How can you spell 'Success' without the letter 'Q' in klinzhai

[Winston]

Is there another way to spell it in klinzhai?  Any assistance would be appreciated.

[tesseraktik]

Is there another way to spell it in klinzhai?  Any assistance would be appreciated.

I don't know of any widely used conventions for writing tlhIngan Hol using Klinzhai, so I guess it's up to you to create a mapping that makes sense.
You'll also have to decide if you want a one-to-one mapping between tlhIngan Hol phonemes and Klinzhai glyphs (as one has with the pIqaD writing system), or only between strings of tlhIngan Hol phonemes and strings of Klinzhai glyphs (similar to the case in English; each letter can be pronounced in multiple ways, and there are homophones that are not homographs).
You may actually find yourself forced to go with the latter if you want a decent phonetic match, seeing as Klinzhai doesn't have a symbol that would be a natural match for the tlh-phoneme.
Sidestepping that issue for the moment, however, you could use 'k' for Q and 'g' for q (in line with how Terrans often transcribe qagh as 'gahg').

[Winston]

Thank you for the detailed answer. I find Klinzhai too beautiful to not use even with these ambiguities.   

[qoSagh]

Klinzhai was not designed for tlhIngan Hol, it was designed for klingonaase. Most Klingon fonts are designed for English anyway.

[qurgh_]

Several people in the tlhIngan Hol camp have started using the Klinzhai font to write English loan words when writing in pIqaD, since it's better suited to spelling English words than pIqaD is.

[qoSagh]

That must look kind of interesting with words from both languages in two different fonts all together. I do admire the ingenuity.

[qurgh_]

That must look kind of interesting with words from both languages in two different fonts all together. I do admire the ingenuity.

It does work pretty well, and helps keep the immersion aspect. It's similar, in theory, to Japanese Katakana, which is only used to write loan words from western languages.

[ter'eS]

That must look kind of interesting with words from both languages in two different fonts all together. I do admire the ingenuity.

It does work pretty well, and helps keep the immersion aspect. It's similar, in theory, to Japanese Katakana, which is only used to write loan words from western languages.

That's not completely true. Katakana are also used to write native Japanese words, for an effect similar to underlining or italics (in fact, historically, katakana were derived from kanji before hiragana).  Don't know how that would work with Klingon, since it takes you right back to the problem of mapping both fonts to Klingon sounds.

[qurgh_]

That's not completely true. Katakana are also used to write native Japanese words, for an effect similar to underlining or italics (in fact, historically, katakana were derived from kanji before hiragana).  Don't know how that would work with Klingon, since it takes you right back to the problem of mapping both fonts to Klingon sounds.

I've not come across that, unless you count the sound effects in manga as native words. I've always seen it used as I was taught to use it, for lone words and western names. I do think the analogy stands for the most part though.

[ter'eS]

That's not completely true. Katakana are also used to write native Japanese words, for an effect similar to underlining or italics (in fact, historically, katakana were derived from kanji before hiragana).  Don't know how that would work with Klingon, since it takes you right back to the problem of mapping both fonts to Klingon sounds.

I've not come across that, unless you count the sound effects in manga as native words. I've always seen it used as I was taught to use it, for lone words and western names. I do think the analogy stands for the most part though.

Here's an interesting story about the signage put up in San Diego for ComicCon, to encourage attendees to use the trolley:Is there anything crankier than a Klingon in the morning?. I know the people responsible for the translations, and they report that they did indeed use the Klinzhai font to transliterate English names and pIqaD to write the Klingon text.

Somewhat OT: I was just reading that the ComicCon board was thinking of moving the con from San Diego when their contract expires in 2012, in part because they felt that the San Diego government and business community viewed them as more of a nuisance than an asset.  But a recent study reported that the Con pumps around $1.6M into the local economy, and suddenly San Diego became much more interested in keeping them.  I bet the special trolley is part of their effort.

EDIT: Make that $165M.

[tesseraktik]

Edit:  qurgh epetaI-lungqIj (one of the translators) has pointed out that the Klinzhai alphabet chart on Wikipedia appears to be wrong, correctly pointing out that "the th and g are the same symbol."
He directed me to this document, which cites the U.S.S. Enterprise Officer's Manual.

I'm a bit curious about those texts; the Klinzhai glyph they're using for g does not look as I'd expect it to; it looks more like the glyph for oo.

Gaslamp quarter	ooaslamp jogh	Gaslamp quadrant
Orange line to Gillespie Field via Downtown San Diego	tlhegh Doq ooillespie yotlhDaq san dieooo veghtaHvIS	red line Gillespie field-in San Diego while-go-through
Orange line to 12th & Imperial Transfer Station	tlhegh Doq QaymeH tengchaHDaq He 12DIch He wo' je	red line in-order-to-transfer space-station-in link twelfth link empire and

I used this chart for transliterating the Klinzhai glyphs.  Notice that the glyph they used for the g:s in "Gaslamp", "Gillespie" and "San Diego" doesn't match the one on the chart.
Does anybody know why this might be?

[qoSagh]

OK, veering off topic a bit here but what is the point of designating a red line to a species that can't see red?

[tesseraktik]

OK, veering off topic a bit here but what is the point of designating a red line to a species that can't see red?

Klingons can't see red?  I'd always figured that they could see part of the infra-red spectrum, but not much of the violet part (and perhaps not much blue), seeing as their sky is greenish-blue and their rooms appear to be dimly lit with red and green (it's might be coniderably brighter to somebody who can see part of the infra-red portion of it all), and they don't appear to use the color blue for anything.  This is just speculation on my part, however.

[Klythe]

   We are veering off into Biology here, so if this doesn't settle things, I'll split it into a new thread....   But Klingons not seeing the color Red was a plot point in one of the better in my opinion Klingon novels, Pawns and Symbols (P&S).  I do recommend it much, however novel material generally doesn't jive with canon and vice versa.  The Klingon Dictionary pretty much contravenes this with having the word Doq, meaning to be red or orange in color.   Admittedly, Okrand put this in to the dictionary to break a universal trait of Terran languages to make Klingon specifically more 'alien' rather than as a statement on Klingon Biology.   It all depends on which  sources you find more valuable and accurate, or possibly one could argue they types of Klingons in TOS were different (because of the augment virus or because the were fusions, or a different species all together.. 

[tesseraktik]

  We are veering off into Biology here, so if this doesn't settle things, I'll split it into a new thread....   But Klingons not seeing the color Red was a plot point in one of the better in my opinion Klingon novels, Pawns and Symbols (P&S).  I do recommend it much, however novel material generally doesn't jive with canon and vice versa.  The Klingon Dictionary pretty much contravenes this with having the word Doq, meaning to be red or orange in color.   Admittedly, Okrand put this in to the dictionary to break a universal trait of Terran languages to make Klingon specifically more 'alien' rather than as a statement on Klingon Biology.   It all depends on which  sources you find more valuable and accurate, or possibly one could argue they types of Klingons in TOS were different (because of the augment virus or because the were fusions, or a different species all together.. 

Ah, alright; thanks for the info!

Anyhow, to get back to Klinzhai:  I recommend anybody who's interested in the Klingon trolley signs to check out the KLI's mailing-list archives for this month, and specifically the thread tlhInganpu' ma'chu' lupwI' loH ("the bus/jitney/similar-means-of-transportation administration accomodates Klingons perfectly").

[qurgh_]

OK, veering off topic a bit here but what is the point of designating a red line to a species that can't see red?

Doq is red/orange. In this case it was the "Orange line", not the "Red line" (see the small colour block above the text).

The chart on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Klinzhai_alphabet.GIF is wrong. Note that g and th are the same symbol.

There is a correct version of the chart at: http://www.kli.org/pdf/Orthography.pdf which has the correct symbol for g.

[qoSagh]

Pawns & Symbols is one of my favorite Klingon books too, which is where my reference came from. I know it was a cheap shot across the linguistic bow.

Sort of back onto the transit translations, with one word for red & orange I wonder how such a translation would work in Boston where there is a Red line AND an Orange line in the subway system? A Klingon would simply not label two things Doq, but upon finding two things labeled Doq that are different and go different places, might make for some interesting navigation.

Either way it was a cool thing for San Diego Transit to do, considering that while there is a Klingon presence at Comic-Con, it is still a convention about comics and not specifically about sci-fi or Trek. So far none of the cities with large Trek conventions have taken this route.

[tesseraktik]

Sort of back onto the transit translations, with one word for red & orange I wonder how such a translation would work in Boston where there is a Red line AND an Orange line in the subway system? A Klingon would simply not label two things Doq, but upon finding two things labeled Doq that are different and go different places, might make for some interesting navigation.

They might use Doqqu' { deep red/orange } for the red one (Doqqu' is a canonical color from KGT) and Doq 'ej wov/b] { red/orange and bright } for the orange one (not a canonical color).
You can check out this page for more information on colors in tlhIngan Hol.

Either way it was a cool thing for San Diego Transit to do, considering that while there is a Klingon presence at Comic-Con, it is still a convention about comics and not specifically about sci-fi or Trek. So far none of the cities with large Trek conventions have taken this route.

Indeed, with this, qep'a' wa'maH SochDIch { the seventeenth grand meeting } and the Jenolan caves audio tour, it's been an exciting few weeks to be a Klingonist.