tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Apr 10 01:55:56 1995
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tlhIngan Hol versus klingonaase
- From: "A.Appleyard" <[email protected]>
- Subject: tlhIngan Hol versus klingonaase
- Date: Mon, 10 Apr 1995 09:53:57 BST
- Priority: normal
Some time the place of the Klingonaase language in the Star Trek scenario
must be settled. Info about tlhIngan Hol says that tlhIngan Hol is the only or
main language of the Klingons. Info about Klingonaase seems to say that
Klingonaase is the main language of the Klingons. These two statements clash.
Some time a decision will have to be made to alter one of them to get rid of
the clash. Luckily many people who decide major matters of the Star Trek
scenario are still alive to authorize such changes, unlike in Tolkien where
anyone needing to resolve a clash has to take the law into his own hands as to
which of Tolkien's words to ignore. I am sorry for such blasphemies as
suggesting deleting received information; but if sacred writ e.g. says that
`x=1' and elsewhere that `x=2', one of those 2 statements MUST be wrong!
Thus I may as well let the readers choose between these:-
(0) There is no Klingonaase, and information about it is to be ignored.
(1) It is a minority language on Qo'noS but not official.
(2) It is an artificial language invented by Klingons as a communication
code.
(3) It is an artificial language invented by Klingons to fool the Federation
into thinking that it was the real main Klingon language, as disinformation in
the time before the coming of Worf taught the Federation the true linguistic
information on Qo'noS.
(4) Other suggestions are welcome.
(5) Ask Okrand?
If (1) applies, then as TlH. {tlhIngan} has no clear etymon for its first
part, but Kl. {klingon} = "he who has the quality {klin}", likely one of these
happened:-
(a) TlH {tlhIngan} < Kl {klingon}
(b) Both < a word in a 3rd language, and Kl {klin} < that 3rd language also
(c) Kl {klin} was formed by Kl speakers by back-extracting from {klingon}.
(d) Some other variation on the theme.
If the {tlhI(n)} / {klin} is a quality of Klingon-ness (perhaps the word has
been lost from modern TlH but survives in Kl), then TlH {-ngan} can't be the
usual "inhabitant of" suffix here.
Okrand said once that Worf's name is {wI'orv} in TlH. That seems to say that
one TlH dialect deviates from standard far enough to allow {-rv} at the end of
a syllable.