[tlhIngan Hol] Sound of o

[Will Martin]

As usual, you make good points and your analysis is excellent.

The only thing you haven’t addressed is why there doesn’t seem to be an implied {w} in the {o} sound in all the recordings of Okrand pronouncing words like {Qo’noS}, or any other word that includes {o}, unless you’d like to supply what I specifically requested, which is a recording of Okrand pronouncing an {o} in a Klingon word that includes the {w} sound.

You brought up the example of {gho-} as a syllable that doesn’t follow the {o} with a consonant, and I appreciated that, because I had not thought of that example, so I tried to find a second example and couldn’t come up with one. If there are no other examples, then {gho-} is the only Klingon syllable that ends in {o}, and you did say that maybe the implied {w} in “mow-zaic” only applies to syllables that end in {o}.

So, no, you didn’t explicitly say that Okrand’s verbal description applied to only {gho-}. You said that maybe it only applies to syllables ending in {o}, and the only example that I know of is {gho-}, so that does logically follow that he’d be giving that description of how {o} is pronounced in {gho-}, while not giving an accurate description of the {o} sound in any other syllable in the vocabulary.

All we need is a recording of Okrand saying something with a Klingon {o} that sounds like the “mow” in “mosaic”... and maybe something to explain why that doesn’t happen in most of his pronunciation of words that include {o}.

Sent from my iPad

> On Jun 27, 2020, at 1:04 PM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> 
> 
> On 6/27/2020 10:48 AM, Will Martin wrote:
>> It’s odd that he would give a description in TKD that would accurately apply to syllables ending with {o} and not to the far more common case of {o} between two consonants.
> It wouldn't be odd if Okrand were explaining why ow doesn't appear at the end of a word instead of explaining o as a diphthong.
> 
> See the original text:
> 
> Note that when a vowel is followed by w or y, the combination of letters may not represent the same sound it does in English spelling:
> 
> [chart: aw, ay, ey, Iy, oy]
> 
> Klingon uy resembles ooey in English gooey. Klingon ew resembles nothing in English, but can be approximated by running Klingon e and u together. Likewise, Klingon Iw is I and u run together. No words in Klingon have ow or uw. If they did, they would be indistinguishable from words ending in o and u, respectively.
> 
> You see the point here is not so much the character of Klingon vowels as it is how to read various combinations you'll find in the book. It doesn't say Klingon o sounds like Klingon ow; it says Klingon words don't end with ow because it would sound like the word ends in o. This tells me that Klingon words that end in o end in a diphthong.
> 
> Interestingly, of all the listed diphthongs, only aw, ay, ey, oy, and uy allow a glottal stop after them: aw', ay', ey', oy', uy'. The combinations ew', Iw', and Iy' do not occur in any word even though there is no rule against it.
> 
> 
> 
>> Did he really give us that description ONLY for the syllable {gho-} and not give us a description for every other use in the language? REALLY?
> Did I say that? Only the syllable gho? I didn't say that.
> 
> -- 
> SuStel
> http://trimboli.name
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