[Tlhingan-hol] 2 letter language code for Klingon?

[Michael Everson]

On 4 Oct 2011, at 21:41, ghunchu'wI' 'utlh wrote:

> In the typewriter-compatible transcription system, "tlh" represents a sound. In the phonetic transcription embodied in the Unicode PUA, (the pIqaD squiggly-Y-looking thing sometimes found on the X key in pre-Unicode Klingon fonts) represents the same sound. Each is the equivalent of the other.

Fine.

> The trigraph isn't a translation of the Klingon symbol any more than the IPA [tɬ͡]  is a translation of
> either; they all represent a sound.

For "translation" read "representation". 

> In Klingon, that sound is represented by a single letter, and in The Klingon Dictionary the {tlh} symbol is considered explicitly to be its own letter.

For "symbol" read "trigraph". 

> If someone wants to point out that students of typography call the "tlh" letter a trigraph because it is composed by abutting three otherwise separate symbols, fine.

Not "students of typography". Linguists and anyone using character set technology use precise terminology because it makes good sense to do so when talking about language and writing systems. Bandying about "symbol" and "glyph" and "letter" as though they were equivalent does not do anyone any good; it certainly doesn't make them equivalent. 

> But Mr. Everson's comment was more than a little patronizing.

No less than your using "Mr" perhaps.

My comment was a gentle nudge toward terminological accuracy.

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/