Even if we are never shown any other punctuation on screen, I think the wording of your statement is misleading. The marks are not actually a comma and a period. I would say that pIqaD has two punctuation marks: One for separating sentences and one for separating ideas within a sentence. English punctuation marks can be divided into these two groups, but we have multiple choices in the sentence separating group.

What I want to avoid is the idea that when translating a question, we don't say, well you have to end the question with a period because Klingon only has periods. English also does not have an interrogative suffix; things are going to be slightly different in the two languages. If the Klingon uses a question word or the -'a' verb suffix, then the English should use a question mark even though Klingon only has one type of sentence ending mark. Similarly with exclamation marks on exclamations.

If writing in Okrandian transcription, I would actually accept periods on questions and exclamations, though since you are using the Roman character set, it's a shame not to use the variety of punctuation marks available where appropriate.

janSIy (Jeremy, not David)

Get Outlook for Android

From: tlhIngan-Hol <tlhingan-hol-bounces@lists.kli.org> on behalf of mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2020 7:40:30 AM
To: tlhIngan Hol mailing list <tlhingan-hol@kli.org>
Subject: [tlhIngan Hol] If pIqaD became Ca'Non..