[tlhIngan Hol] How do you explain {'InSong} ?

[kechpaja]

On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 05:12:27PM +0200, mayqel qunenoS wrote:
> is there a difference between the klingon syllable, and the english
> syllable ? what is the definition of a klingon syllable ?

Different languages have different rules as to the types of syllables
that they allow. In English, you can have up to three consonants before
the vowel and four afterwards (linguists would write that as CCCVCCCC).
However, this does not mean that syllables with more consonants would be
impossible to pronounce — only that they couldn't be English words. For
example, the Russian word встреча "meeting" ("vstrecha" in teh Latin
alphabet) begins with four consonants. Russians have no trouble
pronouncing it, and English speakers can learn to pronounce it with
practice — in fact, the only reason they have trouble with it at first
is because they've never had to pronounce a syllable starting with that
many consonants before. But that word couldn't be an English word,
because it violates the rules of English syllable structure. 

In Klingon, the syllable structure rules are stricter. Syllables can
really only be CV (one consonant followed by one vowel), CVC (one
consonant, one vowel, and one more consonant), or CV{rgh, w', y'} (one
consonant, one vowel, and one of the clusters {rgh}, {w'}, and {y'}).
This doesn't mean that a Klingon would be incapable of pronouncing a
word with more consonants on either side of the vowel, only that such a
word couldn't be a native word in the Klingon language. 

It took me a very long time to wrap my head around the idea that some
languages have seemingly-arbitrary restrictions on syllable structure,
so don't worry if this feels confusin at first. You'll come to
understand it eventually. 

-SapIr