tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Aug 12 12:03:08 1999

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Re: Vowels, and pronunciation advice




> >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 :)
> 
> You're splitting hairs here.  
therefore the smiley at the end... I know the difference is small.
still, when saying [aI] I believe there is less closedness than
when I say [ja]

> You're starting to confuse phones for phonemes.  
really? I was talking about pronounciation, and I don't think
I pronounce phonemes, I think I pronounce phones. But I'm not
a linguist. (I had considered calling my two pronounciations
of <y,w> as allophones of the phonemes /j,w/)

> I've studied dozens of languages, some with really funky phoneme-stocks.
> And I'm really good at pronouncing alien, exotic sounds.  Except one.  I
> can't for the life of me get a good lingually-trilled r.  It's been
> suggested that my highly-arched palate actually prevents me from doing
> it, but I'm not sure.
> 
I can't do a _good_ one, but an adequate one (at least 
for those _human_ languages I've tried my mouth at :-)

I'm pretty much happy, Klingon doesn't have clicks like
Zulu ch, c, gc, ngc, qh, q, gq, ngq, xh, x, gx, ngx!
Whole forests have stared at me trying to distinguish
the different levels of aspiration, voicing and nasalization...

> >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)
> 
> The orthography is often irrelevant to a language's phonology, and doubly
> so when it's transliterated into another alphabet.
> 
that's what I meant...

[funny story about how to pronounce betleH correctly snipped]

I never found the transition from batlh'etlh to betleH very
convincing. even if you drop glottal stops at leisure, in
batlh-'etlh the first puff of air comes at a totally different
place then in bet-leH.
> 
> Next lesson: the creaky voice in Klingon...
> 
I can't wait :)

                                           Marc Ruehlaender
                                           aka HomDoq
                                           [email protected]


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