[Tlhingan-hol] Comment on transliteration WAS: Defiant

[Brent Kesler]

On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 1:56 PM, Doug Henning <likethemagician at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Sticking to only Klingon syllable structure, you would probably
> transliterate the name as *DIvay'enIt*, to avoid a consonant cluster
> without a vowel. Elision of the vowel *'It*, turning C*I*C into CC, seems
> to be a common alternate pronunciation of Klingon names, as in *wo'rIv* >
> "Worf".
>


I don't mean to pick on Mr. Henning (or anyone else), but I have a strong
opinion on this subject, and I want to give it.

It seems that Klingonists have preference for trying to make non-Klingon
words fit Klingon phonology. This isn't necessarily a bad thing--it's a
good exercise to put yourself in someone else's place and imagine how
something normal to us would sound strange to them.

But sometimes I think we take it too far, as if Klingons would never enjoy
the challenge of moving their tongues in strange ways to make strange
sounds that make sense to strange people.

We have some evidence that they're not entirely hostile to foreign speech
patterns: janluq pIqarD.

Of course, if you're trying to translate something, it is *your*
translation, and you can choose whichever strategy makes the most sense to
you. A couple years ago when I was writing weekly news summaries in
Klingon, I deliberately chose a midway strategy: try to stick close to the
original, but don't make it too difficult for a hypothetical Klingon to
make sense of. So "Gaza" became {ghaSa} rather than {gha'Sa'}. Both are
fine choices, but I wanted to emphasize the foreignness of the name.

In the end how you transliterate something is your choice, but I just
wanted to offer something to think about when you make that choice.

bI'reng
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