Retransliterate Klingon!

[zompist]

As I mentioned, I think Klingon's transliteration is kind of wack. The idea of re-using capitals is a clever way of avoiding special characters, but it makes Klingon look like ToRgO sPeeCh and mostly isn't necessary. So why not redo it?

Here's the phonology.

stops p b t ɖ q ʔ
affric tɬ tʃ dʒ
fric v ʂ x ɣ qχ
liquid l r
nasal m n ŋ
semvw w y

Vowels ɪ ɛ a u o

(The voiceless stops are aspirated, but as they don't contrast with unaspirated ones it's only worth a footnote.)

Okrand's orthography is of course

p b t D q '
tlh ch j
v S H gh Q
l r
m n ng
w y

A try without diacritics:

p b t d q 7
lh ch j
v sh kh gh qx
l r m n ng w y
i e a u o

Or, more Almeanized:

p b t d k ʔ
ɬ č ž
v š ȟ ɣ x
l r m n ŋ w y
i e a u o

I prefer transliterations to be phonemic— in other words, it's OK to abuse the symbols a bit. Orthographies should be maximally convenient for the person who knows the language, not the learner. Thus my preference for simple transliterations like <d> <i> and even <ɬ>.

Sample text: IPA, Okrand, Englishy, Almeanized

qaʂtaxvɪʂ waʔ ram loʂ ʂaɖ xuɣ ʂɪdʒlax qɛtboɣ loɖ.
qaStaHvIS wa' ram loS SaD Hugh SIjlaH qetbogh loD.
qashtakhvish wa7 ram losh shad khugh shijlakh qetbogh lod.
kaštaȟviš waʔ ram loš šad ȟuɣ šižlaȟ ketboɣ lod.

“Four thousand throats may be cut in one night by a running man.”

[Nortaneous]

Klingon is a little difficult to romanize as-is, but it's possible to reconstruct an earlier stage of the language and base the romanization on that.

Dialectal vacillation between voiced stops and nasals, taken in combination with the retroflexion of the coronal voiced stop, would be best read as implying an earlier implosive series. This means /v r ɣ/ could be from earlier voiced stops, although this isn't necessary to reflect in the romanization.

Unusually, there's no voiced equivalent of the lateral affricate - given that the only sibilant is retroflex, the affricate might be from earlier *s > *tθ.

So:

p b t d k '
s č j
v š h g q
l r
m n ng
w y

qaʂtaxvɪʂ waʔ ram loʂ ʂaɖ xuɣ ʂɪdʒlax qɛtboɣ loɖ.
kaštaxviš wa' ram loš šad xug šijlax ketbog lod

[Aftovota]

Oh! I once did this in Uyghur + Arabic.
EDIT: Sized up because the board makes Arabic letters so tiny.

Uyghur 1
پ ب ت ط ق ء
ڟ‬ چ ج
ڤ ش خ غ قخ
ل ر
م ن ڭ
ۋ ي
ا ە ى و ۇ

قاشتاخڤىش ۋاء رام لوش شاط خۇغ شىجلاخ قەتبوغ لوط


Uyghur 2
پ ب ت د ك ء
ط‬ چ ج
ف س خ غ ق
ل ر
م ن ڭ
ۋ ي
ا ە ى و ۇ

كاستاخفىس ۋاء رام لوس ساد خۇغ سىجلاخ كەتبوغ لود

[Travis B.]

Here's the phonology.

stops p b t ɖ q ʔ
affric tɬ tʃ dʒ
fric v ʂ x ɣ qχ
liquid l r
nasal m n ŋ
semvw w y

Vowels ɪ ɛ a u o

[snip]

qaʂtaxvɪʂ waʔ ram loʂ ʂaɖ xuɣ ʂɪdʒlax qɛtboɣ loɖ.

p b t d q '
lh c j
v s h g x
l r
m n ng
w y
i e a u o

qastahvis wa' ram los sad hug sijlah qetbog lod.

[zompist]

Unusually, there's no voiced equivalent of the lateral affricate - given that the only sibilant is retroflex, the affricate might be from earlier *s > *tθ.

The best part of this is that they become the singan.

[masako]

I'll just put this right here.

[Karch]

<p b t d k '>*
<th c j>
<v s x gh q>
<l r>
<m n ng>
<w y>

<i e a u o>

*/ʔa aʔ/ <á à>

qaʂtaxvɪʂ waʔ ram loʂ ʂaɖ xuɣ ʂɪdʒlax qɛtboɣ loɖ.
<Kastaxvis wá ram los sad xugh sijlah ketbogh lod>
and the sample from the old forum's romanization thread:
/t͡ɬɪŋɑn xol jɛd͡ʒxɑɖ d͡ʒɪnmol t͡ʃuʔ ʔox q͡χoʔnoʂ q͡χonoʂʔɛʔ. t͡ɬɪŋɑn xol d͡ʒɑt͡ɬwɪʔpʰuʔvɑɖ wɪt͡ʃɛrpʰuʔ. nox q͡χɑpʰmɛx woʔ q͡χɑwʔluʔt͡ʃuɣ jɑj t͡ʃɑvbɛʔluʔ, ʔɛd͡ʒ woʔ t͡ʃoqʰmɛx mɑjʔ ɖoxluʔt͡ʃuɣ lud͡ʒbɛʔluʔ./
<Thingan xol yejxad jinmol cu óx qònos qonosé. Thingan xol jathwìpùvad wicerpú. Nox qapmex wò qaẁlùcugh yay cavbèlù. Éj wò coqmex maỳ doxlùcugh lujbèlù>

[Frislander]

p b t d q ‘
tl c j
v s x g qχ
l r
m n ŋ
w y

i e a u o

qastaxvis wa‘ ram los sad xug sijlax qetbog lod

[So Haleza Grise]

Dochvam chenmoHlu'law'ta' 'e' vItu'pu'.

I don't have any good suggestions of my own, but I will note that it annoys me that the quasi-official mapping of "pIqaD" letterforms makes no sense. The character for ' in particular shouldn't look so much like an apostrophe.

[bbbosborne]

<p b t d q '>
<ƛ c j>
<v s x g qh>
<l r>
<m n ŋ>
<w y>

<i e a u o>

qadelmex bov tuj pem vilo'coxqho'.
soh 'ih 'ej belmox law', 'oh belmoh pus.
jar vag tipuq diho'bog saŋ sus ro'.
'ej raƛtahmeh bov tuj lespoh luvus.

[StrangerCoug]

Here's mine:

/p b t ɖ q ʔ/ <p b t d q '>
/tɬ tʃ dʒ/<ł c j>
/v ʂ x ɣ qχ/ <v s k g x>
/l r/ <l r>
/m n ŋ/ <m n ng>
/w y/ <w y> (though something tells me /y/ should be /j/)
/ɪ ɛ a u o/ <i e a u o>

If we need to transcribe /ng/, that's <n·g>, and /ŋg/ is <ngg>.

Qastakvis wa' ram los sad kug sijlak qetbog lod.
Łingan kol yejxad jinmol cu' 'ok xo'nos xonos'e'. Łingan kol jałwi'pu'vad wicerpu'. Nok xapmek wo' xaw'lu'cug jaj cavbe'lu', 'ej wo' coqmek may' doklu'cug lujbe'lu'.

[missals]

/p b t ɖ q ʔ/ p b t d k f
/tɬ tʃ dʒ/ z c j
/v ʂ x ɣ qχ/ v s h x q
/l r/ l r
/m n ŋ/ m n g
/w y/ w y

/ɪ ɛ a u o/ i e a u o

/qaʂtaxvɪʂ waʔ ram loʂ ʂaɖ xuɣ ʂɪdʒlax qɛtboɣ loɖ/
Kastahvis waf ram los sad hux sijlah ketbox lod.

[Gulliver]

My abomination.

stops p b t ɖ q ʔ
affric tɬ tʃ dʒ
fric v ʂ x ɣ qχ
liquid l r
nasal m n ŋ
semvw w y

Vowels ɪ ɛ a u o

p b t d qu gn
tr tch de
v si c(i,e, ê) ç(a,o,u) g qui
l r
m n ng
ou u

i ê a ou o (/oy/ = oue)

(e interserted to avoid confusion after digraphs or to disinguish vowels (e.g. o+u = oeu)
(consonant cluster followed by a consonant has a hyphen inserted decoratively)

qaʂtaxvɪʂ waʔ ram loʂ ʂaɖ xuɣ ʂɪdʒlax qɛtboɣ loɖ.
Quasietace-visie ouagne ram losie siade-lace quêtboue lod.

tlhIngan Hol 'oHbe'bogh latlh Hol'e' DajatlhlaH'a'?
Tringan çol gnoce-bog latre çol-gnêgne dadeatre-laçegna ?

[xxx]

I think that the native Latin transcription is the best, as the phonology has been made to be unpleasant to the human ear, as the transcription is to the human eye ...
You can otherwise try to do worse ...

[Gulliver]

I think that the native Latin transcription is the best, as the phonology has been made to be unpleasant to the human ear, as the transcription is to the human eye ...
You can otherwise try to do worse ...

I enjoyed making a pseudo-French orthography as I felt that it clashed with the archetypal Klingon very neatly.

[xxx]

You can otherwise try to do worse ...

I enjoyed making a pseudo-French orthography as I felt that it clashed with the archetypal Klingon very neatly.

it's probably worse... but for klingons...

[Emily]

Fiñan xol
/p b t ɖ q ʔ/ <p b t d k h>
/tɬ tʃ dʒ/ <f c j>
/v ʂ x ɣ qχ/ <v s x g q>
/l r/ <l r>
/m n ŋ/ <m n ñ>
/w j/ <w y>

/ɪ ɛ a u o/ <i e a u o>

Kastaxvis wah ram los sad xug sijlax ketbog lod.

[Aftovota]

Tibetan, which goes more with the Klingon Aesthetic. And I've only not done 'Phags-pa because I don't have a keyboard layout for it yet. The stacking is a little idiosyncratic—I went with "use the stack if it exists" instead of "keep initial consonants with their following vowels."

ཚིངཱན་ཀོལ

པ བ ཏ ད ཀ ཧ
ཚ ཅ ཇ
ཕ ས ཁ ག ཀྑ
ལ ར
མ ན ང
ཝ ཡ
ཨཱ ཨེ ཨི ཨོ ཨུ

༄ཀཱསྟཱཁཕིས་ཝཱཧ་རཱམ་ལོས་སཱད་ཁུག་སིཇལཱཁ་ཀེཏྦོག་ལོད།།
༄ཚིངཱན་ཀོལ་ཡེཇཁཱད་ཇིནྨོལ་ཅུཧ་ཧོཁ་ཀྑོཧྣོས་ཀྑོཧྣོསཧེཧ།ཚིངཱན་ཀོལ་ཇཱཚྭིཧྤུཧྥཨཱད་ཝིཅེརྤུཧ།ནོཁ་ཀྑཨཱཔམེཁ་ཝོཧ་ཀྑཨཱཝཧླཨུཅུག་ཡཱཡ་ཅཱཕབེཧླཨུཧ༏ཧེཇ་ཝོཧ་ཅོཀམེཁ་མཱཡཧ་དོཁླཨུཧཅུག་ལུཇབེཧླཨུཧ།།

[Ares Land]

I think that the native Latin transcription is the best, as the phonology has been made to be unpleasant to the human ear, as the transcription is to the human eye ...
You can otherwise try to do worse ...

I enjoyed making a pseudo-French orthography as I felt that it clashed with the archetypal Klingon very neatly.

Except French orthography is a holdover of a very stereotypically Klingon period in French history

[Birdlang]

/p b t ɖ q ʔ/ p b t d q k
/tɬ tʃ dʒ/ ł c ʒ
/v ʂ x ɣ qχ/ v s ꝁ ǥ ꝗ
/l r/ l r
/m n ŋ/ m n ŋ
/w j/ w j

/ɪ ɛ a u o/ i e a u o

/t͡ɬɪŋɑn xol jɛd͡ʒxɑɖ d͡ʒɪnmol t͡ʃuʔ ʔox q͡χoʔnoʂ q͡χonoʂʔɛʔ. t͡ɬɪŋɑn xol d͡ʒɑt͡ɬwɪʔpʰuʔvɑɖ wɪt͡ʃɛrpʰuʔ. nox q͡χɑpʰmɛx woʔ q͡χɑwʔluʔt͡ʃuɣ jɑj t͡ʃɑvbɛʔluʔ, ʔɛd͡ʒ woʔ t͡ʃoqʰmɛx mɑjʔ ɖoxluʔt͡ʃuɣ lud͡ʒbɛʔluʔ./
Łiŋan ꝁol jeʒꝁad ʒinmol cuk koꝁ ꝗoknos ꝗoknoskek. Łiŋan ꝁol ʒałwikpukvad wicerpuk. Noꝁ ꝗapmeꝁ wok ꝗawklukcuǥ jaj cavbeluk, keʒ wok coqmeꝁ majk doꝁlukcuǥ luʒbekluk.

For those who cannot see some of the special characters, k with stroke is used for /x/ and q with stroke is used for /qX/.