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

[SuStel]

On 2/13/2015 11:20 AM, lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com wrote:
> Thanks. You are right. In fact, {y} doesn't sound like {I}. The latter
> is like the American short "i", as in "hit" while the former is like the
> second half of the sound Americans make when pronouncing the letter "e",
> a sound that doesn't exist as a vowel in Klingon. I just wasn't thinking.
>
> This is why {Iy} sounds like the impure (normal) American "E" and {ey}
> sounds like the impure (normal) American "A".

"Impure" is not the word you want. These are diphthongs. Actually, the 
General American long /a/ is a diphthong [eɪ], while long /e/ [i] is a 
monophthong. However, I know that you have a bit of Southern American 
influence in your speech, which may explain why you hear a diphthong in 
long /e/. You might pronounce it [ei] or even [əi].

Klingon {I} has two listed pronunciations in TKD: [I], which is common, 
and [i], which is rare.

Klingon {w} and {y} are semivowels, which is why you can get funky rules 
with them (adding {'} after them). At the end of a Klingon syllable, the 
difference between consonant {y} [j] and vowel {y} [i] is minimal, if it 
exists at all.

-- 
SuStel
http://www.trimboli.name/