tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 10 20:48:31 1999
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Re: Klingon Phonetics
- From: "Qermaq" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Klingon Phonetics
- Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 23:52:13 -0500
ghItlh Johhny B.:
>1. Does assimiliation ever occur in Klingon? For example,
>
>tIjwI'ghom vIchenmoH (I form a boarding party)
>
>Would "vIchenmoH" not be realized as "vIchemmoH" or "vIchennoH" in fast
>speech? Sounds tend to assimilate to place of articulation in English. I
>was wondering if that occured in spoken Klingon, as well. Another
>example:
>
>qonbej (It is certainly recording [or some such thing])
>
>In English, a construction like "in + balance" would be realized as
>"imbalance" because of assimilation.
Well, I pronounce "in balance" with the \n\ pretty consistently, but I do
have to speak in public enough to make me rather cognizant of my
pronunciation. In Klingon, we know that adjacent <t>'s, as in <SottaH>, are
ocassionally reduced to one, though Okrand is careful to point out that
older Klingons are not as prone to this error as youngsters - it is, after
all, inaccurate. Far more common is the omitting of one <'> in a pair, as in
<yu''egh> - it is more often heard as <yu'egh> than the previous example
would be pronounced <SotaH>.
Okrand has never to my knowledge addressed assimilation as you describe. I
suspect it is rare, however I am no more an authority than anyone else who
is not Marc Okrand.
>2. Klingon has a restriction that only one consonent can occur in the
>coda (the end of a syllable), with the exception of the common "rgh"
>construction ["ghargh" (worm) and many others]. Why is it then that when
>Klingons borrowed "Picard" from English, it became "pIcarD"?
Uh... You know, especially considering Picard has a great British accent for
a Frenchman :o), you'd think a Klingon would hear <pIqaD> - but that is the
name of their writing system, and perhaps that is why they take pains to
pronounce the <r> - to make it clear what they are talking about, and
perhaps to seem a bit erudite, like how people pronounce "croissant" like
\kwuh-sant\ like the French. That word has not been anglicized, and perhaps
for similar reasons <pIqarD> has not been <*tlhInganchoHta'>. (I know, so
don't even.)
Qermaq