tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jun 10 14:43:42 2002

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Re: klingon letters



> 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)?

The system that we use is not the actual klingon writing system.  What we use 
is merely a phonetic representation of spoken klingon.  Being such, when 
someone sees the character [z] they certainly do not think to pronounce the 
sound represented by [tlh].  Ok, that explains the -groups-; but why 
uppercase?... The dictionary was written for American actors.  Some of the 
sounds are similar to how we already say them; w is w, n is n.  Some of the 
sounds are only slightly different; using uppercase flags these sounds as being 
different from how we normally pronounce them.  D is not the same why we say 
d.  Sure Okrand could have used d instead of D, but then people would forget to 
pronounce it differently.


DloraH, BG


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