[Tlhingan-hol] Phonemes

[lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com]

So, considering that “ng” happens a lot in English, but never at the beginning of a syllable, I started wondering if there are combinations of Klingon sounds that never happen in Klingon (besides two vowels next to each other).

It occurs to me that while syllable boundaries may mash {tlh} and {t} next to each other, as in {tlhutlhtaH}, I can’t think of a way that any Klingon word could put the {t} first and follow it with {tlh}. I don’t find any polysyllabic words with this combination and none of the suffixes start with {tlh}.

It would be awkward to pronounce distinctly, and the initial {t} would probably get dropped in common speech, if it happened in common speech, but I suspect it simply never happens.

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