Re: pongwIj

["William H. Martin" <whm2m@virginia.edu>]

On Thu, 9 Dec 1999 17:53:29 -0500 David Trimboli 
<SuStel@email.msn.com> wrote:

> jatlh DujHoD:
> > I pronounce Regina with stress on the second syllable: re-JEE-nuh. (Of
> > course, some people may pronounce it differently.) {rejIy'na} would place
> > stress on the second syllable.
> 
> 
> Again, my point is that {'} forces you to pronounce a glottal stop, though
> one might not exist in the original name.  Lack of {'} does not stop you
> from stressing whatever syllable you want.  Why make up sounds that aren't
> already there?  (If the answer to this question is "Because I want to,"
> that's all the reason you need.  But realize that {rejIy'na} does not sound
> like re-JEE-nuh.  It sounds more like re-JEE<choke>-naa.)

We don't have a lot of words transliterated from English to 
Klingon by Okrand, but we do have:
 
'entepray'

I'm pretty sure that when he has done actor's names, etc. he has 
added glottal stops. You are quite accurate to say that it adds 
a consonant in the transliteration that didn't exist in the 
original. Still, when people transliterate between any two 
languages, they do this. The foreign language sounds alien and 
has "wrong" sounds in it, and you find the closest parallel you 
can. What was the Japanese for "Klingon"? "Kuringan"?

I think that Klingons do hear what would be for them unusual 
emphasis on English syllables and they would add the 
non-existant consonant which happens to be a glottal stop in 
order to get that emphasis. I think that without the added 
glottal stop, they would tend much more to pronounce the word 
flat with no particular emphasis.

I definitely see your point. A sound is being added that wasn't 
there. Meanwhile, I think that's how a Klingon would rationalize 
the alien emphasis. That's how a Klingon would hear it.

Meanwhile, all this discussion assumes that in Germany, one 
pronounces "Regina" like it is pronounced in English. I 
personally suspect that the "g" in German is pronounced like the 
"g" in "gun" and not like the "g" in "Virginia". From the few 
Germans I've spent time with, I'd expect them to pronounce it 
as: "reg" from "regular", "i" from "tipi", "na" from "Napoleon".

Regina is not American. She doesn't speak English as her primary 
langauge and probably doesn't pronounce her name like we would. 
Instead, she impresses the hell out of me by being blind, yet 
learning a written tertiary language taught in a book with a 
secondary language, apparently using computer assistance which 
provides her with Braille, which is not case sensitive, though 
Klingon requires case sensitivity to tell the difference between 
{quv} and {Quv}, {tuq} and {tuQ}, etc.

Obviously, there is more to her situation than I understand. She 
apparently has friends who work with her on the language 
(judging from her story of her train trip).
 
> SuStel
> Stardate 99939.6

charghwI'