--- begin quote --- According to the endnote you cite, the Gorkon in *Hamlet* is "not the Chancellor who initiated peace with the Federation, but one of his legendary forebearers." If this Gorkon was "legendary," we can assume he existed long ago… maybe in no'Hol times, maybe not as far back. The first part of *paq'batlh* has some incomplete bits of no'Hol (pages 44-49). It's fragmentary, so one has to be hesitant about drawing conclusions, but we can see a few things: Under at least some circumstances, no'Hol /o/ became modern /a/ and no'Hol /oo/ became modern /aw/. For example: {tyot} > {cha’} “two” {pog’} > {pagh} “zero, none” {moy’} > {may’} “battle” {tunsroot} > {tonSaw'} "fighting technique" Given what's in *paq'batlh*, one might conclude that /o/ > /a/ (and /oo/ > /aw/) all the time, but we can't be sure about this because we don't have examples of no'Hol /o/ in all environments. Specifically, we don't have examples of no'Hol /o/ following /g'/ (the presumed precursor of /gh/) or preceding /r/, and we don't know what influence, if any, other syllables in the word may have or if stress plays a role. Given the other examples, I somehow doubt that /g'/ would make any difference, but a following /r/ might. Note that no'Hol /e/ usually becomes modern /I/: {teq} > {tIq} "heart" {tlhengon} > {tlhIngan} "Klingon" But {mu'qberet} > {moQbara'} and not {*moQbIrI'} or the like. We don't know why this is, and it doesn't really matter right now. But given all of this, it's quite possible that {ghorqon} is an old form of the name "Gorkon" and, over time, the second /o/ became modern /a/ (as in the examples above), but the first /o/ stayed /o/ for some reason (perhaps because of the /r/, which may or may not be what's going on in the {moQbara'} situation, or perhaps not). Or maybe an earlier form of the name was something like {ghoorqon} and this became {ghawrqan} and this became {ghorqan} as triconsonantal clusters like /wrq/ were simplified (to /rq/ in this case, with /w/ affecting the quality of the preceding vowel). Short version of all of the above: Since *Hamlet*'s Gorkon and the later peacemaker Gorkon are not the same person, and since *Hamlet*'s Gorkon is the older, "legendary" one, we (meaning Maltz and I, and hopefully others) can be comfortable saying the *Hamlet* Gorkon pronounced his name the old way (the way it would have been pronounced during his time), namely {ghorqon}, and the peacemaker Gorkon pronounced his name the modern way: {ghorqan}. As for {beylana} — I, like you, would also have expected the Klingon version of B'Elanna to be {be'elanna} or {be'ela'na} or {bI'Ila'na} or something like that. On the other hand, B'Elanna is half-Klingon, half-Human. Her mother (the Klingon half) and B'Elanna herself, we're told, were the only Klingons around on a Federation colony, so she was born into (and, as a little girl, raised in) a very non-Klingon environment. Whatever the source/origin of the name (that is, whether the name is a traditional Klingon name or not), it's very likely that she (and her family and friends) did not pronounce it in a very Klingon way. In other words, for her -- and not necessarily for other people with the same name -- maybe the name is, in fact, pronounced more like {beylana} than anything else. If we accept that, Duolingo is fine. --- end quote --- -- De'vID