• data1701d (He/Him)@startrek.website
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    22 hours ago

    Who the heck came up with “Fek’lhr”?! Like, it’s clearly it intended to be a Klingon word and not an Anglicization, but they failed miserably to actually follow the rules of the language.

    • “F” is not used for that sound in any major Klingon Romanization system (“f” corresponds to “ng” in xifan hol mapping); “v” is the closest thing.
    • “k” is also not used; that should be a “q”.
    • The apostrophe usually only comes after vowels, as it denotes a glottal stop.
    • “h” is not pronounced silently like it is here; it’s a weird consonant kind of like a soft g.

    It’s so bad it looks like Okrand had to fix it in one of his Klingon audio tapes - the official Klingon word is “veqlargh”, leaving the TNG onscreen versiob as a very weird Anglicization with a pointless apostrophe.

    • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      So, what you’re saying he’s the Klingon equivalent of a Lovecraftian horror, featuring a name that is unspeakable by any known tongue.

    • hopesdead@startrek.websiteOP
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      21 hours ago

      Watch any series other than TNG with subtitles and you’ll see sometimes petaQ is given an Anglicized Earth spelling pethak (IIRC).

      EDIT: Obviously not TOS.

      • data1701d (He/Him)@startrek.website
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        21 hours ago

        I mean, that’s at least a grounded Anglicization that I could see someone in-universe coming up with. Pronunciation-wise, ”Fek’lhr” isn’t so bad either, but still incredibly stupid spelling-wise. Laugh

    • jrs100000@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      It would make sense that a figure like that could be an example of mythological syncretism. Fek’lhr could be a Klinoneesation of his real name.