[Tlhingan-hol] qaghwI' between consonants

[lojmIt tI'wI' nuv 'utlh]

In HolQeD, The Journal of the Klingon Language Institute (no longer published), Volume 1, Number 1, March, 1992, in the first article, Lawrence M. Schoen wrote an article on the difference between tlhIngan Hol vs. klingonaase, the latter being the source of a lot of these impossible pronunciations. In the second article in the same volume, Allan C. Wechsler wrote under the title “First Steps Towards a Phonological Theory of Klingon” the author gives great detail (four pages of text) talking about the nature of the sounds used in the Klingon language before getting to the subtopic “The syllable structure of Klingon”. 

What follows may be drinking from a fire hose for some people, but it’s just a small outtake from an 8 page article.

“The vast majority of Klingon syllables have the shape CVC [Consonant, Vowel, Consonant]. We will therefore, speak of the C1 and C2 of a typical syllable. There are also a number of syllables with the variant shape CV; we will regard these has having a null C2. No syllable has a null C1.”

“All the consonants of Klingon occur both as C1 and as C2. Furthermore, all possible C1-V combinations actually occur, as do all possible V-C2 combinations except */uw/ and */ow/ (see above for a possible explanation of this gap). Thus, there are no obvious contact constraints. Klingon does not appear to have any conditioned assimilations or other phonological rules. Almost no consonant clusters are permitted within syllables, but I discuss some anomalies below.

“The distribution of open syllables”

“The open syllables (those with null C2) show an interesting semantic pattern, which is worthy of mention because Klingon has almost no semantic component below the level of the syllable. With exactly one known exception, Klingon has no morphemes smaller than a syllable. (The exception is the position-1 noun suffix /-oy/ “endearment”). Therefore, it is interesting that lack of C2 should have any particular semantic significance.”

“Every single one of the 23 pronominal verb prefixes has CV shape. CV syllables are quite rare elsewhere in the language. There are a dozen or so open monosyllabic noun stems (e.g. /po/ “morning”), a few recent loan words that brought open syllables into the language from outside (e.g. /tera’/ “Earth”) and a handful of native disyllables, all of the shape CV-CVC, and all nouns or adverbs of opaque derivation (e.g. /DIvI’/ “federation", /nIteb/ “alone”). In addition there is exactly one known open monosyllabic verb stem, /Da/ “act in the manner of”.

It goes on for several more pages before getting to “Anomalous syllables”:

“Klingon possesses two kinds of anomalous syllables that do not fit the prevailing CV(C) pattern. The first exceptional pattern is /CVrgh/. Apparently, /rgh/ can function as C2 without restriction; in multisyllabic words this can lead to CCC sequences at syllable boundaries. An example is /burghDaj/ “her stomach”.

… “For all practical purposes, /-rgh/ functions as a single segment. The most straightforward approach is to analyze it exactly that way: as a single complex segment, only appearing in syllable-final position (like the dorso-velar nasal /ng/ in English).”

… “The other anomalous syllable shape is CVY’, where Y represents either of the glides /w/ and /y/. The occurring rimes in this category are:

— —                       uy’  —
ey —                       oy’  —
             ay’  aw’

where the hyphens show “missing” rimes which do not occur in the (available) lexicon. “

[end quote]

He goes on for another half page explaining the missing “rimes”.

I hope this is helpful.

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



> On Oct 24, 2015, at 1:39 PM, Lieven <levinius at gmx.de> wrote:
> 
>> > is there a list somewhere of consonant clusters
>> > allowed/disallowed in tlhingan phonology?
> 
> jang loghaD:
>>  Not to the best of my knowledge;
> 
> At least not in any canon source. Dont't forget the Klingon wiki, which I recommend for beginners to browse, as it answers lots of questions:
> 
> http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/ConsonantCluster
> http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/Phonology
> 
>> 4) Non-Klingon names have been known to break the above rules. These
>> include {jemS} ("James"), {qIrq} ("Kirk") and {pIqarD} ("Picard").
> 
> And the recently discovered {marq 'oqranD}
> 
> -- 
> Lieven L. Litaer
> aka Quvar valer 'utlh
> Grammarian of the KLI
> http://www.facebook.com/Klingonteacher
> http://www.klingonwiki.net
> 
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