info from Maltz on the spellings of Gorkon and B'Elanna
--- 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
{ghorqon} {ghorqan} and {beylana} are the proper klingon spellings of the respective life-forms, or just their pronunciation ? Other than that, although it is always great to receive info from maltz, it would even better if those info contained words, which we actually need to use/could use in our every day klingon sentences. ~ nI'ghma
On Tue, 3 Jul 2018 at 10:52, mayqel qunenoS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
{ghorqon} {ghorqan} and {beylana} are the proper klingon spellings of the respective life-forms, or just their pronunciation ?
The Latin-script writing system we use for Klingon is a phonetic transcription. We don't actually know how to "spell" anything in any native Klingon writing system. Presumably, Chancellor Gorkon writes his name like his legendary ancestor, but whereas the ancestor's name is pronounced {ghorqon}, his is pronounced more like {ghorqan} (or maybe that's just the way he says it when speaking to members of the Federation to make it easier on them to pronounce). Similarly, B'Elanna's name is pronounced like {beylana}. Again, presumably, it's written in Klingon in a way which a native would pronounce as {be'elanna}, which is why it has been transliterated into English as "B'Elanna", but she doesn't pronounce it the way the original name is pronounced. This is similar to how my name, {De'vID}, is sometimes pronounced more like {DeyvID} by English-speakers.
Other than that, although it is always great to receive info from maltz, it would even better if those info contained words, which we actually need to use/could use in our every day klingon sentences.
The reason Maltz gave information on those two names is because they are named used in the Duolingo course which had not previously appeared written in Klingon (i.e., in any official Latin-script transliteration). {ghorqon} had appeared in Hamlet, but that's non-canon. So people are indeed composing sentences using those names. -- De'vID
On 7/3/2018 5:44 AM, De'vID wrote:
The Latin-script writing system we use for Klingon is a phonetic transcription. We don't actually know how to "spell" anything in any native Klingon writing system.
Alas, that is no longer true. Thanks to the intervention of certain Klingonists, Klingon has appeared in decipherable writing on /Star Trek: Discovery,/ in the one-to-one phonemic alphabet invented by another certain Klingonist. This alphabet is directly translatable to our Latin-letter transcription. We are stuck with this most boring of writing systems being on-screen canon, at least for the /Discovery/ Klingons, and no explanation of why the in-universe compilers of /The Klingon Dictionary/ had such a hard time understanding it. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On Tue, Jul 3, 2018 at 10:30 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 7/3/2018 5:44 AM, De'vID wrote:
The Latin-script writing system we use for Klingon is a phonetic transcription. We don't actually know how to "spell" anything in any native Klingon writing system.
Alas, that is no longer true. Thanks to the intervention of certain Klingonists, Klingon has appeared in decipherable writing on *Star Trek: Discovery,* in the one-to-one phonemic alphabet invented by another certain Klingonist. This alphabet is directly translatable to our Latin-letter transcription. We are stuck with this most boring of writing systems being on-screen canon, at least for the *Discovery* Klingons, and no explanation of why the in-universe compilers of *The Klingon Dictionary* had such a hard time understanding it.
Klingon has also appeared in different forms as well, the vast majority of them are completely undecipherable. If all the writing systems shown in Trek are valid, then I can see why the in-universe compilers of the Klingon Dictionary would have a hard time. Maybe they were able to decipher the pIqaD that maps sounds to single letters, but they still haven't unlocked all the secrets of the writing system. I'd compare this to being able to figure out Hiragana, but still having no idea how Kanji works. There's no way to intuit one system from the other. qurgh
On Tue, Jul 3, 2018 at 2:03 PM, qurgh lungqIj <qurgh@wizage.net> wrote:
On Tue, Jul 3, 2018 at 10:30 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 7/3/2018 5:44 AM, De'vID wrote:
The Latin-script writing system we use for Klingon is a phonetic
transcription. We don't actually know how to "spell" anything in any native Klingon writing system.
Alas, that is no longer true. Thanks to the intervention of certain
Klingonists, Klingon has appeared in decipherable writing on Star Trek: Discovery, in the one-to-one phonemic alphabet invented by another certain Klingonist. This alphabet is directly translatable to our Latin-letter transcription. We are stuck with this most boring of writing systems being on-screen canon, at least for the Discovery Klingons, and no explanation of why the in-universe compilers of The Klingon Dictionary had such a hard time understanding it.
Klingon has also appeared in different forms as well, the vast majority of them are completely undecipherable. If all the writing systems shown in Trek are valid, then I can see why the in-universe compilers of the Klingon Dictionary would have a hard time. Maybe they were able to decipher the pIqaD that maps sounds to single letters, but they still haven't unlocked all the secrets of the writing system. I'd compare this to being able to figure out Hiragana, but still having no idea how Kanji works. There's no way to intuit one system from the other.
Well, FWIW, Discovery also featured pIqaD on display screens that did not match the one-to-one system. Therefore, even within Discovery, pIqaD is indeed more complicated than that. -- ~Michael Roney, Jr. Freelance Translator
On Tue, 3 Jul 2018 at 16:30, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 7/3/2018 5:44 AM, De'vID wrote:
The Latin-script writing system we use for Klingon is a phonetic transcription. We don't actually know how to "spell" anything in any native Klingon writing system.
Alas, that is no longer true. Thanks to the intervention of certain Klingonists, Klingon has appeared in decipherable writing on *Star Trek: Discovery,* in the one-to-one phonemic alphabet invented by another certain Klingonist. This alphabet is directly translatable to our Latin-letter transcription. We are stuck with this most boring of writing systems being on-screen canon, at least for the *Discovery* Klingons, and no explanation of why the in-universe compilers of *The Klingon Dictionary* had such a hard time understanding it.
Isn't it obvious? We're viewing the historical recordings/simulations of the USS Discovery through the universal translator, which has simplified written Klingon into a phonetic alphabet but retained a {pIqaD}esque appearance for flavour. Also, we know that real Klingon isn't phonetic/phonemic. We just found out that Gorkon is written as if it were {ghorqon} and spoken (in Kirk's time) as if it were {ghorqan}, and B'Elanna's name is pronounced {beylana} but probably corresponds to a name which was originally {be'elanna} or something like that. -- De'vID
participants (5)
-
De'vID -
mayqel qunenoS -
Michael Roney, Jr. -
qurgh lungqIj -
SuStel