tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri May 30 00:31:25 2003
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Re: Klingon Alphabet
But wouldn't little Klingon children need to have a name for each "symbol/letter/pictogram/whatever"? I don't understand how the "drawings" in the pIqaD still can't be named individually. Klingons, when spelling/describing out things to eachother, would need some form of telling what picture to draw, qar'a'? The question of if is an alphabet shouldn't matter too much...I just want to say something other than, "Qapla' is spelled que, ae, pee, el, ae, apostrophe." Know what I mean?
David Trimboli <[email protected]> wrote:jatlh Klingon Emperor
> Just saying that it sure would be nice if, when teaching the language to
our children or fellow linguists, we could say, "now
> we're going to talk about the letter ...it makes this sound..." and so
on and so forth. When we take foreign language
> classes at school or college, the names of the letters and the alphabet
are the first things to be taught. I hope one day
> Okrand makes up names for the letters. Seems too Earthling to keep
calling the letters what they are in English.
But that's the problem, and what I've been trying to explain. The Klingon
writing system probably isn't an alphabet! (Okrand has said he thinks it
isn't.) So you can't say "This is the letter ; it makes this sound."
You might have to say "This is the symbol ; it stands for this suffix"
or "This is the symbol ; it stands for this word," or something else.
Summary: KLINGON DOESN'T HAVE AN ALPHABET.
What you really want is for Okrand to make up a writing system, not for him
to name the symbols. And unfortunately, that's never going to happen for
legal/creative reasons.
SuStel
Stardate 3408.5
Glory to you, and to your House.
taHjaj wo'
Qapla'
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