[Tlhingan-hol] [Phonetics] -ew', -Iw', -Iy'

[lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com]

In TKD, Okrand explains that in Klingon, that Klingon “does not have {ow} or {uw}”, which is not entirely accurate, since what he meant to say was that no Klingon syllable ends in {ow} or {uw}, ignoring verb prefixes that end in {o} or {u} and can be applied to verb roots beginning with {w}. Just because he didn’t think of all cases and didn’t express himself flawlessly doesn’t mean that he didn’t succeed in telling us something useful. We know what he meant to say.

Meanwhile, if you can’t have {ow} or {uw}, you obviously can’t have {ow’} or {uw’}, now can you? So, you are accurate in saying they can’t be used, though Okrand never told us that this was the case. It’s a simple derivation to figure this out.

All other rules we’ve learned about codas in Klingon were written by observation by a third party, published in HolQeD. I think it was in the first volume, though I don’t have them with me and can’t look it up. Okrand subsequently approved the article before publication, according to rumors I remember. It may say so in HolQeD. I don’t remember.

As for the three you wonder about, if they’ve never been observed, then one would assume they are disallowed. They might as well be disallowed, since we are not allowed to make up Klingon words, and the guy who does it apparently doesn’t use those codas. If he starts using them, then they will be allowed.

As we learned from that early article, Klingon syllables begin, without exception, with a consonant followed by a vowel. Sometimes this suffices, as with verb prefixes or the noun suffix {-oy}. Otherwise, this beginning is followed by a single consonant, or by the specific consonant clusters {w’}, {y’}, and {rgh}. If there are others, I don’t remember them. I don’t think the article went into which vowels were allowed before these clusters, so it would not address your question of the three unobserved codas.

Effectively, {w} and {y} are {u} and {I} used as consonants, creating the only shift from one vowel sound to another in Klingon without a consonant between them. Since Klingon lacks the Japanese “long” vowel idea, you can’t have {uw} or {Iy}. I’m not sure why {ow} is not allowed, unless Okrand is making fun of the impure long “o” sound that English speakers tend to use.

Meanwhile, {rgh} was probably just too fun for Okrand to disallow. He obviously had a lot of fun making up this language.

lojmIt tI’wI’ nuv ‘utlh
Retired Door Repair Guy

> On Feb 10, 2015, at 9:40 AM, Michael Kúnin <netzakh at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> As we now, syllable codas -ow, -ow', -uw, and -uw' are impossible.
> 
> Out of the remaining 121 codas, 118 do occur (the rarest occurring is -Irgh). The 3 codas that have not been observed in canon yet are -ew', -Iw', and -Iy'. Are they actually impossible or we just have not seen words with them yet?
> 
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