- From: Marc Ruehlaender <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Vowels
- Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 11:47:27 CDT
No worries, I am not continuing the phonological thing,
but am turning a little towards pronounciation...
jatlh charghwI':
[about <y,w,r>]
> it just seems so artificial to consider them to be consonants
> for syllable beginnings and semi-vowels for syllable endings.
>
for what it's worth, I do pronounce <y,w> differently in the
two positions. syllable-initially, they sound like in english
"yet" and "wet" resp., while syllable-finally (incl. <y',w'>)
they sound like Klingon <I,u> but shorter.
(if you want technical terms, syll.-ini. I pronounce semi-consonants,
ASCII-IPA [j,w], syll.-fin. I pronounce unsyllabic versions of
ASCII-IPA vowels [I,U], and I do think there is a difference :)
as for <r>, I pronounce it as a trill always, even syll.-fin.
(incl. <rgh>) although Okrand on the tapes more often than not
pronounces an american semi-consonantal thingy there.
I _chose_ to follow the description in TKD here rather than
the examples from the tapes. If you chose otherwise, fine with
me, and if you want to reflect that in your phonological rules,
I don't see a problem either (I know, you, charghwI', don't,
but... you know what I mean)
> So, then you are suggesting that the same romanized character is
> being used for two distinctly different characters, even though
> they are pronounced identically. They can only be differentiated
> because one is used to open a syllable, while the other is used
> to close a syllable.
>
well, I do pronounce them how ever slightly differently.
and I think the fact that we use the same romanization
for the two sounds has no impact on their function in
Klingon grammar (or their writing system)
> But then we could say that for EVERY consonant. You are
> inventing ghosts.
>
consider, if you like, for the moment a writing system with
glyphs for the following structures:
ba be bI bo bu -b
cha che chI cho chu -ch
...
'a 'e 'I 'o 'u -'
-rgh
-w'
-y'
then obviously Klingons might quite naturally think of
syllable final consonants as being somewhat different
from syllable-initial "consonants".
(the "consonants" ba be bI bo bu e.g. different from -b)
They might even group -r with -rgh instead of with
ra, re, rI, ro, ru, and sim. for -w, -w' and -y, -y'.
then your earlier suggestion would make a lot of sense!
Marc Ruehlaender
aka HomDoq
[email protected]