[tlhIngan Hol] I must be missing something here..

mayqel qunenoS mihkoun at gmail.com
Sun Oct 14 01:13:44 PDT 2018


Watching on youtube videos on pronouncing klingon, there are two things I
noticed which confused me.

First, I noticed that on the pronunciation of some  one-syllable nouns
which have the suffix {-mey}, the stress on some is placed on the noun
itself (as it should be), while on others the stress is placed on the
{-mey}, although it bears no qaghwI'. And the stress is shifted there,
although these nouns are pronounced on their own, outside the context of
the sentence; so it cannot be happening for the sake of placing emphasis on
the plural.

Second, and this is the most important, I can't understand the
pronunciation of {-be'}..

But before I say what confuses me, I need to write how I understand "what
stress is", because perhaps this is were the root of my problem is..

The way I understand it, when we say "stress" of a word, we mean saying
slightly louder that syllable. Lets see an example.

Two computer enginneers examine a malfunctioning computer. And one of them
says, believing he identified the problem, "its the hard DISC", saying the
word "disc" a little louder. This is what I understand when I read "stress
of a word/syllable".

maj..

However, in the previous example, if one of the engineers wonders whether
its the hard disc which causes the malfunction, he can say "the hard disc
?". And because he is asking, his voice will pronounce the word "disc",
with a "rising tone".

maj again..

And now we come to the qaghwI', which as I understand it, is an abrupt end
of the sound of the preceding vowel.

So, now lets get back to the {-be'}, examining the example of the word
{yajbe'}.

According to the rules of pronunciation, at least as I understand them to
be, I would expect {yajbe'} to be stressed on the {-be'} (i.e. the {-be'}
being spoken a little louder), with the voice of the speaker coming to an
abrupt end immediately after the {e}. And I would expect, that since
{yajbe'} isn't a question, the voice of the speaker wouldn't assume a
"rising tone" as it would in the "hard disc ?" example.

However, I notice that on numerous occasions of videos I see on youtube,
the voice of the speaker does indeed assume a "rising tone". Something
which seems to happen not only with the {-be'}, but with other suffixes as
well, which happen to bear the qaghwI' and be the last syllable of a word.

I can't believe that all those people are doing it wrong, so obviously, I
am the one who is missing something here..

And if someone could enlighten me, as to what it is I'm actually missing, I
would be grateful..

And qeylIS would be happy..

~ 'ISterlIng
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