tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 06 09:25:28 2002

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Re: Alphabet



>I couldn't think of any possible way to write down how I pronounce o/oh in
>Jon/John to show how different it is to Klingon [ jan ].  I have therefore
>produced a short wav file so you can hear for yourselves and uploaded it to
>http://www.btinternet.com/~qeSan/innish do bnot-as_in_Jon.wav
>I'll let you tell me if there's a way you could describe that sound... When
>Children are taught the alphabet phonetically here this is also the sound 
>we
>would expect from a child saying "o" .

This rhymes with my pronunication of 'lawn', and the symbol looks kind of 
like a backward 'c', and is called an open o.  Italian and Portuguese also 
have this sound, although Spanish and Finnish do not (I refer to standard 
versions of these languages).  It's the same sound I make in 'caught' as 
opposed to 'cot', a la my original example.

I would also like to know where 'here' is.

>qe'San

>Your like me. Your British, so you say John/Jon with an "o" sound as in
>"October" or "octopus". There are some American accents which say
>John/Jon with an "a" in it like we say "Khan" or "Palm"... jarn. The
>Klingon "a" is very similar to the "ar" noise. jan is pronounced much
>more like the British way of saying "a". I get accused all the time by
>Americans that I add rs to words that aren't there.

Actually, in my pronunciation (basically Maryland, but with a dash of 
California, Alaska, and now Utah thrown in), 'October' and 'octopus' have 
the same sound in the first syllable as Klingon 'a'.

>This is something I learned very quickly when I moved to this country. A
>lot of the sounds in English are pronounced differently, even from state
>to state. Words like "dog", "vehicle", "pen" are pronounced in some
>parts of the Midwest (where I have spent most of my time) "dowg",
>"vee-hic-cle", "pin". It can get very confusing at times. When you head
>north to Wisconsin and Minnesota you start getting long ohs in words,
>like "boat" becomes "bohat", "boots" becomes "boohts", "coke" becomes
>"cohke". It's very strange to me.

"Texas"Daq nenchoH SoSwI'.  "Texas"Daq, "Maryland"Daq je, jaS jatlhlu'.  
be'nI'pu'wI'vaD, jIHvaD je QeHchoHDI', "Texas" Hol jatlhchoH SoSwI'.  
maHagh, qhIq QeHqu'choH SoSwI'.

>In American English the short "a" sound (as in apple) is much more
>common than the long "a" sound (as in father). To show the difference.
>In British English we say "pajamas" with the middle "a" be a long "ar"
>sound, in American English they tend to say, "pajamas" with all the "a"s
>being short "a"s.
>
>I hope this helps explain things. A suggestion would be, if your not
>American, or were not taught to speak English by Americans, take texts
>(besides TKD) with a pinch of salt. And vice versa. Since coming here I
>learned very quickly that American English and British English are much
>more  different than it first looks.

A very good suggestion.  While it may be difficult for non-American native 
speakers of English to understand Okrand's pronunciation examples, imagine 
how much harder it is for non-native English speakers (and I know there are 
several on the list).

>'ej toH chutmey vIbIvbe'. tlhIngan Hol mu'mey puS vIghItlh. tlhIngan Hol
>Dajatlh DaneHchugh "TKD" yIlo' pagh "CK" "PK" je yI'Ij. tlhIngan Hol
>jatlhwI'pu' yItu'. "microphone" vIghaj 'ej "MSN Messanger" Dalo'chugh
>SoHvaD jIjatlh.

"MSN Messenger" jIghaj jIH je.  pIj vIlo'be' 'ej "microphone" vighajbe', 
'ach "Messenger" lo'chugh tlhIngan Hol jatlhwI', "text chat" vIlo'qang.  
"online" SoHchugh (ghaHchugh vay'), HISovmoH, 'ej "online" jIH je 'e' vInID.

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Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com



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