[Tlhingan-hol] qepHom 2015 with Marc Okrand

[lojmIt tI'wI' nuv]

I haven't seen mention that {jIyaj} is somewhat of a special case because Klingon has, like Japanese, "pure vowels", and English often doesn't. The English long E is pronounced differently in America as a defining part of a regional dialect. More southern accents tend to glide from an initial {I} into a final "ee", and the {y} is definitely "ee", which is a sound that Klingon treats as a consonant. 

So, when you properly say {Iy} in Klingon, it sounds like a Southern "ee", which many English speakers "fix" by pronouncing a more northern "ee", which is the more pure English vowel, without the glide, and happens to be a consonant in Klingon. 

As for the {j}, Okrand specifically warned us against the French "j" for a reason. We use it often in English, because we borrow so many words from other languages. "Judge" is a special case because the "j" is exactly the same as the "dge". 

Meanwhile, how many English words can you think of that end in {aj}? The {a} already sounds rather French. Quell domage. (I'm probably misspelling it, but it's the one most frequently uttered phrase by my high school French teacher, whose English was dramatically southern, and I'm 60, so it's been a while.) I can't think of any I borrowed English words that end with "ah" followed by the hard "dj" sound. Maybe "garage", but as often as not, that gets the softer French "j" sound. 

All this means that we have to be diligent with our pronunciation. {jIyaj}, like {Qapla'} is said often, and typically mispronounced. The latter falls victim of syllable boundary problems, because starting a syllable with a consonant cluster is common in English and unpronounceable in Klingon, and English has glottal stops between syllables, but never at the end of a word. "Kaah-plaah, dude". 

So, when we say anything a lot in Klingon, that's when we must focus the most. Unfamiliar things naturally get attention for good pronunciation, but the more familiar an utterance, the easier it is to get lazy and slide back to Englishified mispronunciation.  

Sent from my iPad

> On Mar 28, 2015, at 2:14 AM, Anthony Appleyard <a.appleyard at btinternet.com> wrote:
> 
> Compare the common British television mispronunciation of Beijing as Beizhing.
> ----Original message----
> From : kenjutsuka at live.com
> Date : 28/03/2015 - 04:00 (GMTST)
> To : tlhingan-hol at kli.org
> Subject : Re: [Tlhingan-hol] qepHom 2015 with Marc Okrand
> 
> I get a lot of English speakers that don't speak any French, but still say zheeyazh.  It seems many English speakers develop a unconscious idea that all non-English j's are pronounced as if they were French.
> 
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