tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Apr 28 15:07:53 1995
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vIHadbogh Holmey
- From: [email protected]
- Subject: vIHadbogh Holmey
- Date: Fri, 28 Apr 1995 18:06:36 -0400
vIHadbogh Holmey loQ vIjatlhlaHbogh Holmey je bIH
Greek'e'
Serbo-Croatian'e'
Russian'e'
Irish Gaelic'e'
Navajo'e'
Lakota'e'
Japanese'e'
Farsi'e'
Egyptian Arabic'e'
Czech'e'
Hungarian'e'
French'e'
Tengwar Qenya'e'
Quechua'e'
Lao'e'
Tamil'e'
Amharic'e'
Hindi'e'
Norwegian'e'
German'e'
Klingon'e'
ASL'e' je
vIjatlhlaHbejbogh Holmey bIH
Mandarin'e'
Hebrew'e'
Atayal'e'
Latin'e'
Spanish'e'
Thai'e' je
As charghwI' has pointed out, I cannot assume extra authority on languages
from having been lucky enough to have lived in several countries long enough
to become "pretty" good at those tongues.
However, with this good fortune and the fact that I chose to obtain my MA in
Language Studies, I have discovered a certain "feel" for language patterns
and the associated thought patterns. There's that word "feel," again. I am
merely saying that my instructors pounded into our brains that we must have a
feel for the way a language is actually spoken and not try to force
translations.
Textual analysis is the means of discovery linguists use to determine the
attributes of a language which the rules already laid out for that language
have not covered. In college our exercises included calculating the
pronunciation and grammar rules of ancient tongues (possibly no longer
spoken, so you could not just go to a native speaker). While at Taipei
Shih-fan Da-xue I perused numerous volumes fo rhyming dictionaries which were
hundreds of years old in order to determine the pronunciation of Chinese in
antiquity. My class did this for several dialects.
Another exercise was to learn Atayal, an aboriginal language of Taiwan which
had no orthography and no predetermined grammar rules. The goal was to learn
how people actually speak, no matter what rules we college students had been
taught in our Chinese and English courses.
The above paragraphs are pointing out methods of study I have encountered.
They are not attempts to say I am better than anyone else.
Next, I sincerely apologize to Marc Okrand for comparing Klingon to earthly
languages. I had no idea this was a sore point. As a cryptologist for eight
years working in Mandarin, Thai, and Lao, and as a Language Arts major, I
have heard many of my instructors insist on our comparing languages. Since
Klingon is not to be compared, I hereby desist.