tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Mar 15 13:23:31 1999
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Re: Klingon Phonetics
Johhny B.:
>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:
Qermaq:
: 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.
Okrand discusses these sorts of phonetic issues briefly in Klingon for the
Galactic Traveller, pp. 138-141. If you're serious about becoming a
Klingonist, this book is indispensable.
Now of course to really discuss phonetic assimilation you need to listen to
recordings of "real" Klingon speech and not rely on Okrand's standardized
transcription. Buy "Conversational Klingon" and "Power Klingon" and
carefully transcribe them phonetically, ignoring the grammar of what Maltz
(Okrand) is saying. You might want to add the movies ST3, ST5 and ST6 - as
well as Robert O'Reilly from KCD - to the list of "real" Klingons for this
exercise since Okrand personally coached the actors, especially those
playing Kruge and Klaa. Better yet, have a linguist friend who's been
fully trained in phonetic transcription *and who doesn't know anything
about Klingon* do this. The results might be interesting.
That being said, we've known of at least one transcribed example for a
while now. The word {tlhIngan} itself seems to be a degeminated form:
tlhIngan "Klingon" < ?tlhIngngan < tlhIng ngan "inhabitant of Kling"
The geographical name {tlhIng} has finally been confirmed on the Bird of
Prey poster. (As to what or where {tlhIng yoS} the "Kling District" is,
we're still not sure.)
Examples of a related phenomenon include:
vulqangan "Vulcan" < ?vulqanngan < vulqan ngan "inhabitant of Vulcan"
'orghengan "Organian" < ?'orghenngan < 'orghen ngan "inhabitant of Organia"
lIghongan "Ligonian" < lIghonngan < lIghon ngan "inhabitant of Ligon"
Note that Okrand says in KGT (p. 141 f.) that the intermediate form
{lIghonngan} is, in fact, still used by some speakers of Klingon.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons