tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Dec 09 23:57:21 2001
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Re: Klingon Mode of Tengwar
Jiri:
> > Note that there actually an extra two grades, with the stem extending
> > both above and below the letter - used in the title-page English for
> > the words "of" and "the". But you don't seem to need them.
SuStel:
> Obviously, we don't need "of" or "the." But letters with extended stems
> might also be used to abbreviate oft-used suffixes, prefixes, or even
> words. For instance, writing (#4+accent, #4) for /'e'/ seems very
> time-consuming. #4 extended might serve better. But including this use
> of extended grades is even more arbitrariness I wanted to avoid.
Since Klingon doesn't have doubled/long consonants (and when it does they
belong to different morphemes), one might use a tilde under for that - so
that /'e'/ would be quesse+double+e and /-'a'/ would be quesse+double+a,
/chIch/ would be sule+double+I etc.
Similarly, tilde above - normally used for mb, mp, nt and so on - might be
used for the consonant clusters /w'/, /y'/ and /rgh/. On second thoughts,
perhaps arda (26) could be used for /rgh/, for the other two see below.
There may be a deeper issue here, though: Klingon has a rigid syllable
structure, and most (all?) morphemes are mono-syllabic. It might be more
sensible to devise a writing system that is syllable-oriented, so that the
consonants belonging to a syllable are optically together. But that would
not be Tengwar any more.
> > For /Q/, I'm not sure. I probably would end up putting it on unque
> > (16), even if it isn't strictly phonologically correct... it's close,
> > and it'd stop /'/ being all alone in the calmatema.
> Keep in mind that we're already avoiding strict phonological correctness
> with the initial postulated consonant grouping: the "dorsal" series
> really includes the dorso-velar (H, gh, ng) and dorso-uvular (q, Q)
> sounds. Putting /Q/ in series IV would be stretching the point even
> further.
Unless you put /q/ there, too - then calmatema would be dorso-velar and
quessetema dorso-uvular. Then you'd have to put /'/ somewhere else -
possibly use the short carrier for it, which is nowhere else used. After
all, /'/ is optically the smallest letter in both pIqaD and English
transcription. One might write it as halla (raised stem without a bow) if
there is no tehta above it.
In this case, /y'/ and /w'/ would make sense as ore(21)/vala(22) + bar; the
explanation would be that the /'/ is written small above the /y/ or /w/.
Jiri
--
Jiri Baum <[email protected]> http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jirib
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