thlIngan Hol and T-Shirt

Terrence Donnelly wrote:

> >                labial  dental  rtroflx velar   uvular  glottal
> >stops voiced    b               D               q
> > voiceless      p       t                       Q       '
> >fricatives (vs)                 S       H
> >(vd)            v                       gh
> >affricates              ch
> >                        j
> >approximants    w       y
> >laterals                        l, r    tlh
> The standard answer is that Klingon is spoken by aliens. Their vocal
> equipment need not resemble humans.
That seems like a pretty lame argument. They seem to have the
same distinctions as we humans do: the same places and ways of
articulation. Judging from the phoneme inventory, the Klingons
have the same vocal equipment as humans. If they can make a labial
{b} and {p}, and a dental {t}, then why not a {d}? If a retroflex
fric <S> and a labial stop {p}, then why couldn't they pronounce
a labial voiceless fricative {f}?

The inconcistencies cannot be explained by saying that they _can't_
pronounce those phonemes. They just _don't_, and that makes the
system more inconsistent than one would think possible, even for
an alien language.

Well, no more ranting. No offence intended. All just IMHO.

I still think Klingon is a nice and well developed conlang
which serves its purpose excellently. What I wrote above is of
course invalid in conlanging terms. A conlang can - and should! -
look however you like. Of course. And I think it should be
represented on the conlang t-shirt. If we ever get one.

I do hope we can get it in time for _this_ Christmas, since
we didn't last year. :)

Daniel