Klingon glyphs or writing

[weslipuqlod]

posted on 12-26-2002 at 06:11 PM

Klingon glyphs or writing

(continued from Klingon Bird of Prey Markings)

To my knowledge there is no "dictionary" that translates words into Klingon characters - primarily because the characters are not associated directly with English alphabetical assignments. Within The Klingon Dictionary, Mark Okrand identifies the native written Klingon language as pIqaD.

There have been several variations of Klingon writing over the years. One of the first is known as the Mandel system based loosely upon the initial conceptual art of Matt Jeffries. These glyphs are mapped to the English alphabet and a few syllabic sounds. There are 27 glyphs and 9 numbers.

Another version is published by the Klingon Language Institute. Allegedly this character alphabet was anonymously received from a Paramount executive but has little resemblance to the glyphs used within the set designs and props. It consists of 26 letters and 9 numbers and is mapped to Okrand's phonetic representations of the Klingon language, tlhIngan Hol.

The characters used within the series and movies have been attributed to Michael Okuda. Unfortunately they are primarily restricted to approximately 9 glyphs that are just repeated over and over. They are arbitrarily assigned for aesthetics as mentioned previously. Every now and then you can catch several others on a display screens, weapons, or architecture that gives the impression there is more to discover.

In the ST: DS9 episode Sword of Kahless we were introduced to several ancient glyphs that were embroidered upon the "Shroud of the Sword".

The graphic images displayed within ST:V and ST:VI in the Federation play back of the Genesis incident, the trial of Kirk and McCoy, and in the targeting sights of the assassin's rifle gave us further insights.

Right now you can visit www.1001fonts. com and download various Klingon style font files displaying the glyphs I have described here for free. Some of the letters are simply the first glyphs repeated with a slight rotation so you have to take that into consideration when you are creating artwork and the like.

I have always been disenchanted with what is available and have for several years been working on a new font that uses characters directly displayed within the series and movies. The characters are mapped to the Okrand phonemes with values assigned based upon groupings of those characters within the shows. I am putting the final touches on this pIqaD and plan to have it available by the end of March 2003 in time for the Day of Honor. Be watching our website for the upgrade and changes: http://www.geocities.com/boqnibqul/
 

[Somraw+]

posted on 7-6-2003 at 09:45 PM
^^^
do you still have that pIqaD information available as I too am also disenchanted with the KLI's script. I have myself attemped to create a mapping of klingon phonmes to the official characters (i even incorporated the commn groupsings of symbols into my final outcome). my script was based on digraphs, I figured that if english uses 26 letters to write 43 sounds, then klingon can use 11 (there is eleven if you count the filled in klingon letter 'o' [the one shaped like a trianle]) letters to write 26 sounds.
I look forward to hering from you!

[qoSagh]

A few years ago (1992) I began working on a pIqaD, which I called pIqad qlIStIy after my line name. The reason I began working on this was because I had come accross five different Klingon alphabets, some of which worked with tlhIngan Hol, some of which didn't. Some were nothing but english replacement alphabets and others seemed like they might work with Klingonaase. However the one factor that was missing was that none of tehm seemed complete because not allthe sounds were represented.  Sadly even though I apparently updated this work in 1994 and again in 1996 (from what I wrote on them) I didn't keep my notes and they found thier way into a dusty file cabinet.

One reason I remembered for having so many letters in mine (33) was because of a habit that was forming in the club I was in at the time. The custom at the time was to add the name of allied families/individuals to your own name after your house. It was not unusual to have a half dozen names after the honorific. Thankfully I no longer use this custom, and as far I know neither does anyone else who used to be in that club. This custom did lead to very long names and as such I remember making an effort to shorten the spelling of words. For this reason I had letters for most of the blends (ey,aw,iu) for some reason I never made a letter for Iw, although it is listed as a seperate sound. The source for the letters was for the most part the different characters in the five alphabets I had access to at the time.

One of my updates was numbers, which I used a similar process with. The other thing I added, and I'm not entirely sure  I should have, was characters to symbolize multiples. like x0 as a suffix meaning 10 or x00 meaning 100. so that the way to write 50 would be 5x0 (two characters which would translate as 5 times 10). I think this was probably an extension of wanting to make things shorter in apearance overall. The sources of these characters are not so clear cut, som of them seem to be the first letter of the tlhIngan Hol word for that number, others do not.

The last update I did, was to add two characters which I think I probably made up out of no specific source material, these were single character that meant the words DIch and logh. This was a way of shortening counting. This would allow translations of 2nd and once to be done with only two characters as opposed to having to write words inplace of numbers to convey the concepts.

If nothing else it has been fun trying to backwards engineer my own work, and try to figure out why I did things the way I did. In case anyone is interested the letters I have are:

a, aw, ay, b, ch, D, e, ew, ey, gh, H, I, Iu, Iy, j, l, m, n, ng, o, oy, p, q, Q, r, S, t, tlh, u, uy, v, w, y

I also have numbers 0 (pagh) through 9, multipliers x0 (ten) through x,000,000 (million) and the two specials (DIch & logh)

 

[SoplaHtaHwI']

qoSagh: The other thing I added, and I'm not entirely sure I should have, was characters to symbolize multiples. like x0 as a suffix meaning 10 or x00 meaning 100. so that the way to write 50 would be 5x0 (two characters which would translate as 5 times 10).

Is this similar to the "five score and twane" thing I recently heard Monty Burns say in The Simpsons?

5x0 is fine for 50 (which, btw, is already 2 characters...), but it won't fit in a scheme to shorten writings... 5x0+2 would be three, where 52 is only two...

Similarly vaghmaH cha' sticks to three syllables. anything tried to shorten that will only confuse things... I think.