On 2/13/2015 11:20 AM, lojmitti7wi7nuv@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks. You are right. In fact, {y} doesn't sound like {I}. The latter
is like the American short "i", as in "hit" while the former is like the
second half of the sound Americans make when pronouncing the letter "e",
a sound that doesn't exist as a vowel in Klingon. I just wasn't thinking.
This is why {Iy} sounds like the impure (normal) American "E" and {ey}
sounds like the impure (normal) American "A".
"Impure" is not the word you want. These are diphthongs. Actually, the General American long /a/ is a diphthong [eɪ], while long /e/ [i] is a monophthong. However, I know that you have a bit of Southern American influence in your speech, which may explain why you hear a diphthong in long /e/. You might pronounce it [ei] or even [əi].
Klingon {I} has two listed pronunciations in TKD: [I], which is common, and [i], which is rare.
Klingon {w} and {y} are semivowels, which is why you can get funky rules with them (adding {'} after them). At the end of a Klingon syllable, the difference between consonant {y} [j] and vowel {y} [i] is minimal, if it exists at all.
-- SuStel http://www.trimboli.name/ _______________________________________________ Tlhingan-hol mailing list Tlhingan-hol@kli.org http://mail.kli.org/mailman/listinfo/tlhingan-hol