tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jun 10 14:20:56 2002
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Re: klingon letters
- From: [email protected]
- Subject: Re: klingon letters
- Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 18:20:23 GMT
> hello,
>
> for curiosity: isn't it strange that the klingon transcription in
> english has "D", "S", "I" without any "d", "s", or "i"?
> why do you use capital letters at all (you could use "x" instead of
> "H", "k" instead of "Q", "z" instead of "tlh" or something like that)?
First, realize that this is arbitrary, so why do you appoint yourself as being
better qualified to make the choice than Okrand?
Second, realize that Okrand wanted something that could be useful to the
general public. The characters had to be available on a normal keyboard and
come close to pronunciations someone who speaks English would be expecting.
Third, there is a phonetic alphabet that Linguists use to write words
regardless of the language the word comes from. Okrand apparently referred to
that alphabet while choosing the Klingon romanized alphabet, though he didn't
perfectly match it, since that alphabet is NOT strictly available on a normal
keyboard.
The fortunate thing is that most (but not all) of the uppercase letters in the
Klingon alphabet are unusual to normal English pronunciation, so being
uppercase is a sort of flag to remind you to review the pronunciation. The "t"
is normal, for instance, but the "D" is quite different from the "d" in
English. Likely, that's a happy accident.
The main thing is:
This is the way it is written. Get used to it.
> bye,
> stephan,
> sts.
Will