Re: Fwd: vowel notation; yet another visit Saul Epstein Mon, 16 Nov 1998 11:11:18 -0600 (Quotes Rob Zook: Sunday, November 15, 1998 2:28 PM) >At 09:42 AM 11/14/98 PST, Sorik wrote: > >>>From: "Sorik of Vulcan" [...] >>>Instead of using an to notate the sound in Tuvok, we >>>could simply capitalize the "u". Then we have >>>It would easily give the reader of Vulcan words in standard >>>english text a way to decipher how it should sound. I realize that you may simply have chosen an unfortunate example, and I realize that we have documents of different vintage floating around contradicting each other, but at this point is always the sound in . >>>I say >>>that mainly because neither notation we recognize is currently >>>used with absolute dedication, Until a revised version of the Grammar and Lexicon are produced, none of the relative standardization that's been achieved in the last year and a half will appear to have the smallest degree of dedication. That's just something people will have to deal with until the revised versions have been produced, argued over, and approved. Personally, I've been a bit distracted by my time-space life lately, but I intend to get back to proposing revisions fairly soon... >>>nor are the vowels sounds >>>always distinguished; that is, the s aren't always set >>>apart from the s and so forth. Not in writing, no. Here's how that seems to work. Look at a Vulcan word. Guess at the way its vowels are pronounced, keeping in mind that they're never "long" in the sense that the in "mind" is called a "long I." If you're a native speaker of a Germanic language, you probably guessed right. If you're a native speaker of a Slavic or an Indo-Iranian language, you have pretty good chances. There's no justifiable reason for that to be the case, but apparently it is. If people _really_ care, someone can sort through the data and make the rules for this explicit. I got part way through before I decided it was less important than elaborating the grammar and switched tracks. >>>Any thoughts on that? (Stupid question, huh?) >>> >>>-Sorik >> >>Would it harm any of you to give a response? It might. >We actually discussed this a little bit quite a while back. >Since Marketa, has already finalized what vowels to use (at >least I think she has), why rehash it again? No good reason presents itself to me. Which is largely why I wasn't responding... >Besides, the only one's who use this expression of different >vowel phonemes with mixed case is Klingon. Having us use this >method after the fact could be misinterpreted as a lack of >imagination. > > >Rob Z. Actually, this technique of effectively doubling the representational capacity of the standard character set occured to me independently some years before Klingon was first published. I suspect it may have very wide usage, and for a long time: even type-writers can use it. Also, I seem to recall a, um, Klingonist suggesting using capitalization for Vulcan at some point in the past. The suggestion met mostly with disapproval, because people felt it would be hard to read... -- from Saul Epstein locus*planetkc,com - www,planetkc,com/locus "Surakri' ow'phacur the's'hi the's'cha'; the's'pharka the's'hi surakecha'." -- K'dvarin Urswhl'at