[Tlhingan-hol] Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country Klingon Dialogue

[Robyn Stewart]

Different languages _are_ spoken in different ways. Klingon does have to be spoken somewhat forcefully to distinguish between some of the raspy consonants. The rhythm of Italian helps to distinguish between doubled and single consonants.  Russian declarative sentences are said with a kind of monotone, falling off at the end.  If I were to speak Russian fluently and with the peppy little rises and falls of my native language, it wouldn’t sound right.  I’m still weirded out by the instruction that it is incorrect to speak Cree with emotion in my voice, that the old western stereotype of the Indian guide saying “all my family die” in the same flat tone as “soon will rain” is based in truth. I had a Korean student who knew English quite well, with reasonable pronunciation but was really hard to understand because he used the rhythm of his own language. When I tried to get him to put longer pauses in so an examiner could understand, he protested that he didn’t want to sound stupid.  This was before YouTube, so I had to get him to take my word for it that great speeches in English show that its skilled speakers SLOW DOWN to sound smart.


Speaking Klingon with the fluent rhythm of English is probably as wrong as speaking it with the rhythm of Italian or Japanese. The ‘native’ Klingon speakers we hear tend to speak in a staccato manner, yet Azetbur manages to do it without overly chewing the scenery. Perhaps it’s because of her gender, or is an affectation. Regardless, I will be delighted to converse with you in intelligibly-spoken Klingon, no matter what your spit range might be.

 

- Qov

 

From: HoD qunnoQ [mailto:mihkoun at gmail.com] 
Sent: October 8, 2015 13:06
To: Lieven
Cc: tlhingan-hol at stodi.digitalkingdom.org
Subject: Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country Klingon Dialogue

 

indeed.. if i ever managed to become proficient in Klingon,so as to speak it like i speak my native language,then this is the way i would like to speak it ; mildly and relaxed. i don't know why,but this manner of speaking appeals to me as more instinctive and natural.

qunnoQ

 

On Thu, Oct 8, 2015 at 9:46 PM, Lieven <levinius at gmx.de> wrote:

Am 08.10.2015 um 17:54 schrieb HoD qunnoQ:

nuqneH

i made this observation...


That's a very good observation, and it's more important than what most people would believe it to be.

Indeed, I guess it's simply the actor who speaks a bit differently than others. Perhabs it was even done intentional, because Azetbur was sad?
Maybe it's because she's a woman. I don't know, compare to Valkris or Uhura (although she's not klingon, so maybe she doesn't count)

Anyhow, I love showing this scene to my students because it makes clear that one can speak klingon in a very natural way, as opposed to what many people believe is that you need to shout and bark klingon all the time.

Klingon can be spoken like a natural language, and Azetbur has proven this quite well in that scene.


-- 
Lieven L. Litaer
aka Quvar valer 'utlh
Grammarian of the KLI
http://www.facebook.com/Klingonteacher
http://www.klingonwiki.net

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