[tlhIngan Hol] Sound of o

[Will Martin]

I’m not so much interested in arguing about this than I am sincerely curious, because when I hear Okrand say {Qo’noS}, I don’t hear the glide.

When I hear him say anything with an {o} in it, I don’t hear the glide.

Maybe it’s because my native language is English, and English has the glide, so I’m blind to it, like so many English speakers who have problems with Klingon words that start with {‘} because they don’t realize that in English, ALL words that we think of as starting with a vowel more accurately start with a glottal stop, as any native speaking Hawaiian will be happy to explain to you.

Arguments in favor of the glide have three points of evidence:

1. The description of the sound in TKD suggests there is a glide.

2. Unlike the many Klingon words that contain the spellings {-ay}, {-Iy}, {-ay}, and {yu-}, there are no Klingon words I can think of that have a sound spelled as *{-ow}.

3. Okrand loves to make exceptions to normal phonetic trends in the language, like the one he loves to talk about with {D} and {t}. The glide in {o} would be like that. All other Klingon vowel sounds are “simple”, but {o} could be a glide between two simple sounds.

That second bit of evidence can be interpreted two different ways:

1. You don’t spell *{-ow} because {o} is already pronounced that way.

Or

2. Like “f” this is a sound that Klingons never make.

All this is great to think about and discuss, and heck, probably argue about in huge, bloody battles.

But I don’t hear the glide in {Qo’noS}...

I don’t remember hearing it anywhere that I’ve heard Okrand pronouncing {o}.

Maybe someone could point out a recording of Okrand pronouncing {o} as a clearly enunciated gliding sound. I’d find it educational and clarifying.

Sent from my iPad

>> On Jun 26, 2020, at 5:00 PM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> 
> According to the Klingon Wiki,
> 
> TKD describes the letter o as in "go or mosaic". This is confusing, because English speakers would do that with a diphthong, rhyming "go" with "glow" and saying "mosaic" like "mow-saic". This is not what Okrand intended. He just wanted to make clear that it's not o like in "cop" or "pot". The sound still is a clear "o" without a following u sound. The word qepHom should NOT rhyme with "home".
> 
> ORLY? Where does this revelation come from? TKD says that o sounds exactly the same as ow — meaning it's a diphthong that sounds exactly the same as American English go.
> 
> -- 
> SuStel
> http://trimboli.name
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