In English, we don't rely on foreign scripts to indicate foreign words. We transliterate and italicize them. We capitalize proper nouns. The fact that we often don't or can't do these things in Klingon is a deficiency in our writing systems, not a problem inherent in transliteration. The fact that transliterations may not always be the same is irrelevant. We don't write חֲנֻכָּה; we write Hanukkah or Chanukah or a bunch of other ways, and which one you choose depends on your preference and maybe your style guide. We also don't assume that people reading foreign words or names will be stumped by a transliteration. Sure, a new student of English might read "Gandalf spared them one more mouthful each of the /miruvor/ of Rivendell" and get confused as to what /miruvor/ is and wonder whether /Gandalf/ is a name, but at some point you have to decide whether your audience is students who can't identify non-native words or a wider, more knowledgeable audience. Generally, we go with the latter. If you're reading a translation of the original Greek New Testament and you encounter the word *'IySuS* (or whatever), it should be pretty darn obvious that it's a name. If you're not experienced enough to recognize that it's not a Klingon word, you should probably study more before trying to read a translation of something as complex as the New Testament. I have no problem with unmarked transliterations. They do show why Klingon so desperately needs "spelling reform" that will never happen. But TKD is happy to give us Klingon names that are not marked in any way and do not appear in the word lists, and Skybox cards are happy to transliterate foreign names without any notice whatsoever, so even Okrand is fine with unmarked transliterations. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name