tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Aug 13 08:44:53 1996

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Re: other language pages at KLI Website

maghItlh macheq (maHDaq ghaHqa'mo' jIQuch!)...
And since he posted the questions to the list at large, I will 
contribute my reactions to some of them. I translated the 
Esperanto page.

Since my mailreader and editors provide no decent quoting 
mechanism, I will, as usual, use a row of ">>>" before quoted 
material ("incoming to me"; think C++, if you know it) and "<<<" 
before my own comments. "[...]" shows where I've clipped within a 
quoted section.

>>>>>
1.
>Now in its fifth year of operation,

In both Norwegian and German you have 4 and not 5. Which year did 
the KLI come into existence? 

<<<
January 1992, according to the first line of the main text of the 
KLI home page. That means it has now completed four years and is 
in its fifth. The German is wrong; I don't read Norwegian.
>>>

If you want to change both (Norw. & Ger.) into 5 - just change in 
line 1: 
        Norw: "fire" into "fem"
        Germ: "vier" into "fuenf" or f&uuhmlaut&nf (or whatever 
        the code is - how do you mark the end of the code, if 
        anyhow?) 

<<<
With a semicolon: 
        &uuml;
[I've confirmed this by looking at this text in a browser.]
>>>

2.
>of Klingon linguistics and culture,

Wouldn't it be better to have "Klingon language and culture" in 
this context? Otherwise it suggests something that is not true, 
that among Klingons there existed some linguistics, and you (we) 
are studying there language research (meta-language). 

<<<
As a "native reader" of linguistics as written in American 
English, I read "Klingon linguistics" as meaning primarily "the 
linguistics of the Klingon language", analogous to "French 
linguistics", "Anatolian linguistics", or "Austro-Tai 
linguistics". I grant a possible ambiguity -- indeed, I nearly 
started this paragraph "As a 'native reader' of American 
linguistics"! -- but it IS an ambiguity rather than an error, and 
one that I think is not troublesome in this context. And we do 
refer to and respect the opinions of Klingon grammarians 
concerning such things as the membership of the "rover" type. 
>>> 

4.
>presently reaching thirty countries, and all seven continents.

How many pinguins from Antarctica are members of KLI? I haven't 
seen them on the members' list. 

<<<
Lawrence told me that one member is a scientist who was, at 
the time, stationed in Antarctica. During the austral winter, all 
or nearly all personnel are withdrawn to surviveable climes. 
>>> 

I would also like to to inform you, that in Europe we are taught 
of 6 continents only, not 7, in our world (I don't know how many 
of them are there in Qo'noS). Therefore I have translated as: 30 
countries in all 5 continents. (meaning: the inhabited ones). If 
you disagree, look at the Olympic flag with its 5 circles for 5 
continents. 

<<<
I'm also familiar with this cultural difference, and I wonder how 
you count them. I'd accept
    Eurasia - Africa - North America - South America - Australia
but I've heard that in Germany the total is treated as five, with 
"the Americas" counted as one. Now, physical geography dictates 
considering Eurasia as a single continent; but if Africa is then 
counted separately (despite being linked by the Arabian and Sinai 
peninsulas), consistency requires two Americas, which are linked 
by only the Isthmus of Panama. 
    As for the Olympic flag, it "proves" nothing more than a 
shared folk idea or myth; the 5 rings also refer to "the five 
races of mankind" (white, red, brown, black, and yellow), which is 
biologically false. 
    Never mind; I'm just pulling your chain, because whether 
intentionally or not you sounded so godawful superior and 
condescending in the above-quoted paragraph }}};-)\  . Of course 
it has to be translated in a way that won't distract the reader in 
the target language with irrelevancies. 
    [BTW, English idiom requires "on Qo'noS", not "in", for a 
planet.]
>>>

5.
>is one of the rare times when a trained linguist has been called 
upon to create a language for aliens. 

What is so unique according to you: whether it's the fact that "a 
trained linguist" or that he "has been called upon". I would like 
to render your intention correctly and each possibility implies a 
different syntax. 

<<<
As I read it, what is asserted as rare is the conjunction of 
those circumstances.
>>>

6.
>mythos that has permeated popular culture and spread around the 
>globe. 

I have added: "North-American" popular culture, as I doubt it 
means anything else, and I think it should be done so in the other 
language versions. 

<<<
Hmm. Then how come three of the major ST fan Web sites are in 
Germany, Italy, and Sweden? Like it or not, US TV and movie 
culture is a major influence on pop culture world-wide. (The 
street is not one-way; Japanese animation and comix are big here, 
and still growing.)
>>>

7.
>These factors begin to explain the popularity of the warriors' 
>tongue. 

I don't think the first mentioned factor (see No. 5) really 
explains ANYTHING of the popularity of Klingon. Maybe for an 
American mind? not for mine. Whether he was a trained linguist or 
no, whether the language was prepared because ordered by Paramount 
or not - the language is interesting as it is. See Zamenhof's 
Esperanto's popularity, much greater than that of Klingon, without 
any of the factors mentioned. D-ro Zamenhof was a physician, not a 
linguist, and he immediately renounced his Copyright. 

Maybe for an American (=USA) mind, with its cult of the Company's 
Copyright 
    [...]

<<<
Although Zamenhof had no academic training in philology (what 
linguistics was at the time), he was a talented polyglot and 
amateur linguist, and partly as a result Esperanto is better 
constructed and more useable than any of the over 1,000 
international/artificial/auxiliary language projects that history 
has seen fade away. 
    I don't think copyright has anything to do with it. The point 
as I see it is that Klingon is a substantial and workable 
language, unlike the bits and pieces that have passed as "alien 
language" in most fantasy and sf. 
    The single great exception is the languages invented by 
Tolkien, which have a sizeable fandom of their own. And he WAS a 
trained linguist, on top of his native brilliance in the field. 
>>> 

    [...]
Neither the second factor (ST mythos) is as much of importance out 
of the USA. Have you noticed how often the phrase "I am intersted 
in Klingon language as a language, not in Star Trek" appears on 
the mailing list? 

<<<
But how many people would have heard of the language, if not for 
the widespread ST mythos? Or how many would be interested in it if 
it were part of the ST mythos but not associated with so 
interesting a race as the Klingons? 
    If I recall correctly, the Andorans (one "r"!) are blue guys 
with forehead antennae, and the murder of an Andoran ambassador 
was a major plot point in one movie, but otherwise they are 
scarcely visible in ST and without much interest. If instead of 
"the warriors' tongue", associated with the fierce and fascinating 
Klingons, Okrand had invented the language of the Andorans, who 
would care about it? 
>>>

    [...]

9.
>utilizing blind peer review, 

I am sorry, but I haven't found the term "blind peer review" in 
any of my English dictionaries (Concise Oxford, Heritage 
International and Harrap's Practical) so I don't know what it does 
mean and how to translate it. 

<<<
It should mean that Lawrence asks authors to submit their 
contributions without identifying themselves on the manuscripts, 
and he then sends those MSS. out to experts in the same field to 
review and recommend thumbs up, thumbs down, or "OK if this and 
this are fixed". The contributors and the reviewers are "blind" to 
each others' identities, and they are "peers" within the field of 
the article (for _HolQeD_, generally linguistics).
    I don't know any Esperanto translation of this term of art, so 
I turned it into an explanation:
    ... _HolQeD estas klera revuo, kies proponitajn artikolojn 
    spertuloj taksas anonime ...
I.e.,
    ... _HolQeD_ is a scholarly journal, articles proposed for 
    which are evaluated anonymously by experts ...
[It sounds clumsy in English, but we know all about that sort of 
problem, don't we?] 

>>>
    [...]

11.
>The English text to translate appears below.  Any special 
>characters should be rendered using the appropriate HTML code 
>(e.g., either "&#224;" or "&agrave;" for a lowercase "a" with an 
>accent grave). 

If the text in any language has any "special" lettres - why is it 
shown without them at all (examples: Norwegian, German and 
French)? 

<<<
That's strange. I see the accented letters in all these versions 
just fine. Check your browser settings.
>>>

Or with a horrible substitution, like Esperanto "jx", or 
"ux" (which certainly aren't Zamenhofa skribomaniero). 
    [...]

<<<
This was my choice, as Esperanto translator. Most browsers aren't 
prepared to handle ISO Latin-3, which includes the Esperanto 
accented letters (j-circumflex and so on). This is one of the more 
popular methods of representing them electronically; evidently you 
aren't much in touch with Esperantists on the 'Net.  
    Zamenhof's suggested substitutions such as "jh" look more 
"natural" to a European eye (and, indeed, the Idist schismatics 
replaced the "horrible" circumflexed consonants with similar 
digraphs), but they are formally ambiguous, since j + h and the 
rest are possible letter sequences in Esperanto. But since 
Esperanto doesn't use "x", it is programmatically trivial to 
convert a text with integral j-circumflex to use "jx" instead, and 
the reverse, without loss of information. 
>>> 

12.
>If you unfamiliar with HTML code, please print out the text with 
>all appropriate special characters and send a copy via surface 
>mail so we can be sure we get it right before putting your 
>translation up on the website. Thanks for your assistance! 

Why not send the complete list of the HTML codes for diacritical 
letters to anybody wishing to do the translation? Or indicate the 
source on the Internet where a file with such codes can be found? 
    [...]

<<<
I have such a file. It isn't very long, and I will post it here 
soon.
>>>

13.

Last not least.
Who is doing the translations? Is it not that the native speakers 
do it? Why some of them are so linguistically poor? Shame for a 
"Language Institute". 

I am speaking of the French (obviously the worst one!), German and 
Esperanto. [...] Esperanto is a special case - as it's difficult 
to state what is the language norm there - despite "PIV-o kaj PAG-o"
- but there are also some obvious mistakes. I'll post the three 
texts corrected by me directly to Lawrence. 

<<<
Please send your comments on the Esperanto text to me. There can 
be legitimate differences of opinion between speakers of any 
language concerning correctness and style. 


     marqem, tlhIngan veQbeq la'Hom -- Heghbej ghIHmoHwI'pu'! 
Subcmdr. Markemm, Klingon Sanitation Corps -- Death to Litterbugs!
**              Mark A. Mandel : [email protected]             **
    Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200 
 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02160, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/
=> KLINGON PAGE! http://www.dragonsys.com/klingon/klingon.html <=

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