Re: Funny Symbols
Steven Boozer 
Thu, 9 Jul 1998 11:24:24 -0500 (CDT)

: If there is no <h>, I can only assume Okrand decided to use <H> to
: keep people from mistaking the Klingon sound for anything like the
: English /h/. Which actually makes my point better...
: 
: from Saul Epstein

You're right.  Marc Okrand used upper case H, Q, D, S, I to represent those
sounds pronounced somewhat differently than in English.  With the exception
of <q>, he didn't use the lower case equivalents at all.  Okrand also used
digraghs - <gh> and <ng) - as well as the apostraphe <'> (for the glottal
stop) in his system.

Unfortunately as it's worked out in practice, only those of us who've
studied the first chapter in "The Klingon Dictionary" on phonetics and/or
have listened and paid attention to his comments on pronunciation on the
audiotape "Conversational Klingon" make these distinctions on those rare
occasions when we can actually talk to another Klingonist.  Most fans and
virtually all the actors (except for those rare few Okrand coached
personally for the movies) don't understand Okrand's system and pronounce
the Klingon words as if they were English, to the confusion of many of us
who try to transcribe and keep track of bits of "Klingon" in the episodes.
(That is, when the Paramount writers even bother to try and use Okrand's
tlhIngan Hol at all and don't just make up some gibberish.)

A transcription which uses upper case letters phonetically (i,e. not for
punctuation, such as for the first word of sentences or names), only makes
practical sense if you are also using the lower case letters to distinguish
between two similar phonemes as well.  If not, we should avoid such
complications in the general spelling system and leave the detailed
IPA-style transcriptions for the dictionary when needed or the occasional
use of linguists.  After all, in most language there are always some letters
that are pronounced differently from other languages using the same
alphabet.  Isn't that one of the reasons foreigners have accents (excluding
grammar and vocabulary problems)?  They're unconsciously pronouncing some of
the sounds of one language according to the phonetic rules of their own
language which they've been speaking nearly from birth.  Best to leave an
expanded versions of the pronunciations rules (with plenty of "sounds like"
examples) to an introductory chapter on phonetics.


Voragh                          "Grammatici certant et adhuc sub judice
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons    lis est."        - Horace, Ars Poetica