Re: Phonetic Translation

["...Paul" <cleggp@megadodo.com>]

On Tue, 19 Nov 2002, David Trimboli wrote:
> From: "Larry D. French Sr." <ldfsr@yahoo.com>
> > With the help of my CO and DloraH, I got this verse
> > translated and attempted to phonetically spell it
> > out. My CO won't take No for an answer.
>
> Oh good grief.  Klingon as we write it ***IS*** a phonetic spelling!  Just
> tell him it *IS* spelled phonetically, then teach him what the letters stand
> for.

Yeah, Klingon is very much like German in that respect -- no fancy "silent
e's" or anything like that (don't get me started about French ;)

> How is "-meh" going to get him to pronounce /-meH/ correctly?  Trust me,
> spell out the Klingon correctly, and it IS phonetic.

When I took German in High School, a lot of people had problems with that
"ch as in Bach" sound.  A lot of people trying to pronounce "Bach" would
end up with "bahk" (more like the Klingon { baq })  My prof said that was
completely wrong, but that people could get by with using an "sh" sound if
necessary ("ish bean ine Berlinner" -- I am a doughnut ;)  I'm not even
sure how I'd write that sound phonetically.  :)

The nice thing is, in Klingon, /H/ is always pronounced the same.  It's
just not necessarily a sound people make often, or are used to hearing...

...Paul

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